A Panther's Plight

A Panther's Plight

The leaves are falling, slowly as if they dread touching the earth. They shudder and twist, from one side to another as the hand of a gale brushes them to the floor of earth. She enters into this world of nature, undisturbed as it conducts itself in a grand symphony for the leaves, birds, and other creatures to enjoy. She walks amongst the descending leaves, embraced by their amber, sepia veins, until she pauses, for her sight has ensnared something of greatness. An obsidian beast encased in the trees' children and crimson of itself. The beast raises its massive paw, reaching toward that which it also gazes toward--the woman. She is enshrouded by the grey tendrils of fog that now replace the leaves descent. She is young, draped in an olive covering which protects her from the world. The creature's eyes are golden, green with flecks of light exploding across the orbs of its somber gaze. The woman comes closer to this prodigious animal as her curiosity of its majesty and mystery allure her, enveloping both her senses and mind with want--the want to understand it.

She begins to run toward it, with her tresses flying like the burning sparks of Vulcan's anvil, which also denote the hue of her locks. This fiery explosion cascading from her brow seems to awaken some emotion in the creature as it stirs its bed into a torrent of leaves, dust, and dew as it extends its being with great exertion higher and higher to a level plane with the woman. She leans into the beast and stretches out to caress its head, as its muscles release and it suddenly collapses onto its ebony haunches in a desperation to seek a possible end.

As the dark being collides with the earth, the woman kneels, encircling the creature's head in her cream-tinted arms. Her azure eyes cloud, giving forth to salty streams to travel down her cheeks for this animal which she never knew beyond its aesthetic appeal. She retreats to sitting close to the beast and resigns to weep for it, which brushes against her with a velvet-ebony paw as it knows that the final sleep has begun.

Her whole body begins to shake forwards and back as her weeping evolves to a great wail for this fellow being. Her wail intensifies in volume and power as it begins to stop all that around her--the birds cease their chatter, the snakes pause their hunt for food, the wind even loses its path and stands frozen for her and it. The woman remains beside the beast for hours, and nature groggily remembers its course as the tears from the clouds resume their descent onto the floor of this now somber place.

The beast's body trembles and it lifts its massive head slowly brushing against the woman's skin as it has awoken for the final time. The woman, startled by the slow motions, is torn out of her presumptuous world of the creature's lifelessness, as the being asserts its vitality with a gentle rumble, resembling the purr of a domestic feline. Her voice peals out a joyous note of astonishment and happiness which soon transforms into a beautiful laughter. The woman revels in the knowledge that the creature is alive, and throwing back her head to cleanse her face of the salt streaks, laughing at the same time, she gently, purposefully lays into a position to stare at the soft-blue heavens. The beast slowly moves itself to parallel her as she marvels in the beauty that dwells around and above her. She reaches and caresses the beast's closed maw, as she closes her eyes to bask in the gentle tears of the clouds as they accumulate into drenching her entirety.

The woman had journeyed into this glade so many times previously to sit and observe the paths nature took, yet never had she experienced it to this extent. However, today she had been gifted with the pulsing heart of nature within this creature and its mortality. Unfortunately, the heart must stop, and as a loud human voice pierced her tranquil rest under the rain, she remembered that she must return to those of a different kind than the beast. Stroking its head one last time, she rose and with a mournful gaze at the glade and the beast, she left. The creature lowered its head back to the amber, sepia leaves, and closed its golden eyes to return to a peaceful state; the beast forgot that the woman had ever entered its domain and it was unconcerned with when the downpour or existence would cease.