© Neil Hayes and neilhayeswrites
I recoil from the tree, withdrawing my hand, and my breath begins to shorten. Now, I wish that I was back underground. At least there seemed less possibility of a heart attack there.
I don’t know where to go, what to do. The birds are still circling above the track, they didn’t follow me into the trees. Why?
Continue reading “Tracks, a short story: Part 4”
Everything feels cold and wet. My jacket is soaked through. This is when I realise that I can feel again. The chill of the air as it enters my lungs. My body begins to shiver with the shock of the cold.
When I open my eyes I see that I am lying, flat on my back, on that same forest track where I first saw the birds. As I look up to the sky I see them, circling as before. But, this time, there is something different. They are further away from me and… I don’t know what, something is off. They appear to be moving much slower than normal, so slowly that you would think that they would fall from the sky. Yet, they continue to drift around in their formation.
Continue reading “Tracks, a short story: Part 3”
Now everything is silent. My whole body feels as if it belongs to somebody else. I am disconnected, my senses feel short-circuited. As I open my eyes it seems to make no difference. There is still no vision, all is black.
The heaviest silence that I have ever experienced is also surrounding me, and I feel as if I am floating. The one sense that seems to be functioning is smell. There is a strong smell of, something. I am having trouble putting my finger on it. It is earthy, moist, dead.
Continue reading “Tracks, a short story: Part 2”
It was a joyous feeling, knowing that you were the first one to pass this way. There were no tracks to be seen. He had been walking for a while now, and even though the snow was fairly fresh he would have thought that somebody would have been this way by now.
He wasn’t an early bird, although he often wished he was, and it was already 10 am. Usually another walker or jogger would have been here before now. But, no, there were no prints of any kind, neither human nor animal.
The forest path ran straight off into the distance and he loved the feeling it gave him. It was as if he could see into the future and gain comfort that he knew that everything was going to be OK.
Continue reading “Tracks, a short story: Part 1”
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