Listening

He had been on the run for weeks it felt. Over these smooth green hills. Hid in the gullies in the daylight. Endless climbs and descents at night. Monotonous. Terrible. When he crested one of these damn hills all he saw were jade waves to the horizon and the sunless flat periwinkle which arched overhead, deep violet during twilight. Night and day came as if someone simply turned a dimmer. Flat. Soulless. Absent of the character a star injected into dawn and dusk. It was a world sculpted to emptiness. He wanted to scream.

The creeps were about. Listening. Even as they slept in the dark. He envied them. He ran while they slumbered. And the dips between the hills during the day were poor cover. He tried to nap. Futile. The reality of one of them on a hill crest and him seen below kept his adrenaline spiked. What he would give for a simple shadow in this cursed place.

It was almost morning. He climbed one last hill intent to halt for the day. And he gasped. Rigid lines interrupted the nauseous curves. He rarely looked to the edge of the world these days. It made him crazy. And he was too intent on the immediate hills, on the lookout for unconscious creeps. So the proximity of the towers electrified him. He had no idea what they were or who might reside. But the discovery was overwhelming. Tears spilled from his eyes and he began to shake. A break! A change! Finally, a landmark! He slumped to his knees. At long last, relief breezed through him and left a few motes of hope. He wished he had not turned to look over his shoulder at the end. Then he would not have seen the creep bearing down on him and would have kept that small blissful comfort.