What He Saw

The stars were shining especially bright tonight. The boy looked up at the individual white dots on a canvas of pitch black, then he looked down at his feet. Suddenly, he noticed a flash of white. He looked ahead at the construction lot, where there had once been a lush, green forest. Hills of dirt rose above the various diggers and bulldozers, turned off for the night. A lake, filled with industrial toxins, glimmered with the light of the stars. Remnants of the workers’ lunches littered the ground. Just then he saw it: a ghostly deer was frolicking among the hills of dirt and the silent machinery. It noticed him and trotted over, staring at him with his large, melancholy eyes.
“Hello, I am the spirit of the animals. I used to live in the forest here, until the angry, bad men cut down every last tree and killed every last animal. Now, we live on as ghosts.”
Before the boy could react, a white sparrow perched on his shoulder. He dropped his jaw. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the ghosts of wild animals swarmed all over the once vacant lot. Bears frolicked among the mounds of dirt. Fish jumped out of the contaminated lake nearby. Snakes slithered under the machinery.
“Wow,” the boy breathed. He couldn’t believe that so many animals had once existed in the forest. A tear dropped from his eye. He also felt sad after witnessing the carnage that had occurred. The stars and the moon bathed the ghastly wildlife in a rich, creamy white glow. He waved one last goodbye to them and continued on with his walk.