It is so very, very green. And silent. Oh, the silence. Where are the birds? Where are the bees? There are no crickets, just the ever looming trees.

The old fisherman, who sits on the docks day and day and day, he told me once: "When ya wonder in them woods, it's like bein' lost in ya own soul". Maybe that's why, though I'm not quite sure, I can feel a dead-eye stare from just beyond these towering pines.

We hide in the woods, but the cities hold the secrets, underneath that old, old town, there's another just beneath it, but that's not where the secrets end, deeper still the bones of a city lie beneath the other. And folks line up to try those silly novelties, but they don't know that's why there's folks who come to town and then just never leave it.

I like to go camping with my friends and stay up on a certain ridge, where the world cannot see us. One comes with, one comes with, but how many leave it? It's been so long that I've lost count. The fog just isn't helping, I could've sworn beyond the mist there was a second tent, but when it clears there's nothing there so I shake my head and just pretend that there's a pretty ending.

Those silly tourists come, they squint at the sky, grumbling and complaining about the sun that's always hidden just behind the clouds. We snicker and laugh behind their backs. Cackling "Those fools, those fools", they don't understand that some things aren't meant to be seen under the light of day.

We hide our grins of sharp, rowed teeth with newspapers and glasses of gin. Oh, the mountains are closer again today, and closer still they'll come, our grins remain, painful and tight as we try not to think of how many homes they swallowed to get there.

As children we'd sit on the violently green grass and count the crows as they gathered on the jungle gyms and slides. 1 2 3 4, the numbers never ending. We shrieked with joy when they flew off and the game would begin anew. 1 2 3 4, until our mothers came and got us, but still we sat, eyes turned black and echoing out the numbers, for days and days we played until one day I blinked, and now, well here I am. The others still sit, eyes black, mouths open, as the drone of numbers march on. They're up to 30000 by now, but haven't aged a day.