26. Two by Two

14/11/08

The World changes so quickly when it's only 3 square miles.

It changed when we entered the last barn.

We had thought we were truly alone - the fields were empty, the cattle stalls, the pig sties, the stables, the reptile house, the dovecotes, coops and aviaries, the pet shop. All the animals spirited away. Just like the horses.

The farmyard smells remained. Lingering to remind us of how much Life had been there and how much Life had left us.
The hay filled pens with the ghost of an impression where an animal had lain. The incubators, lights still on but empty of chicks or eggs.
How could they whisk them all away like that - I mean physically. How is it possible to empty a whole village of life while two people sit in the centre listening and waiting?

Thinking about that, talking about it made us reel, need to sit and take breath. The feeling of being forgotten, discounted, excluded - waves of the sickness I used to feel when I'd walk over to a group of friends at school; one would look up, make frosty eye contact and then turn back to the giggling huddle.

But we shrugged those feelings away. We'd excluded ourselves, we'd missed the information, but we could make them hear us, allow us back into the race. So we continued our search. Through the cafe. On through the play area - trampolines and bouncy slides and rope bridges - not today, the mood was wrong, but another day. Into the petting barn.

And there we found it again. Life.
Life and death.
Like walking into the Ark, but finding Noah had left, with the strong and wild, leaving the weak and the pathetic to fester. The end of their line.