Unsuspecting Traveler

With the night turned unwelcoming by a chilly drizzle, it would have been only natural for anyone having to venture forth to do so with shoulders hunched and head ducked forward. Peripheral vision blocked by the hood of the slicker a nighttime traveler would no doubt wear, vision would have been restricted to the glistening roadway in front of his feet.

And so missing the boiling sky above, the unsuspecting traveler would be blissfully unaware of the lights flickering within the churning clouds. Lights not of lightning strikes but lanterns flickering on the sides of a shadowed carriage. An ominous conveyance, the carriage moved unseen as the team of black horses drawing it threaded their way through seams in the clouds.

Eyes ablaze with fire, nostrils spewing a yellow-green steam, the massive horses would spend little effort in bearing down on a man with no idea he had need to run. With a single flick of a whip put to no use other than to snatch the unsuspecting from the streets, the coachman would easily add another prize to his coach of wailing souls.

In the following morning, when dawn broke with promises of new glory, friends and family of the man who had set out the night before would have no reason to suspect he had been carried from the face of the earth. Yet they would wonder of him for many a day... until there should come a need for one of them to journey afoot on a night made unwelcoming by a misty rain.