Misfortunate
When you wish you would have stayed home.
It was cold that day Even as the yellow sunlight Boastfully beamed through shifting clouds In patchwork of shade and bright As if the dimmer switch of the heavenly dome Rested under the control of a mischievous child Cold enough almost to see your breath Departing sometime after noontime Intermittent brisk wind Burns my face and chaps my ears But my coat is warm and my spirits high Thirteen riders set out on the trail Thirteen would return But not one of us would remain cheerful Miles now away from the ranch And an uncertain measure of minutes The troop of five-fingered beings Laughing and enjoying the beauty of the trees And meadows as we passed Small game darting behind shrubs As we approached Carefree and light Then without warning Clouds grey as the many strands of The beard of a Man of Wisdom Poured over the horizon Gentle breeze turned to roaring wind Leaves and loose brush tossed in the air Sparse droplets of rain smacked my Stetson As if the clouds were warning us Of an impending torrential deluge If they so desired Or if we failed to appreciate that possibility But they held themselves back The wind died down but the dark sky persisted The birds stopped Quiet on their branches like some gothic statues Perched and overlooking our uneasy company The babbling brook Less than five yards yonder Somehow seemed to holds its breath too Each of us felt it That something was wrong That we should not be where we were Even the horses became spooked Disobeying our pleas to settle and still As I rested my hand on my horse’s shoulder Trying to comfort her A shout shattered the silence of the moment From off on the ridge behind This shrill shriek pierced My stomach torn up in terror Adrenaline shocking my body Like ice cracking beneath my feet Plunging me into frozen water My horse shivered in fear also I looked up from her shaking To a horrific sight There before us came a man charging He was a thousand feet away But being carried by some unnatural force Racing at us with a pace reserved for demons Or the fastest predators Some of the horses neighed in fright The rest were frozen stiff This man was naked Save for his black cutoff shorts Barefoot and pale His face was painted half black His long dark hair tangled and wild He closed the distance in only a few seconds And before he reached our line Shifted his direction Turning as inhumanly as he ran A frightening apparition Or fell flesh and blood None of us knew or will ever know Doubtless though an Agent of the Adversary I forgot my protection prayer In that moment before his course changed I saw my death in a hundred different ways He looked directly at me As he changed direction He smiled at me like the devil And raced away Down the trail ahead of us His eyes locked on mine Never diverting Even as he ran far past us His neck contorted Until his head on was backward He just kept peering at me Searching me And he kept smiling Then he was gone Past the bend far down the path We looked around at each other Nobody said a word Everyone to a man wore the same face We’d seen what should not have been seen We had witnessed something wrong We questioned all we had known With proof that we were wrong about so much This suggestion that we had misunderstood life Failed to know what it was about Or at least mismanaged our understanding Nobody had to say it The ride was over We headed back home Terrified and stunned Silent and morose Trying to head back to a world That had just been disintegrated Having stood two inches from the veil This creature we will never unsee Silently we rode Silently we arrived