the rape of autumn
The world is not at peace.
There is an animal screaming on the winds, a bleeding doe who cannot ease her lament until her throat has cracked and broken. A gentle creature weeping in pain and anger and humiliation. When her voice is too hoarse to call out any longer, another takes her place, an echoing snarl of rage, the endless thunderclap of a thousand wolves all baring their teeth, saliva and fury drooling from their jowls. Lightning flashing with every snap of their teeth.
Cold and hot air cyclones battling one another over the helpless earth. A family tearing at itself, and the furious sun of the Summer is nowhere to be seen, except along the equator where it drips a terrifying red close to the horizon.
The rivers and oceans swell as the rain-maker cries tears of sympathy for the sister he loves, the vitriol he feels turning to poison, and a thousand tiny creatures who ingest his venom curl up against the shuddering ground and die. Those who survive are thrown into frenzy, their senses shattered leaving only hysteria in their minds and they run without knowing to where.
The temperature dips, lower and lower, turning wet tears to snow and then to sheets of ice. So many horrendous and unnatural things in concurrence. Could it be only a dream? Best not to test it. Stay indoors, little ones. Its safest there.
(And always, beneath the sound and fury: the strained crying of a woman, the hiccuping bray of an injured deer.)