The

The early morning light had already begun to streak its way through the lattice work of limbs and leaves and the waist-high lespedeza, casting shadows on the ground that were cleverly formed into the darkened facade of what one would suppose was a whitetail. An eager glance through the double lenses revealed that there was nothing there, save for the few darkened twigs of litter that had long since started the process of decaying back into the topsoil of the earth. The focus began to fade slightly, taking on the shades of a light haze that proved to me that I was breathing to heavy, allowing the warmth from my lungs to fog the glassware of the scope.

A system of cold, heavy air had slowly laid itself across the southeast, making the air clear and clean, the kind that you liked to take in slowly to feel the rush of sweet, cool vapors into your lungs that seemed to clean years of smog and smoke from each little branch of bronchia in your chest. A faint gust blew from the southwest, enough to keep the scents and air moving but light enough to keep the head warm by a wool cap. Far from perfect, yet very distant from a foul morning, it was a good day to be alive and kicking, sucking in the essence of nature through every pore and letting the symphony of crackling grass, water drops from melting frost, and scurrying forest animals to set the soundtrack for the day.

As I glanced over my shoulder to look back down the line, my good ear picked up a faint humming sound, somewhat like a distant blower to an air-conditioning unit kicking on in the hot afternoons. I turned back around, scanning the horizon for the sound, listening intently to see if the sound would grow louder, then change in frequency and pitch, which signaled a passing car on the highway of some design I'd never known before. It remained the same, but did sound as though it were passing, but more slowly than a car.

It was at that moment that I saw it, high in the north sky and slowly drifting east. A single white zeppelin, as blanched as a cloud with no writing or logos, was floating on the wind and passing through. Though I'd seen a zeppelin before, this was somehow different, as if to signal something more, something that was beyond my control.