HEROVE

By Jeremy Price

Part 1 – Silvia

The end is in all things

What was that memory of a distant road?

A road that goes to another abode

A place of silence, lakes and pines

Steep descents and precipitous climbs

I have forgotten where

Though once I truly did care

Now this place has gone away

And the city is here to stay

The source of dreams is running dry

Words are a barrier to understanding

Imagination is what was left over after God made the world

Prologue

A wind born ghost

Twilight’s metamorphosis was upon this land and here I was to observe its passage, it inundated every scene with its subtle flavour until all was remade in its image.

Amidst this twilight I stood as though trembling between worlds, neither a part of this one, nor a part of the other. Before me danced visions of strange amalgamations, of leftover images, so strange were they that I thought myself momentarily insane; a sword, a dwarf, a girl and then, as if a wave had passed through me, nothing.

It was as though a wind went through me, and then these images disappeared and I and the world became one and I knew that for better or worse it was this world that I was now a part of.

I stood alone within this place, the pavement against my feet as real as ever, the twilight, light of the night sky in my eyes, as real as ever. Within this moment the night was my only companion and the silence of the night my only company. I gave thanks to both for being there, for without them I believe that I would have had nothing.

It was then that I gazed in wonder up and out towards the sky, there was the distant edge of my own consciousness and it was there that I basked for a time in the heavenly glow of the departing sun and I knew the peace and freedom of twilight.

Though distantly, undeniably, in the back of my mind, like a selfish unconscious urge, there dwelt the lonely chill that would soon become the encroaching night, which then would become the failing light.

Then, as though I could take no more of the skies other worldly splendor or as though some undeniable curiosity gripped me, I lowered my dream eyes to properly observe the earth and as if on cue, the pale street light’s of a thousand city blocks became illuminated.

First the ones closest and then on and on and on until the farthest of each burned with its own tiny little light, like my conscious had flickered into the unconscious life within this dream and I gazed in wonder and horror at the place that lay illuminated before me.

The Eldritch Kingdom of chance and imagination was before me and within me. Within it, I had no future and no past. The daylight world of love and life was no more, yet something still remained of it inside me, as though to remind me that it did still exist.

Surprisingly, horribly, I found myself weeping, though for who or what I did not know, it was as though some vestige of the daylight world had come through with me, had prompted me, had uncovered some unconscious tragedy within me and within this place I let the pain of that forgotten memory go.

I felt my head fall back allowing me to catch every glimpse of neon that soon became legion through tear stained eyes, then my head fall forward, catching the last of the creators light low in the sky.

The towering cliffs of the cities edge fell before me like an abyss. At its end lay the clean sweep of the ocean which sat broken upon the rocks, as the endless sea sat stiff upon the horizon. From my vantage point the city spread forth around me, a great technological continent, a church of the inorganic, and like a living creature it belched forth great plumes of gas as though it were its breath,  the sky was made forever red as though these were the cities eyes.

 The great towers, as though of midnight, stretched forth like citadels into the heavens and such were their height that all was cast in shadow. A broken stop sign lay discarded against the pavement, a small pile of fetid earth the only sign that the earth still dwelt beneath and strangely a rusted sword could also be seen dug deeply into the ground.

I could not see one living soul upon this metropolis, this was a place where the great machine ruled and the rumble of a thousand cogs and the hum of a thousand circuits was all that could be heard. The earth was forced to rumble with what was the cities progress.

 Trains on the railways cluttered past me, their illuminated interiors empty, yet still a robotic voice announced the next stop. Neon signs announced in brazen colors news of the latest products though of course there was no one to purchase them, no one to consume them. The traffic lights changed green, then orange, then red eternally, but there was no one to stop, or to slow, nor anyone to go.

It was then that I laughed aloud, my sorrow momentarily forgotten, the futility of this place, its immunity, seemed so desperate and as I laughed my voice echoed away, alone and unwelcome.

I imagined my voice traveling down dark sewer grates, tumbling into wastepaper baskets and sent off underground, my voice’s organic modulation, cast from understanding and perception, probably caught up by a hidden recorder, changed to binary and stored in a computer bank to be synthesized at some later date depending on demand.

