'The Slow Decay of All Things'
I forget.
The times before the decay set in are gone from memory. The Rot has taken much, but it gives more than it takes. Such is the way of decay, it devours; yet from the remains comes new growth.
I saw others in the woods today. I have not seen others in a long time, of this I am quite sure.
As sure as I can be.
They are human. They are loud and full of life. One’s hair is the deep brown of churned earth, her laugh like water on stone. The other is quiet and steps carefully. He is wary of something.
I watch. I am content in doing so. I have watched often and for great stretches at a time. It is perhaps that which I admire most about the Rot. How it starts in the living. First the vibrancy of youth drains, the body wears – the mind strays. The flesh cracks and lines run throughout. Hair comes out first strand by strand, and then in fistfuls. Eyes perceptive and keen, cloud milky white. Teeth stark white, molding yellow, and then falling out black at the root.
Of course it happens to all things. It happens to the Oak, to the Flower, to the Ant, and it will happen to the sky one day.
It will happen to you, but it will not happen to me. How can something happen to that which already is? I cannot die, at least not in a way that matters.
I am the Rot and the Rot is me. That I touch, that which fades becomes me.
The wary one stops the laughter of the other with a sudden touch. His nose flares, and his eyes widen in panic.
He smells it.
The nauseating sweetness.
The teeth I have left grin yellow and black. The taint that sleeps like a cancerous web beneath the Roots and the Green stirs. The Forest is dead. The Humans are dead; they just have yet to understand.
That it all rots away.
I forget.
The times before the decay set in are gone from memory. The Rot has taken much, but it gives more than it takes. Such is the way of decay, it devours; yet from the remains comes new growth.
I saw others in the woods today. I have not seen others in a long time, of this I am quite sure.
As sure as I can be.
They are human. They are loud and full of life. One’s hair is the deep brown of churned earth, her laugh like water on stone. The other is quiet and steps carefully. He is wary of something.
I watch. I am content in doing so. I have watched often and for great stretches at a time. It is perhaps that which I admire most about the Rot. How it starts in the living. First the vibrancy of youth drains, the body wears – the mind strays. The flesh cracks and lines run throughout. Hair comes out first strand by strand, and then in fistfuls. Eyes perceptive and keen, cloud milky white. Teeth stark white, molding yellow, and then falling out black at the root.
Of course it happens to all things. It happens to the Oak, to the Flower, to the Ant, and it will happen to the sky one day.
It will happen to you, but it will not happen to me. How can something happen to that which already is? I cannot die, at least not in a way that matters.
I am the Rot and the Rot is me. That I touch, that which fades becomes me.
The wary one stops the laughter of the other with a sudden touch. His nose flares, and his eyes widen in panic.
He smells it.
The nauseating sweetness.
The teeth I have left grin yellow and black. The taint that sleeps like a cancerous web beneath the Roots and the Green stirs. The Forest is dead. The Humans are dead; they just have yet to understand.
That it all rots away.
