The Chain
The Chain
Iron links set into the forest floor, stretching from polished foreground into geological darkness. Klein added wetness and gleam — recent rain on ancient iron. The brass plaque garbled but present. Walking backward through creation.
The Chain
A path, but not a path. A chain — literal iron links, each the size of a dinner plate, set into the forest floor end to end. They disappear in both directions: behind you toward the trees, ahead of you into darkness where the canopy is thickest. Each link is different. Some are polished, recent, still warm to the touch. Some are rough with rust, covered in moss, half-swallowed by the earth. The oldest ones you can only feel with your fingers — buried under decades of leaf litter, their shape readable only by touch. If you knelt and brushed the dirt away from the very oldest link, you would find a single word etched into the iron: GENESIS.