The leaves were turning brown once again. They say the seasons cycle: winter is stasis, when the earth lies dead and still, but autumn is moribund, the down-chop of the scythe, when chlorophyll bleeds from the leaves, when the warm moisture is sucked, shrieking from the air, and only ether is left.

Duck the death. Fall into darkness, in your bed, snatch some sleep on the greyhound, become somnambulistic as you kick through the decaying flora.

The zephyr blows in waves through the veldt, making the sharp spears of yellow-green sing. Your mighty paws flip backwards as you raise each leg in your stride; your muscled back rolls, your tawny hide slips without sound.

Teeth rot with coffee and carbonic acid, yellow their way down to nubs with chain-smoke.

The sky is lit with not-light as the meta-moon’s luminescence works its way down through the crystals of the cumulonimbus. The crack of thunder, then the lightening forks in the distance and its light explodes outwards like a flash-bulb, simplifying your vision, then fading, leaving phosphorescent drops upon the field.

She left me again…they always do in this season. Leave the wasted 40 where it lies.

You know your lioness waits for you in your cave. You have been mating for centuries, you, bringing her your kills. You can see her there now, proud and beautiful on the outcropping. You can smell her scent, her loins, her fur.

Stab the stress away, knives and scalpels and syringes filled with honeyed death. Pincushion the body until you float back into…

The violins reach their crescendo as you mount the outcropping and you are with her, rough neck-fur rubbing on your own, purring, growling, in forever-love, bigger than…

Death drifts down from the sky like ashes from an atom bomb. The ashes pile and drift through the roofless structures, brick walls laid bare of insulation and electricity as the ghosts laugh down from above.