This place was here to serve my every whim; designed and created long ago it was a towering monument to the genius of man and the denial of god. A challenge to gods creativity and mans originality, a testimony to man and mans destiny.

 I walked around this dead city and within its centre I found a tree, a great clean tree that’s majesty shammed the cloying breath of subterranean gutters that surrounded it. A tree that shammed the dark buildings that surmounted it, this tree was the life to the cities lifelessness, the immortality to the cities mortality, the humbleness to the cities decadence and if only for these reasons, it was to the tree that I made my weary way.

The tree towered above me like no building could ever do and I fell before it, my hands grasping, searching and then finding the bark and for a moment I felt as though I was one with the universe. Collapsed before it I heard a tumult of voices as though the universe spoke to me and then a small silence that felt like sorrow, as if god himself caressed me.

From under the tree I watched this place. For a while I beheld its dark beauty and then I turned at last to the expanse of the ocean, the endless sea in forever motion, the falling of the sun under my minds notion.

Which would I give myself too, the city or the sea? Each would keep me the same; in a cold passionless embrace. Sea or steel, I asked myself, salt or smoke?  I knew my answer at once.

 I joined the sea, the last of those who had given in and given up and as I felt myself moving towards its embrace I knew that somewhere in that city I would be kept alive, partitioned to a small file amidst thousands, every detail of my life would be preserved, and I grinned because for all the cities knowledge of me it did not know me.

The music of my footfalls filled my ears, growing steadily quicker, surrounding me and echoing off into the gloom. I could hear my last breath thick and labored in my ears and my heart pumping its last blood and then I was falling. Falling and falling. As I fell I asked myself would the fall be enough and then a wind came and caught me.

The Wind behind the Hills

And in melancholy the imagination burns the brightest.

To cloud the vast speculation of space with the blue of a summers day.

Can you feel winter waiting?

Father and mother, where you be?

Shall I find you across the sea?

 Gone in the forest long dead

Moss and mire upon your head

Stuck upon a distant crag

 Your body wisp, against wood sag

    Your breath cradled and spent

Beneath a swift river bed

Your bodies sheltered beneath tall trees

Or covered by autumn leaves

 Your pale palate upon plateau

Or washed into subterranean darkness go

Your bodies frozen by frost and woe

Cuddled cool by the winter foe

To disappear when it snows

 Gone departed when the sun rose

 Your souls soundly sent

Into the mists that mountains shed

Drunk by the thirst of clouds

To fall through the heavenly shroud

To the earth you came again

Fallen, like tear stained rain

In this torrent you live again

In this hope my pain will wane

Or do you dwell elsewhere?

A place fair or the devils lair

Do you live there with out a care?

Or within a place you can no longer bear?

I believed them when they told me the pain would pass, and like the tempest on that faithful day I too believed it, though now I do not know.

They said it was the mystery, the ‘not knowing’ that made it difficult and that when they, the authorities, found something, anything, I would be able to let my sadness go. I still don’t know.

My friends’ consolations, the authorities’ mediations, their half-truths and half lies were all merely sounds during those days, drifting upon my consciousness, neither pleasant, nor unpleasant. They were sounds that filled in the space of my parents passing. Sounds that filled in the empty and sad times that I hoped were passing.

I knew deep down there would be no answers, at least not the answers that I needed.  No, not in this isolated community.

Of course it was filled with little mysteries, those of lost socks, misplaced mail and locked doors. In this place these small mysteries cluttered people’s minds so that there was no room left for the greater mysteries, no room left for the greater truths, so that soon these greater mysteries became lost within the rhyme of convention, lost within the monotony of repetition and while every day I strived to bring these mysteries to the fore, the world around me seemed to be a place that wished to let them go.

Why? I would ask myself in those early days. Why, as I gazed into the starry night sky of space, would these people wish to cloud the vast speculation of space with the blue of a summer day? Why would they do this when so much existed above and beyond?

I would then slip back into my small space of defeated sadness, my small space of incomplete madness and would found out why, and so I remained silent and let the world go by.

So, as you can see, although I loved my family, sadly, from these people who so successfully rationalised the irrational, I would never hear what I wished to hear, never see within the world what I hoped to see and never would I hear the words that would make me feel free.

