Post by ddhlee on Jul 6, 2006 22:19:32 GMT -5
My feet, one step after another, crunched harsh noises into the hairy crabgrass. My legs strained for relaxation as I crouched below; a glint of interest caught my eye from the hiked path.
Looking down, I brushed aside the amazement of a glint of bright yellow that sheened from the dirt-cover. Scraping away, the glint became a glow and I stared at the beauty of a forgotten treasure; a ring that was misplaced by someone far too long ago. Time had done little to harm the shapely beauty of a perfect roundness that touched the very thing I saw. Against the outer rim, there were the words of ornate promises in a tongue too foreign for my eyes to catch. With an adventurer's glee, I continued to free the dirt away until the ring was free to be pulled from its earthen prison and I wrested it away from its hideaway.
The ring came free, and so did a mangle of bones, and roots, and I wiped my face of it to find it infested with maggots. My treasure was a grave's prize when I soon noticed the bones themselves were cut with clean angles that only a large blade punched down could offer. A breeze filled the air, but it was only the smell of murder that filled my nose.
The ring fell to the ground, a bile acid leaped to my throat for escape. The world full of shivers, the ground full of insects born from human flesh, my nerves cold like that earth. I ran as far as I could for that trading post and told them of what I saw, and when they came to my stop, they saw no body, no ring, no vomit. Was it a dream? Was it another path? The police reported no murders when they were called. But my clothes still reeked of the flecks of human mulch. Was it the imagination of dehydration or a perfect crime?
I burned my clothes the day after. I could never return to a place that sheltered the earth and blew with an air that I could always smell of corpse breath.
Looking down, I brushed aside the amazement of a glint of bright yellow that sheened from the dirt-cover. Scraping away, the glint became a glow and I stared at the beauty of a forgotten treasure; a ring that was misplaced by someone far too long ago. Time had done little to harm the shapely beauty of a perfect roundness that touched the very thing I saw. Against the outer rim, there were the words of ornate promises in a tongue too foreign for my eyes to catch. With an adventurer's glee, I continued to free the dirt away until the ring was free to be pulled from its earthen prison and I wrested it away from its hideaway.
The ring came free, and so did a mangle of bones, and roots, and I wiped my face of it to find it infested with maggots. My treasure was a grave's prize when I soon noticed the bones themselves were cut with clean angles that only a large blade punched down could offer. A breeze filled the air, but it was only the smell of murder that filled my nose.
The ring fell to the ground, a bile acid leaped to my throat for escape. The world full of shivers, the ground full of insects born from human flesh, my nerves cold like that earth. I ran as far as I could for that trading post and told them of what I saw, and when they came to my stop, they saw no body, no ring, no vomit. Was it a dream? Was it another path? The police reported no murders when they were called. But my clothes still reeked of the flecks of human mulch. Was it the imagination of dehydration or a perfect crime?
I burned my clothes the day after. I could never return to a place that sheltered the earth and blew with an air that I could always smell of corpse breath.