Impossible Year

One year ago, this very day, walking in the woods,

I met a green goblin, sitting  on a tree stump.

The forest floor was

Sweet with spring flowers, birds and crickets chirped incessantly;

Its little scaly green legs crossed, smoking a tiny yellow oleander,

Blowing little puffs of

Violet smoke, it fixed me with a pensive,

Yet derisive stare.

I stared back.

Somehow, I couldn't tear my eyes away.
Wrists and ankles bound by invisible chains,
Suddenly I was deafened by an unspeakable
Silence.

Its wily eyes locked themselves in mine; one of them was coal-black,
The other an eerie pale milky blue.

"To your right, look you, look you! What see you?"
A tinny voice rang out clear and bright.

The air around me flexed and
Shimmered in a silvery haze and to my right opened up -

Heaven forbid! A sight to dream of, indeed!

Vast stretches of shaded, lush green, oh!

How cruelly swathed in crimson, orange, and vermilion flames,

Framed in the thickest smoke of hell!

"That there, mankind is, their future in ashes, cremating!" The voice trilled in mocking laughter.

"Oh look! Look again, to your left!"

Out of nowhere storm clouds gathered and darkened the azure sky;

An icy draught came whooping and shaking the branches of trees,

Freezing the very blood in my veins; a violent crash of thunder

Conjured up a circle of purple lightning, and in a fleeting moment there appeared -

Earnest men and diligent machines hard at work,

Drilling away at a mountainside ;

Boring a monstrous, gaping hole in the earth!

"Their own graves, digging they are,

Are not they?!" Cackled the goblin, gleefully.

"An impossible year, I see this will be,

My words mark you!" The blue eye flashed with a strange fire;

"Breath hard to find will be.

More so bread.

Fever, phlegm, searing pain and

Death spread will be in the air, wide and far; 

To live, you will too tired be; 

To die, too scared; and yet hope -"

All at once, everything went up in a puff of green smoke,

As if nothing had been there.

The air was filled once again with the music of spring,

Birds singing their hearts out, crickets chirping, and

Bees buzzing away from flower to flower.

The invisible bonds were gone, but I stood there silent, a deadly foreboding 

Slowly congealing around the region of

My heart.