Home at last

I'm home now. Last night I slept in a bed for the first time in nearly a month. Its too early to provide a proper assessment of our trip. Therefore :                                            the dark, stormy night dissolved into a misty, hazy dawn as a red sun burned through the horizon. Heat signatures bounced from the vacant pavement as daylight ascended. No life arose. The bleached skeletal remains of trees long dead pockmarked the landscape. A horse's mane of dry grass bisected the highway, emerged and lifeless from the cracked pavement. A wind, once rancid, simulates life as its invisible force moves the environment to the present tense.                  I find myself within my imagination, standing alone in the world, straddling a long faded white line on  a lonely run of asphalt stretching from nowhere to nowhere. I walk toward the sun, mostly blinded, not caring, shuffling forward....... Something strange, simple yet compelling, different, enlightening...... There, ahead in the road, green, singular and natural....... A plant, life, renewal!  I approach slowly. I hear something from behind me, mechanical, but my fascination with my discovery offers but a tin ear. As I stoop for a closer look, a robotic device skirts my crouched form and snatches the sprout from the crumbling blacktop, tucking it within a compartment designed for retrieval. In shock, I stand quickly and back up awkwardly, nearly falling, flailing my arms. A cool metal clamp catches me. I turn to face the machine, my rescuer. WALL-E.  Apparently I have stumbled upon someone else's imagination.