Alon

Alon reached out slowly with his hand and pulled aside the sword fern to peer intently at the small wood house nestled in the clearing below him. The single window dimly lit just enough to cast a light glow on the ground below. The smoke was snaking unhurriedly from the stone chimney with the sun just disappearing into the trees on the far side casting long shadows reaching for the side of the small house. Soon it would be dark. A good dark night, with no moon.
Good, the clothes were still on the clothesline waving silently in the evening breeze. Alon looked carefully at the house to make sure that the dog was in the house then toward the clothes again. Not today. All that were on the clothesline were light colored clothes. He wanted dark clothes, worn clothes. Those would never do. Alon slowly let go of the fern and slowly turned back to return to his home. Forty minutes later, taking a route he had never before taken, he smelled the faint hint of smoke and recognized the unique pattern of the roots on the fallen redwood that was his home. He was tired, never before had had he felt so unsure of his return. Was he really getting old, or was it just a difficult route that he had taken. For some reason, the woods had seemed darker, was it the branches getting thicker, or were his eyes getting dimmer? He grabbed a small root at chest level and let himself down carefully into the dark void until his feet touched a familiar place and he swiveled his body around another root and crept toward the dim light. His eyes slowly accustomed to the light as he reached for a dry limb from his small pile of wood. He always kept the fire in one of two ways, burning cleanly with no smoke, or no fire at all. The larger pile of wood he kept under another an overhanging broken tree a short distance away. It was always something he could do, collect dry wood. His small, stubby fingers reached up to his thin shirt slowly pulling the collar closer to his neck. Looking around, his eyes came to rest on the small pile of paper that made up his life, his history, his legacy. Leafing through it in the dim light his eyes caught words that brought back flashes of memories of the time that once was. Of happiness, peace, contentment, of a time he wished that would never end. And now, it was almost over, almost the end. A tear slowly pooled in the corner of his eye and slipped down his cheek to disappear into his beard. He was the last of his kind.

To be continued..........