Sep 18, 2026 - Petrichor
The flat and vast expanse upon your eyes greets you with a dark, somber flick of the smell of petrichor & rot, that in the beautifully displayed vain of the soft fields of rock makes you feel out of your league. Large rumbling creatures of the land itself groan on the distance, searching for a misplaced little fowl like you to make into a supper of tasteless survival. Deep within you a primal instinct of repulsion, with the tang of a barbecue on a sickly green lawn, will try to make you move, and you will comply. To turn and see a tree is what you do, its branches clicking and cracking on the bleak, gray landscape, threatening to snap with every gust of wind that comes. The music runs like a old dog on a farm field, piercing your feeble mind and entrancing you to that of it’s own command. Do you follow it? Embrace the dog? The old dog on the farm field? But you aren’t a dog, but if you’re being commanded, you are. You are a feeble little mutt on a farm field of dead crops, dead crops you didn’t tend to. So you are the farmer, you are commanding yourself, and you must continue further into the sheer cliffs and canyons that lay ahead on the road that you conjured. To pass the emotionless giants of stone, to pass the long-legged creatures of despair, to further your agony, to further your suffering, and to embrace your existence as a feeble creature that nobody will ever come and save. It will take you a long time to reach the canyons, and they will grow much larger, intimidating you, forcing you to make your choice. To be a fork in your story, your brain, and whether you live or die. To continue or to turn back and forever be a worthless coward, to be consumed by the creatures of stone, to be consumed by the wisps of doubt that drop from the sky like raindrops of pure pain and despair, to make you a feeding ground for everyone you know. You aren’t worth anything unless you continue. Maybe, the grass is green on the other side! That would be beautiful, wouldn’t it? No, because it would just be a colorful little bandaid on your worthless, insignificant view. There is still evil, it comes from every direction. The only way out is forward. But maybe you can turn around, maybe theres another step you haven't considered. Or maybe that step is a fabrication of the spirits of grief that claw at you and want to make you fall to their command. So you step further. And the rolling giants of stone step forward. And with every step, the rolling giants follow you. Maybe they’ve found you. Maybe you’re their meal. They knock on the door to your brain, calling at you to turn back. To not go further. To not see the green grass. To poison your mind with doubt & grief. You know there is no turning back. It is in the past, but now you are in the current. The current is pulling you forward, your steps don’t land with your purpose anymore. You are running. You are heading for that canyon. It will take a long time. The rolling giants near, and near, as if they wish to open that door and let the doubt and grief in. You must keep it locked. You must block that door. You are a proxy for the doubt and grief. They wish to consume your mind, to feast on it. You must not invite them to the party. They aren’t on the guest list. Maybe they’ll show up as the pizza driver. Keep them out. Lock them out. The door is trying to open. You don’t want it to. They’re trying to get in. To consume you. You don’t want to be consumed. Don’t let them consume you. The canyon is in reach. Just a few more steps. Keep going. Keep on moving, keep on letting the gusts of wind rattle the trees of petrified, rotten wood around you, keep on hiding yourself from the rolling giants. The canyon is in your reach. Just a few more steps. Keep going, it is far away. You will get there someday, but they don’t want you to. Don’t look back. To turn around is to let them in. To open the door. Perhaps they poisoned the punch. Why did you invite them? It was all a blur, a blur of a mistake. A mistake entirely. Most likely a mistake. A mistake. You let them come to your party. Don’t cry. You didn’t invite them. They invaded. You are the mistake. Just keep going, head to the canyon. Fumble with the phone. What phone? Stay in your head. It is safer in here. Just keep heading for the canyon. It is in reach. It is far away and you will get there. The trees rattle. The door knocks. You are entering the canyon. Just a few more steps, and you’ll be there. But it stands in your way, a towering wall of stone, grief, doubt, agony and you. It wants you to stop, it threatens to rip your skin away, to expose you to the world, and to flatten you into a pancake and expose you to the world. But you push through, you will enter that canyon, and you will Exhale. 32. “Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for a van to come,” Come back to me. It is safer. Inhale. The world is evil, and you are risking it all. “Come out!” Bang, bang bang. Exhale. Inhale. Come back. Come back. “Desmond has a barrow in the marketplace.” Come back. “I am the eye in the sky, looking at you, I can read your mind,” Come back. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. “Please come out!” They want to get in. To corrupt you. To burrow in your, Inhale, skin. Knock knock knock. “Please! Say something!” They want in. Don’t let them in. “Desmond has a barrow on a cornflake, waiting to read your mind.” Clack clack. The tree branches brush against the window. The canyon narrows, “waiting for a van to come.” Bang bang bang. “PD!” Cornflake. Cornflakes. Favorite breakfast. No, that is them finally winning. Come back to me. Come back to your head. The gray landscape is safer! The rolling giants want to.. “I am a barrow, looking at you, I can sit on a cornflake,” Too far. Too far gone. I tried. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. You won’t come back. Inhale.