Run away

I went to walk in the woods today.

And all the wild things chased me away.

The solitude I generally find there was gone, infested by clouds of people bearing fishing poles and Trump hats.

Running maskless in groups of whatever, laughing, shouting, riding bicycles and motorcycles, driving big monster trucks and Humvees.

Those people seeking freedom have found it and I don't belong there anymore.

One mother wearing one of the only two masks I saw was pushing her masked child in a stroller down the edge of a road. I gave her a thumbs up, but I am terrified she might have thought it was the finger. She pulled her mask up higher, looked around and certainly did not look happy.

I only saw her because she was on the road to the quickest way out. I felt trapped. Sometimes I wasn't sure where, or even if, to drive, it was so crowded with people walking, riding, running on roads that are generally a portal to birdsong.

I heard no birds, saw no birds, except for a dead goose lying in the road, mashed by something too big and too fast for it to avoid. It felt like a harbinger, a warning and I listened.