Sadly, from these people I would only ever hear the rational, the believable and the likable and soon these everyday rationales filled my mind so that even I started to see the blue of the sky instead of the space beyond and it was not long before I began searching for new answers, for fresh ideas.

Where would I go to search for the answer to this mystery? At first I did not know, would I look out, or in, where would it all begin?

I knew that my answers did not lay in books, if I were to be given the knowledge of all the books in all the libraries in the entire world, I would only be presented with other people’s speculations, clouded by other people’s imaginations. In the minds of a million great thinkers and eccentric esoterics I would only find more mysteries.

I believed then as I still do now that the answers that I sought were somewhere else altogether and while at the time I didn’t know where, looking back to those early days I know that unconsciously I had begun my journey to find them.

The Breath

The womb within the wind

The words shape their meaning as much as you shape the words

The winds breath is moss and mire

Its breath fuels a passionate fire

Its sounds itself from a lyre

It fuels mans imaginative pyre

It endows a creative desire

 In all those that transpire

Or sire

The imaginative desire

It’s heard in conversations call

And within autumns fall

Sometimes it’s a melody

 A prelude of things to be

 It rises at night and also at dawn

It is where, dreams are born  

 Sometimes it’s a storm at night

Or a story by candle light

At first I listened to the secrets behind the words of those that attempted to console the inconsolable. The little secrets that everyone tried to hide, the half truths that become obvious by a quivering lip and a cleared throat or a vague look towards a window or a door. I knew of these secrets of course, I have been hearing them my whole life, they were only mildly interesting.

Then unconsciously I began to listen to the breath itself, escaping as it did between fetid teeth and billowing cheeks, but I did not know why the secret was here, not in the words as they were, they were merrily a disguise for the breathes true meaning. It was in the breath itself, yes; the breath was where the answers lay.

I began to listen more closely then. I listened as the breath moved, stagnant with waste and the products of the bodies’ decay, as it emerged like a great billowing cloud out of the lungs, as it became constricted and squeezed through vocal chords, as it was given an identity while having all its freedom taken away.

I would listen acutely to the breath as it rolled across the tongue like a zephyr, as it was given a little bit of this and a little bit of that, as it was given all the ingredients needed for a word so that a ‘should’ became its own ‘should’, in a whole world of other ‘shoulds’ and while my friends spoke of shoulds and should not’s I was listening to something different, something far stranger and if I was speaking to you now I hope that you would hear it too.

Deep in the breath was where it was, the little message that I listened too, it spoke with out words, yes this is me, hear me, feel me, and know me. And it was only after some practice and patience that I realised that I did know it and I would inhale those people’s words oblivious to their content, blind to their meanings.

I would savour the breath itself, rolling it upon my own tongue, filling my lungs and then every pore of my being, for it was there that the breath could look out my eyes, wet as they were with sadness. It was here that the breath could move my limbs, heavy and dead with sorrows lethargy and it was here that the breath would fill my heart tight and constricted with pain as it was.

However I digress, this phenomenon occurred quite late in the peace, long after the tempest and the disappearance and before this I was of course estranged from friends and family and if not happy, then at least content to stand at a window staring out at the mist.

What was I looking for during those days? I still do not know. Perhaps my parent’s arrival, back from the mountains after so many days, happy and full of stories to tell. Perhaps I thought I might see an item of their clothing as it was blown on the breeze, made to circle upon invisible currents before falling to the doorstep, or into my waiting hands.

Or maybe I expected to hear their voices from the mist like ephemeral spirits that had lost their way, spirits that only needed the firm warm hand of a mortal creature to grasp so that they could clutch with diaphanous clammy fingers at the life they had not, so that I could pull them back to the life they had forgotten. I know not the true reason, but for many months I stood there searching, and the memory of those dark days for me falls somewhere between life and death, paradise and perdition.

In those early days I looked for the obvious answers, searched the house for notes, the hills for signs and the mountains for clues, though in all those days spent roving over river and glen, I caught not one sign of my parents’ passage.

