Morning

Everything, she thought, as she marched steadily through unkempt leaves, is darker today.

Only the morning before, sun flared — through patches of life that still clung to the trees — in and out her eyes. Today, though, the maples and the oaks shriveled before her, their trunks darkening as the sky grew a violet tinge of light charcoal. The embellishments on their branches, at one time a study in texture and color, rattled like antique chimes without bells. She jumped at the sight of a man who sat cross-legged at the edge of a yard with his liver-spotted hound leaning against his side. They both stared, unblinkingly, across the street to an invisible object. Distracted, she nearly stepped on the carcass of a squirrel. Except for the wet hide, nothing remained. It looked like a costume, sized perfectly for a fist, that was accidentally dropped on the pavement.

She continued on.