The sky is painted with pink strokes of bliss. So why do I look down? The disarray of rocks jabbing into the soles of my shoes is what draws my attention. I haven’t seen stones this large in decades, but now they’re cracked, broken. Around them, withered flowers lay without petals. Skeletons. I wonder why the sky is so colorful, but the ground is just so gray. I left the city to get away from the gray, from all the smog and its disease. I thought nature could cleanse me, but just like the cancer in my body, it seems as if the gray has already metastasized.
Stumbling over a rusted helmet, I step on brittle twigs. They crunch; I hear screams.
I run, desperate to get away from the dead, and glance behind me to make sure I’m not being followed—but as I turn, I catch a glimpse of red. Is that blood? My foot is caught by the grasp of roots that once fed into a tree. I fall, barely catching myself on thirsty shrubs. Blood trickles out of my hands like soap seeping out of a sponge. A rock lies next to me; it has those same splotches of red. From this close, I can see that it’s not blood, but moss, or lichen, or whatever the hell you want to call it. To me, it all looks the same—just a reminder of the melanoma and the mushy moles it has forged on my back, festering in my lungs.
There’s bright green lichen chained to the red. It’s the first color I’ve seen that feels like real nature. For just a brief moment, my breathing is stretched, my lungs desperately trying to make room for the last blissful color I’ll ever be so close to. I go to reach for it, the same slow, careful way people hold each other’s hands for the first time. And yet, I crush its spongy body, spilling and staining it crimson—it’s too dark. Unnatural. As if all the time I spent in the city has made me artificial.
A memory drifts down from my subconscious, like a leaf detaching itself from a tree. It’s something that I know I’ll only think about this one last time. A kid who hikes alone, not a worry in the world … until the sky turns impossibly dark, and fear settles in. I can’t find my way back, too scared of slipping down steep slopes. So, I lay against a rock, shivering and crying until fireflies group around me. They stay until the sun rises, and I can finally find my way back.
But now that my blood is tainted, the cold wind shoos me away. The kindness from nature is no longer unconditional; the trust that it had is broken. Nature will not help me. No one will cure me from the disease—I’m going to die, stained by the black melanoma the same way I’ve stained the lichen with blood.
In denial, I grab at the dirt, rubbing it against my skin. But something in the dirt pricks me, and I release it. What falls is the shell of a bullet, deformed and squashed down, the tip resembling a lead flower, its petals sharp. I am hurt. Leaving is no longer a decision I’m making but a demand I should obey. I get up, catching one last glance at the stained lichen—I’ve already caused too much damage. I’ll die elsewhere. That’s the least I could do for nature. My rotting body would just be more man-made trash, too heavy for the shooing winds to erase.