I thought I'd seen snow the other day, only to be fooled by my imagination.
As it had and as it will, the fires only helped perpetuate the rain of ash which now covers our lands. Soft like silk yet it corrodes the lungs and darkens the skin, choking the sun upon our world, like hands around the neck of mankind. Selfish as usual. We'd hear talk about the downfall of mankind, the harsh reality was the downfall of this very world. I'd gaze out into the crowd of sickened people, the contrast of fresh blood on a dry grey had become a common sight; spitting up blood from weakened chests and malnourished bodies. To my left my love lay, yet to be sick of the body, yet her mind had become a direct reflection of the landscape. Dull and listless, we'd all become relics that had yet to die.
We would walk to the old fields where crops once grew, the ground had become terrifying, wrought with deep cracks for it had not rained for over a year now. We'd forgotten what the taste of fresh water was like, the cold splash of hydration on chapped lips and a thirsting tongue. I'd look to her again, pale blue eyes surrounded by a filth of skin and dreaded hair. It had made us mad, willing to find ourselves in ways we would've not imagined those years ago when we said goodbye to the pale blue of the sky, as I did to those once remarkable eyes.
So much has fallen through the cracks of humanity, far into the depths of what was left. Like an abysmal equation, impossible to solve, one may only writhe in pain when attempting to solve the arbitrary riddle of "why?" Faith was all we had left and it to ran in short supply. I turned to her again as we sat upon a tall dilapidated structure, once a building of homes and families making their way in what they thought to be a harsh world. Now only the bones of apartments, laced with poison fumes of yesteryear and crumbling foundations as we'd become. All things were slowly returning to their original state, returning to the earth in a sterile landscape with only warm ash to cover a shallow grave we'd all eventually fill.
"What do you see?" My words scratchy and hoarse, my breathe had a hard time leaving dried airways. My voice seemed to leave an impression within the thick fumes of the atmosphere around our cursed bodies. She did not answer as her head pressed against my shoulder, my arm wrapped tightly around her body. Life was seeping away as the hourglass seeds fell. My gaze fell upon her gaze and only silence resounded. Looking at her, I realized I didn't want to know the answer after all; somehow, I already knew.
