monochromatic ovenbird He points his camera to the sky. “Look,” he says. Just that one word carrying a gilt box of possibilities. I lift my eyes to where the clouds are swirling like an auroral corona. White wisps stretch like the wings of some ancient bird— archaeopteryx, ghostly and unmade. Around me the world is stone and coal. High contrast black_and_white like stepping into an Ansel_Adams photograph. Above the mountains, black banks of clouds, smears of conte crayon against white peaks. Twisted fingers of trees licked_by_lightning reach from thin soil, skeletal and crumbling. The only colour is a glowing slash of orange across the center of the scene, a pit of lava bubbling from the earth, a volcanic throat threatening eruption, while hikers brave the molten edges, unconcerned, oblivious. I raise my own camera and open the aperture of my mind. I take one picture, sharp and clear. I sense this will be the last image I ever capture. The world is slipping into the abyss. I feel the emergent catastrophe, mantle sending liquid_fire to the surface. I’m about to burn. And everything is dark. And everything is beautiful. And I don’t want it to end. 260603 what's it to you? who go blather from