The black shape of it running from dark to dark. Then a distant low rumble. Not thunder. You could feel it under your feet. A sound without cognate and so without description. Something imponderable shifting out there in the dark. The earth itself contracting with the cold. It did not come again. What time of year? What age the child? … The silence. The salitter drying from the earth. The mudstained shapes of flooded cities burned to the waterline. At a crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering. No sound but the wind.
In this passage, a scene unfolds dominated by darkness, suggesting an ominous atmosphere. A shadowy figure moves through this darkness, accompanied by a faint, unsettling rumble that feels almost like a heartbeat beneath the surface. This sound is described as something outside human comprehension, hinting at a foreboding presence as the earth reacts to the cold, instilling a sense of unease. The lack of further occurrences of this rumble heightens the mystery, leaving questions about the season and the age of a child, emphasizing a silence laden with significance.
The setting is one of desolation, where remnants of civilization are marred by catastrophe—cities are left in ruins, their edges scorched and submerged. A crossroads marked by ancient dolmen stones evokes the lingering presence of forgotten wisdom and prophecies. With no other sound but the wind, the atmosphere is steeped in an eerie stillness, inviting contemplation about the past and the fate of humanity. This stark imagery in McCarthy's writing highlights themes of decay and the weight of time in an altered world.
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