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He stood over the cliff, the northeastern rim of New Austin.
He had an affinity for this place, for the remoteness and natural beauty of the sparse trees and foliage that overlooked the arid land below. He didn’t mind the heat barreling down on him, nor the dust and the rattlers beneath his feet. He stood there, soothed by the flashes of lightning piercing through the darkened clouds above a land with no love for mankind.
“This is death. This is life,” he mused to himself. A hint of a smile could be seen beneath his well-defined mustache, if anyone were present. He peered over the land of the basin, fixated on the black smoke rising from the little collection of buildings just ahead of him. Typhus struck Armadillo not so long ago. Men carried items from their homes and businesses to burn out in the street in the hopes the plague upon the town would not spread. Others dug massive holes to protect the surviving townspeople of their diseased, lifeless friends and family.
The man on the cliff closed his eyes. He appreciated the harmony the desert brought.
“Life is death”, he breathed. His dark eyes slowly opened.
“You confuse me so.” Just then, a distant wind stirred up, not far from the tiny settlements he laid eyes on. The wind kicked sand off the ground, and it flew into the air. The wind grew stronger, and more dust lifted into the air, ready to pummel anything in its path. Soon, the rushing dust clouded his vision of the basin. That did not matter. He knew what happened, and what would happen. Lighting forks reached the ground while the rain evaporated before it could do so as well.
Armadillo caught his eye.
A fire containing the remnants of furniture grew. The dry wind fanned the bonfire, indifferent to the men chucking the unclean belongings thought to house disease. In an instance, the three tiny figures were engulfed in flames. He could not hear the screams of excruciating pain from the fire, but he knew they were there. The man stood on the cliff, unmoved by the tragedy he observed.
No. The cosmic joke he observed.
He stood unmoved at the fearsome lightning eager to touch him and the trees so high off the ground. He stood unmoved by the hungry coyotes and the brutish men with guns on their person. Yet, he was moved by the small thumping noise that sounded a few feet to his right, as he knew he would. Even with the atmosphere darkened by the unforgiving clouds of a dry thunderstorm, he made out the tiny black figure twitching in the patchy grass beside him. He walked those few feet, crouched down, observed the lonely crow. The black bird twitched and twitched, removed from flight and fighting for life. Its eyes, blacker than his, fixed themselves on the figure of the man in black. The forks of lightning, appearing and disappearing almost faster than the human eye could perceive, claimed the crow and not him.
“A fine subject you’d be,” he hummed. His crouching devolved into him sitting near the helpless bird. It was a nice spot to take a rest; it was beautiful to peer from the cliff, and he could watch the crow’s fleeting struggle. Throughout the innumerable years that weathered him, he had kept his love for the art of painting. To capture a tiny fragment of the universe at a desired moment with sheer skill and attentiveness never ceased to enthrall him. That was the reason he most often painted himself to be placed in decorative, wooden frames. The man in the three-piece found his mind buzzing with thoughts of creation and destruction, and of knowledge and ignorance. Nevertheless, he noticed when the crow fell still, no movement erupting from its tiny body again.
He stood up, his clothing somehow unmolested by the forces of nature.
“What a lovely day to be alive.”