Still I lied, still I fell into the world of the normal where the paranormal is never believed, it’s undisputable, regrettable but I still hid from the truth, because while wandering those mountains I did in fact find traces of them, though at the time I did not believe it could have been true.

I dispelled it in the way my relatives would later say, “Of course you felt their presence, you loved them, you wished for them and in your insane sadness you thought they had appeared.”

How wrong they were. How wrong I was.

At that time I had not developed my sensitivity to the ‘breath’ (as it came to be known), but as I look back now it had been with me even then. High above the valleys, looking out through the clouds towards a distant wind swept ocean I had felt it!

Subtle it was upon my face, just a caress, a whisper, a susurration of the five senses and a presence of them that could never be denied and though I was tired beyond reason and hungry beyond words I knew deep down that for an instant they had been there as they had been in life, though how they had come to be there I did not know. I did know that it had something to do with the breath.

Where this breath came from I did not know, it was sometimes in the wind, sometimes in peoples voices, I even saw it once burst free from a flute and rise from the strumming of a lute, it seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time,. Wherever it was I was determined to find it.

I found it mingled amongst the most ungainly conversations, the most sophisticated dialects, though never was it present during the most abysmal commentary of the common place. It seemed to be particularly prevalent during those conversations that can only be called foolish, you know the ones?

They start off about something quite normal, though with a small hint of the irrational and then before you know it the conversation has become totally absurd and everyone has something to add and while the absurdity of it has blown everything out of proportion people are still going on with it, as though it were now the most normal thing in the world.

I take for example a story retold by my Uncle Barnaby, about a mythical character who was known as the faggot maker, who it was presumed collected sticks and bound them together to make a faggot. Barnaby however knew of this faggot maker who was of a rather different sort. He, in fact, made faggots out of the most hot-blooded men.

One minute they were walking along thinking about a young lass, then upon seeing the faggot maker, Bang! They were made into a faggot themselves who were then forced to take up the role of faggot maker himself.

The absurdity of this myth continued long into the night and even the meekest and most gentle of souls seemed to have something to add and all the time I could sense this breath being expelled like great billows with the words that accompanied the story, you could virtually see it in the air and I was rather surprised that I was the only one to notice.

Now, I must return for a time to those half-truths that my compassionate friends and relatives would tell of, and when I speak of these people I mean the older ones, those that grew up with myth as a part of their lives and also the younger ones that wished to make myths a part of their lives. The rest, well myth to them was something that they wished to dispel from their lives.

In these early days I would spend my time with the older ones who once upon a time had nursed me upon their bony knees during a time that was to them, not so long ago, but for me seemed a lifetime ago and together we would spend long evenings talking about nature and the nature of man and it was in these times that peace would come to me again.

The younger ones were of course another story, though the peace that they brought to me was the same it was often only after I had chased them and they had chased me through every thicket of bush upon the property that they could be compelled to tell me what they knew of the West Wind and we would gather together in the noon sun, or around a fire to tell our stories.

Now, I must tell you dear reader of these half truths and half lies, for combined with the breath they are an integral part of this story.

These small truths and half lies, the ones that I stated as being mildly interesting, I had noticed at once, and as I mentioned earlier I had been hearing them all my life, these stories of course had little to do with the rational modes of thinking that the police and other so called authorities had offered as an explanation for my parents disappearances, these were something quite different. These stories had been circling this town for quite some time though now for some reason, my parents disappearance had sparked a fresh onslaught of these little fabrications and over a period of about a month they seemed to be all that was spoken about.

They were whispered and muttered about behind every closed doorway and behind every cupped hand, it got to a point where the normal town gossip was all but extinguished and the fact that Mrs Copperfield was having an affair with Mr Robinson was no longer worth mentioning.

Then when the authorities found themselves unable to find any clues regarding the disappearance, this phenomenon only increased until the point that I expected it to become front page news of the local newspaper.

As the townsfolk became more charged with this underground mass hysteria, and with people locking their doors and shutting their windows at night I felt I had even more cause to put my faith in these small truths and half lies, with this revelation I felt pretty sure that my parent’s disappearance could be some how connected to these fables.

Also, along with the new interest in these fables, there was a similar increase in the breath, until the point where I knew instantly when passing someone in the street that they were talking about the half truths and half lies purely by the amount of the breath that they were expelling.

