There was a beauty in the death of the cattle. A kind of frustrated
satisfaction that is wrought from an uphill struggle finally over, despite
ending the journey at the foot of the mountain. Gaunt bodies littered the
fractured earth, creating a stillness in the air, a sense of a battle just over;
a battle where each side had slaughtered all the warriors of the other. The
shriveled mounds of stagnant meat were dissolving into the air, creating a
rankness that completed the mood. Rib bones pointed defiantly at the sun, making
a final stand against the cruelty of nature; shouting a silent message into the
wind which carried the loud stench of all that is inevitable and frightening.
The sky before dusk was filled with heat and light, an emptiness that promised
nothing, yet held the fate of many. The heat robbed the earth of its life and
stole the cool laughter of the creeks. The light exploded into raucous laughter
at the ill fate of the living, and mocked the cows as they expelled a last
pathetic grunt into the night. The cows closed their saddened eyes with an agony
so intense that every soul filled creature felt a strange loss of dignity in
their bones. And the great old trees wept until the morning. The bodies signed
the soil with an ink of blood, and sealed the fate of the land. The very grains
of dirt seemed to have declared war upon one another, lining up on their
distinct sides, refusing to mix with the enemy, refusing to join as one. The
blood of the cows, thick and sticky, only painted the anger of the soil, riling
the earthen warriors.
Dying seeds begged the heat and light to subside, and invited the rains to
clean the bloody warpaint from the dirt armies. And the light laughed in their
faces. An ancient diplomat raised an angry fist and imposed order upon the
universe. Time heals all wounds, even those of the heart, so when the heart of
the land was torn apart and all breathing entities felt the pain of its injury,
time stepped in and began to end the feuding. The brittle cow bones lying alone
in the sun forgot their pride and crumbled into nothingness. The young saplings
on the brink of death were enticed by time to fight on. A worker of miracles,
time carried with it a perpetual flame, an infinite and sombre vow: peace. It
threw the flame upon the dying land, and fought the heat and the light with a
fire of the ages. As night drew a blue-grey curtain over the sky, time rationed
out hope to those who had waited for it. The great old trees felt a song of
dignity in the wind, and stopped weeping. The light and the heat, even in the
depths of the night, could feel themselves being opposed by force stronger then
they could resist. They could feel a cloud of justice bear down upon them, and
they were afraid of the morning. Ed Hummel had not been anticipating the
ruthlessness of the drought. His cattle were strewn, starved and bloated, across
the dry dirt paddocks. The grass which had coloured the fields a wonderful green
just a few short months earlier had surrendered to the sun’s fury, and now
decorated the red dirt with touches of brown.
