Light drains itself from sky, and the world closes itself upon us. Mist hangs dark among the trees, their black trunks slumber in silence in the diaphanous murk. Fog creeps. Beyond our beams of electric light, flickers of darkness, black pug-faced bats flit and dart in the gloaming. There are unimaginable creatures of the wood. The imagined matted and furry smear of evolution gone awry hulks and sobs in the bowels of a dripping cave. My mind has liquified. We walk past the portent tracks of a puma, and my hearts beats heavy. ThumpThump.

What brings us into the moonless night? 

"I'm psyched to stay if you are."

Sick.

It continues, as if somehow or somewhere it stopped. As if it never didn't ever continue. I know when it started. When does it stop?

When there are no more anti-boulders.

When there is no more anti-(Chalk

hangs in the shifting air,  lurching in mathematical curves like the murmuration of nocturnal birds

eye can't see

blindly 

I 

conjure a wild cacophony 

of snarls and shrieks. 

The urgent footfall of a feral beast. 

ThumpThump. 

Fat drops of viscous spit dripping from the ambits of their razor sharp teeth. My mind wanders through the trees, dark and spooky. A billion stars frozen cold in space pierce the sky, stare back and say nothing. It's hard to tell if I'm asleep or awake. The dark forest cradles us in a womb of black silence.

I reach, reach, reach. It will all calm down. It will all slow to a crawl. Let go. ThumpThump.

breathe

rest 

clear 

crawl

i hear (the call.

once again) my shoes suck to my feet. My hands are calm and dry. I set forth, and sway to and fro, like a hairless sloth. 

My knuckles curl tightly over razor sharp teeth, unwilling to let go. In defiance. Climbing has given me something to be unwilling about. Something to defy. 

Gravity.

Gravitas?

(this is important)

Thank you much.

signed: 

We The Living. sit in the endless infinity.

7 billion motes on a pale blue dot.

Alone.

Climbing rocks.