Soon I became so excited that eventually I became blinded to all other possibilities and every event seemed to be pointing me in the direction of discovering more about these fables and about my parent’s disappearance and of course about the breath itself.

My first tidings of the West Wind and the years that followed

 Gather then the wind to see

Weave it with hope and hilarity

See it woven within night’s majesty

Alive within the winds travesty

See it prosper within natures weave

See it alive in the daughters of eve

See it within fire side darken dance

 Hear its breath in fire side’s rangy rants

Heard its presence in children’s glee

Hear of it upon an old mans knee

Feel it within a rusty key

Make yourself and the wind free

Then search for it across the sea

My parents, like many of the people in our village, were descendants from those that had come out from the Old World, escaping a past, or creating a future and they had risked all to see a new dream realized. And while they had arrived with all their New World optimism, they retained their belief in the pioneering spirit and a modern fanaticism, many also retained many of their Old World superstitions and the spiritual dogmas of their past. For this reason this new land, particularly its woods and mountains, became home to their beliefs and to an extent these old ideas prospered in the dark vales and high crags of this lonely country.

The hardships of the land combined with the new belief that you must conquer or be conquered began to take over these old ideals. The forests were no longer home to troll and fairy, but to timber that could be cut and crafted into all the commodities needed by the new market.

The old of course retreated into their old beliefs finding solace and comfort in the retelling of folklore and legend that brought a small amount of familiarity to the land, and through the continual retelling of stories they forged a link between the old ways and the new and they tried to install in their grandchildren a similar sense of these values.

In the younger generations things were different however. Perhaps in their old country they had become removed from the folklore that was prevalent there, as there lives became immersed and then drowned in this modern age, or perhaps they found a greater and more fulfilling link with the new world and its new values of growth and surplus.

Perhaps it was purely the hardships and the alienation, the need to be accepted and integrated into this new culture that took them from their old values, the reason they slowly began to lose the link with their ancestral heritage and the spiritual relationship they hand once shared with forest and glen.

Most of the town folk were of this type, though many that existed on the borders of town up high in the areas that seemed to touch the sky were of the other type. From them, when they occasionally came into town or if you took the high pass to visit them, you could hear of strange and interesting things, as these folk opened their doors to all who had a care to listen.

For the majority of people though, who lived in this area, their lives did not extend past the boundary of their furthest field or the back of their most distant sheep and the limits of their unconscious imagination which occasionally gave them brief glimpses of another world, a world swept aside by the morning tabloids sprawled uneasily across their laps, or a dinner plate in the rays of a sun that was unable to illuminate the dim recesses of their ancestral mind.

However I cannot fault these people, they were but products of the capitalist materialistic society that had arisen like a greedy weed from the flowerbeds of creation, eager to capture all the light, to take all the water unto itself and to sink its rapacious roots into the heart of the earth, to make us give up all that made us spiritual creatures.

Of course I was part and parcel of this generation, no matter how I wished it might otherwise be.

Was I as them though? Purely a spirit of this cynical age? A spoilt child with eyes only for the next toy? A child whose happiness was found in the smell of plastic and the crunch of wrapping paper? Perhaps I was, though what child could fail to find delight in these trivialities? I knew however that while I held some gross fascination for these things I had always been very much a child of the mountains, happy amidst the sunshine that I would flee too as I tripped over cast aside toys in the summer’s sun.

I can still remember vividly a day when the snow fell and buried my matchbox cars and they were never seen again and for this memory I feel not a hint of remorse, just some dim memory of mystery.

When I revisit these memories it is more often as not a memory of some strange feeling, like those spent at the seaside when ones skin is made stiff with the seas salt and the sun has fallen to just a glow on the distant horizon though its warmth still fills the air and a strange liquid contentment seems to fill up ones skin.

It was always these primitive experiences that stayed with me when everything else that was new became old and all that was old stayed that way.

Now I must go into more detail about these half truths and half lies, so for a time we will travel together back into my childhood, where in a time, long ago, the first stories were given birth.

