...come sit inside my bones.

There were sights and sounds, solutions to the simple lives he’d left behind. There were silly little stories he might’ve said, were he the type to spin out yarn.

No.

All he could spit and spool were the sparks, the smoke, shoved free from the glorious length of too many tongues.

Beneath the heavy hard of his hooves, the mud squealched, shifted, settled into stone. One day, it might just up, cruelly, teeth catching in the sky. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t think so.

He didn’t think.

Now life was just a breath away, and this place had no more use for him than a child for its mother. Eventually, they all go away.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. He wasn’t some father figure, and this wasn’t some song about somebody that he

used to know.

They were gone. He was gone. It did not matter.

He’d been nothing more than a number.

One of many.