The Last Breath

A tree dies inside a ring of sharp red thorns. They do not dare pierce its thick healthy bark. They almost hover near it, stabbing random leaves in the fall when they fell, squabbling over who got the yellow ones with star points.   A hint of green still kisses some of its roots. Though now, it looks more like a bruise. More yellow than green. Yet it is lush compared to the parched earth that feeds it.   Were you to walk near the tree, you would not see this tree.   You would see stark flat earth, cracked in places. Not hairline but deep gaping wounds, In it, a tree would stand. A thin blackened husk with shocks of white near the base.   The tree endures. Here, the last. Here, the only life growing in the land. Here, the grave of the great man whose blood fuels both the resistance and the cure.   Walk around and you would find no water. Only thin black sludge that seeps so that your boots feel wet all of the time. It has no smell but feels as though it should smell of something strange and alien.   Shrubs made of thick dead branches point at all angles. The red thorns nest in its carcass, feeding on it and each other, spreading farther and farther.