A murder of crows dispersed overhead, forming an ominous cloud of glossy black plumage, moving ever so swiftly through the Autumn air and effortlessly changing form like a perfectly staged illusion, before finally disappearing into the horizon. Massive metal towers rose up into the sky, standing tall like artificial trees born from the mind of a crazed metal smith. Their wire and pipe roots penetrated into the ground below, snaking throughout the oil and polycarbonate acid enhanced soil. Alongside the artificial trees, only the most rugged breed of weed adapted to survive, somehow managing to pull up nutrients from the noxious dirt it got selected to grow in.

Asbestos insulation hung loosely from the seemingly miles worth of tangled pipes it once sheathed. Occasionally, and with the help of a passing breeze, chunks fell loose, forever smothering any form of plant life which made the struggle to live below. Enormous hollow chemical tanks marked with various symbols warning of the toxic substances they once held, remained open to the sky above. As I peered into one the tanks to fulfill my curiosity of just what remained inside, I was greeted with a rainbow of colors reflecting about an inky thick fluid. The virulent slurry consisted of mostly tainted rain water which seeped in through various openings and had combined with the chemical residual left inside. Rust pitting had already begun to start around the exterior of the metal drums, forming small cracks and grooves, in turn allowing the pernicious cocktail held within to slowly drip through the narrow voids and fall to the Earth below.

Making my way up a jittery ladder I reached the summit of one of the many dozens of gas refining towers. The precipitation at this altitude remained not in the form of snow but rather bird shit, and mounds of it; produced by the hundreds of crows which had flown off earlier. Their acidic feces had literally begun to eat through the metal grating which I so carelessly trusted to hold my weight. Walking about the elevated circular platform, I watched as flakes of metal broke loose from the grating and plummeted downward. Not wanting to follow suit, I returned to a safer elevation and continued to push through the industrial forest.