Tom Mahony

Gone

There are places in the Coast Ranges still in essentially primeval condition. The creeks run clean and the forest is complex and the wildlife abundant.

You can bushwhack into the mountains and sit by a creek and think and wonder and experience what humans did thousands of years ago. Or what animals did before there were any humans at all. Maybe the closest thing to time travel you can find. Feels like you're in the middle of nowhere, the wilderness stretching forever, not a hint of human disturbance in any direction.

But examine an aerial photo and you'll see the place is just an island surrounded by an advancing sea of concrete, the wild core shrinking with each passing day. Stuff that's never coming back.

Going. Going.

Gone.

CP

Tom Mahony has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in Surfer Magazine, Flashquake, The Rose & Thorn, Pindeldyboz, Foliate Oak, Decomp, Long Story Short, and many others. He is looking for a publisher for several novels. Visit him here.