Silence© Tim St.Clair 1993	It was now unfamiliar territory. The road stretched on and on, leading somewhere into the unknown future. Tiny against the long-dormant volcanic superstructures otherwise known as mountains a clashing blood-red vehicle sped, showers of gravel clogging the road behind its diminutive mass. The grey-blue landscapes usually on the distant horizon were now all about the vehicle, casting long shadows throughout the dawning day. Across the misty grasses and slopes saturated with a netted jungle of lush scenery, further beyond the cascading waterfalls and trickling brooks that bumbled their joyous way to the distant ocean, somewhere through these mighty peaks lay a goal- the destination that seemed would never be reached by the dwarfed red car.	Ever so high above, touching the very clouds, it seemed, a single bird circled on silent wings, its slothful movement occasionally affected by a turbulent cycle of air.  The great hawk seemed to stop- to pause for no longer than a heartbeat- before its mortal plunge into the shrouded scenery below. Moments after the screeching bird had entered the overcrowded landscape it burst forth from the giant trees aligning the sides of the dirt road. 	The carsÕ brakes screamed their way into torture, the minuscule pads on which the car would normally have stopped slid helplessly into the path of the doomed hawk, sending a great torrent of feathers into the air. The vehicle suffered an almighty shock as it swayed unwillingly from its original path into the dense forest at the side of the road, spraying green life and brown earth high into the silent air. A gradual cough and one last screech as the lacerated bird twisted in agony on the silent road, finally, ever so slowly, to die.		*	*	*	It was unnerving, the blackness all around, the point of floating existence only reached apon death, and yet, here she was, alive in non-existence- a painless dream from which she could not awaken. Moments before, was it? she had been driving towards her family so far away, a holiday in the giant mountains then suddenly, from the peaceful surroundings came-	Agony! The tortured flesh burned its way into her very soul and she could feel her very skin being split away from the bubbling flesh hidden below to be devoured by the scorching tongues of living fire. She screamed out, a long wail that seemed not to have penetrated the neverending darkness all around her. The scorching heat intensified, the tissues of her pulp being reft away into the unceasing flame. Wave apon wave of mortal pain lashed her entire body time and time again, shocking, biting, her feelings twisted one inside the other. Brokenfingerstubbedtoe Bittentoungescorchedhand. Wave after wave ripped muscle, skin and bone from her hideous features.	Black. She could feel the coolness enshrouding her meagre body, seeping deep into her subconscious mind, a relaxant of awesome might to feed itself to her needs. She instantly became a victim of its wondrous talent, lost somewhere in the soggy mush of its abating grip in her mind. Feelings washed in and out, a constant throb of wavelike motion- gently forced up and down to the pulse. Ah the beauty of it, the marvellous laxness of it! She saw herself momentarily from far away, existing alone in an immensity that was forever heinously dark. She glimpsed herself as the only being sharing her solitary confinement, lost in the simpleness of its peace, alone. Alone. Alone. The reality of her situation crashed throughout her mind, sending images of her fear to gnaw at her sanity.		*	*	*	The resulting entanglement of the red car and the overgrown shrubbery echoed throughout the grey-green hills, yet one more sound to fade away into the lone silence. A scream echoed against the catastrophic crunching sound only to an abrupt stop as the car plummeted into a tree, wrapping itself around the red-brown trunk. A burst of flame shot upwards out of the front of the mangled car, scorching the dusty atmosphere about the accident. 	Gently, silently, a yellow and blue butterfly hovered above the freshly ploughed ground, flitting gaily across the uprooted flowers and teasing the tiny critters that writhed and squirmed in the moist soil. A minuscule fly settled on the broken body of the red vehicle.		*	*	*	All was dark, as black as the night around a burning campfire. Yet it was not night. It had been morning when she started her long drive to her family-	And the pain of loss hit her like a physical blow. Her fragile body jerked under the hurt and sadness. The holiday... The holiday on which she was on... That poor bird, he must have been through so much and then... On the holiday to see her family... It was that silly bird that... There was so much pain and... She saw flame and tried to back away, though it reached with its scorching hand out towards her... She once again heard the shrieking wail of the giant hawk as it emerged from the trees... The pain caressed her arm...	Alone. 		*	*	*	He drove not like a madman, not like the roaring monsters that roamed the endless roads and highways. His silent car, a deep Prussian green, rolled on silent wheels along the gravel road between the gentle peaks. He smiled peacefully to himself, as he had always done when listening to his soothing music and driving amongst the sheer beauty of this natural landscape. Green tendrils of vine swung in the breeze and a lush mat of green covered the roadsÕ edge.	Then would he smile no more, then would he see the synthetic humanity that wounded the land, made a scar on its unending wonder. Then he would see the hawk, its frail mass lying still on the hard ground. Then he would see the still breathing mass that was so much as himself a human, so twisted and severed inside the blood-splattered vehicle. A tendril of oily smoke rose deftly into the air to be lost back into the hidden greenery. 	The wailing siren cut through the bleak mountains, the midday sun threw images of heat down to the angry land, a viscous threat of rain tingled on the distant grey-whiteness of fluffy cloud. The ambulance sped the dying woman to a distant place, far away from the recent scene. Apon the still road, the dead bird lay, ants and flies pestering the decay of its still body. The now-grave founder of this freak accident slowly drove back the way he had come, the grating wheels adding yet another sound to the oppressive mat of silence hanging over the high, distant mounts.		*	*	*	She was alone, cold, and unloved. She felt the tingling fear creeping into her soul, finding the memories of her childhood and twisting them into an unimaginable lump of evil sadness. Her screams went unheard, she herself could not hear the endless silence all about her, only the perpetual sound of tortured flesh, burning, searing, scorching in those giant licks of red heat, flames that tore at the flesh, ripped at the very fabric of her meagre existence.	And her family, she would not get to see them on her holiday... When would she get there? Oh how she wished she would arrive... ArenÕt those mountains big... That poor bird...