Michael Malone - Weebly

What he had told himself he would not see, and had
feared that he would see, was still there. That cold
black plot of unnatural earth seared into his inherited
land. Why, in all that time, had no grass, no weed,
thrust through the cracked soil? What weaponry could
kill the earth forever?
In his tailored suit Ransom stood there. He stood
there until his breath was quiet. Then he looked away,
looked past it, looked toward the marsh grass, alive,
yellow, and moving, looked beyond the marsh to
woods, green and moving. Sweat felt cold in his hair
and in his hands, and he took out his handkerchief to
wipe it away. He knew now that he wouldn't go into the
woods. He was too old and too busy to put himself
through hours of hard hiking through the woods and
marsh to where he had seen that compound. The
buildings wouldn't still be there anyhow. But if they
were, he could only not know it by not going. But, of
course, they weren't. But if they were, they would have
some new purpose all to the good. He turned and
walked back the way he had come.
A big rotted elm had fallen years ago across the old