ars moriendi

It began, as before, with a lark. She wondered at it, let her eyes trace the taciturn line from brow to wing's end.

It had fallen, she supposed, not long before. Its eyes still shone darkly, were not dim and gray, not like the rest, and in this the lark stood stark and alone in her mind.

She had walked for days. Walked a straight and unbroken line toward nothing in particular, not that there was any break in the horizon by which an aim might be marked. One foot in front of the other, counting each fallen creature in passing. This makes four, forty, four hundred.

But this, the lark, this was different. Different, wholly unlike the scores she had counted without another thought. It was the eyes that had caught hers, broken her from her ambulatory reverie, but there was more than just a shining.

The wings, yes. Not folded in, it had fallen with a wing outstretched, the other caught beneath its now unmoving weight, lying on its side. The others, every last one lay with each wing folded tightly in, as if, having ceased in flight, they had done nothing to stop their fall.

No, I don't know what this is. The first sentence has been wandering around the back of my head for a good long while, and the rest of these sentences sort of came after it. There's one more, it'll show up here later.

Less than eleven months until I can join ZipCar. Because yes, that is what I anticipate most.