Point of Origin

I hopped over a pair of the ash-filled streams, so contaminated that the clear water of my childhood had become an opaque gray. The air wasn't much better but it was getting clearer. The sun behind the smoky sky was still such an angry red that I could feel its hate, no matter what the priests said. A trio of redhorses floated belly up, trapped by along the bank by a wide slanted rock that stuck up out of the water like an oar from a capsized boat. I climbed a short steep hill covered with dead dry grass, shin high and as pokey as a prickly pear, and finally found the path that I'd been looking for. Some parts had grown thin but now that I could see it, I could follow it.

A short while later, I came across a rabbit laying on its side, its belly flexing in short violent spasms as it wheezed. The poor thing didn't even have the energy to try to run from me. As I passed, stepping over the sinuous line separating the burned from the unburned, it grew still. I'd have to go deeper yet before I reached the source.