Me.
My child.
Or me as a
child, I am not sure.
We are flying inland over a still, peaceful sea and cloudless sky.
Let me be clear, we
‘fly’ well, more ‘float’ along.
Ahead are cliffs.
A land
mass.
Situated in front of said
land is a strange, rocky isle, which shines in the
sunlight like a sparkling, precious rock I keep in a
drawer at home.
It resembles the shape of a frog,
this isle.
We slowly descend to the
cliff side.
We drift lightly to a skittery halt, as
if we had glided in on invisible gossamer wings.
Initially we find our new
environment enchanting.
The air is warm and balmy but
the gentle breeze is cooling and salty as it picks up
vapour from the sea.
The place is completely
deserted, it seems.
Man has left his mark, on
the cliff side; I see wooden fences twined by wire.
I
see formidable peaks of mountainside I dare say I
shall never set foot on.
We are able to see the
pale golden beach below us.
It is truly an idyllic
paradise.
I sit for a moment on my
grassy, sand-speckled knoll. I slowly breathe in the
nurturing air.
At my feet lay assorted
flotsam, treasures from the sea.
A bright blue lapis
catches my eye and I reach out to examine it.
I rub
its smooth side with my thumb and admire its flaws
within, more so than the flecks of gold that glint
and blind me as they reflect the sun’s rays.
I
see myself in the flaws; in those flaws lay my own
beauty and truth.
I breathe again.
Deep,
filling and calming.
Each breathe clarifies my
sullied thoughts as oxygen pulses through my body, it
lightens, deepens and refreshes my spirit.
Then the sound begins.
It begins as a faint hum,
carried on the tails of the breeze, so unnoticeable
at first that it seems part of the rhythm and sound
of this idyll.
It soon loses its lullaby
cadence.
Where once, we drew comfort from it, now we
grow more and more certain that it brings discord,
fear, perhaps even death.
We scurry away from our
perch, running to evade the sound.
Now it is clear
what the noise resembles. It is galloping horses and
they are pursuing us. We realise if they catch us it
is… the end.
We hide in the sand
dunes, behind fences, rocky walls, we circle round,
double back on ourselves, sometimes they gallop by
and we are given a moment’s respite.
Time passes
by.
We are never allowed more than a few moments of
peace before the horses find us again.
Slowly our energy is
drained from our bodies.
Our minds lose their
openness and are slowly emptied of all thought but
one; that of the horses that we have never seen, but
that dominate our very sentience.
It is so long since we
have slept, so long since we sat on that hillside and
inhaled the scent of freedom, so long since the sound
began.
Finally, we are cornered.
We have somehow found ourselves trapped between the
sound and the sea.
The thunder of hooves becomes
louder and more oppressive with each passing moment.
There is no escape; there is no way out. There is no
option, but that which we fear.
So we run. We run towards
the sound.
That which we cannot escape, we must
accept, it was inevitable from the first hoof sound.
As we meet the horses
head-on, our bodies are lost to the air.
We rise like
ethereal creatures into the sky, soar, and float
upwards, skimming the ‘frog isle’.
Glancing down to regard
the green-blue glass of the sea, we look behind us,
to the now deserted island, onwards, upwards into the
blinding light.
The light that numbs all
senses, that robs the very breath from our lungs, the
light that freezes all that lay behind us, all that
could have lain before us.
The light, of Oblivion.
