Imagination

The sound of cicadas in my head the smell of wood smoke in my nostrils, the lowering sky with the sun settling into the sea this is the setting for my dream as I walk across the burnt plain in that moment when day turns to night in the African bush. The change from day to night is the calling card for the Mosquitoes to arrive and feast on fresh blood, it is the moment when the predator stirs himself to sniff the air and peer into the fast disappearing light. As the light fades the animals tense up and gather closer to the herd, closer not for protection but as a numbers game which signify, why me, why not someone else.
The air is full of new sounds many made by the millions of insects which the hot sun had driven away into the nooks and crannies of the earth, The baleful sound of a a lions roar or the grunt of a wild pig in the undergrowth. The scream of an animal terrified as its attacker succeeds, sinking in its its teeth and dragging the animal down.
Each night has its gory story of life and death, of being part of the food chain, each night is a time to get through, somehow, to await that dawn of a new day, a new 24 hour cycle, where the future is measured in calculation and not a soft pillow in the lodge sleeping quarters.
If I were an ant I would pray to God not to make the ant-eater. Were I a mouse, that the snake hadn't been invented. Each species preying on another, each the others dinner, no end to the strife. A life, of chasing and being chased with retirement not mentioned and only the eventual lonely ousting once past your best.