As a child I had, like any other child, been entertained by stories. Horribly frightening ones that seemed so hopelessly implausible in later years, but seemed so horribly real to a small child. Especially one who had to make their way back to a cold dark bedroom alone, on a cold winter’s eve.

I had heard, ran from and dismissed all the common ones, the Bunyip and so forth, but there was one that was not so easily dismissed, this one that was called the ‘West Wind’.

Perhaps it was the cautious, trepidation in which the tale was told, the uncertain wariness in the eyes of others in the room, the slight catch you could hear in the speaker’s voice and the way the silence and then the wind from outside seemed to rise in the stories wake. I know not, but I can tell you that these stories were truly frightening, though when I say frightening I do not mean in the common sense of the word, they were well, you know, eerie.

The strange thing is I never heard the end of one of them, not once in my whole childhood, when we all gathered around the fire for all the gathering around the fire frivolities, not once did one of these stories end and it was never as though it was bedtime, for on these nights I was often liable to see the dawn. All I remember is the story tellers voice sort of fading out and the unease growing in the room and then everyone making a somewhat quick departure, whilst giving looks of “why go and tell that one” to the story teller who seemed to look mildly guilty and in even more of a hurry to flee from the story of his own creation.

Later in the night or the early light of morning I remember finding myself either still in front of the fire, where I was often allowed to sleep, watching the dying of the coals in the predawn stillness, or in my own bed, two doors down on the left, snug amidst down quilts and sheepskin rugs. It was in these places, alone, unto my thoughts that I would ponder the West Wind and where the West Wind blows.

I also remember dreams where I would awake in the early hours of cold mornings with a cry like a burst of nightmare air from my lungs and the certainty that my parents were not in their room, in fact not in the house and not in the world, but trapped somewhere in the dreamworld that no longer existed and had died as soon as I had open my eyes. I remember that feeling of utter emptiness and then the hope and finally the certainty that they were still alive and in the house as they should be and I had not been unconsciously responsible for their disappearance.

In later years I heard less of these stories, having no siblings and being a shy and somewhat lonely child I had no other friends in which to keep up the memory of these early days. Though now I wonder.

I remember now, my mind drifting back through the years like a questing spirit, flittering past the monotonous like a shy butterfly only to alight gently on the memory of a sunlit field. I remember now little remarks and small curses.

Quite vividly an old memory that I thought was forgotten springs back to me, an image of my mother in the early morning autumn sun when the fields were thick with sparkling frost and the air was as sharp as the cold and her silhouette was against the forest and the distant mountains, as she shook her fist and cursed the West Wind.

She turned as though sensing me there, a witness to her superstitious blasphemies. She wore a look of fear and guilt at being caught and then she hurried me away in a flurry of soft material and flowing hair as though an angel had descended from heaven and picked me up and delivered me from danger.

I remember following her anxious gaze westwards, towards the mountains and wondering what could possible be there?   

Later that day I noticed that her treasured doll, the one from her childhood was not in its accustomed place. No longer were those bright unearthly eyes staring back at me, no longer were its frozen smile and painted lips grinning at me.

I remembered the swift jerky motion of the draperies in the breeze from an opened window and then I was hurling past pale glimpses of frozen starlight and the shadowed blackness of the night. I remember tripping and crawling and my door slamming shut not with the puny strength of my infantile arms but with the breeze that had grown loud and ominous in the narrow confines of the house.

I wondered now, how could a breeze that mighty in the narrow confines of the hallway have the strength to pick up that doll, as though it were a living and breathing being and taken it from me into the night.

I would imagine it swimming on the night wind to fly out the window and over fields and meadows, its eyes, unbelievably, filled with life, its limbs twisting and turning with the aerial currents. I imagined it coming to rest somewhere in the lonely expanse of the mountains, its eyes dimming over, I imagined the years, the moss and trees growing up thick around it and until it was no more.

I thought of my parents and I thought no more.

The West Wind, it was but a legend, a myth, though it occupied my mind and my thoughts and in the coming months I would gaze west over the mountains longing for its cool touch upon my face, needing its caressing touch upon my hair, hoping for its secrets whispered upon my ear.

Though in all that time it never came, the land seemed to be caught in some doldrums, as though it had expanded all its energies and the wind had retreated into some dark cavern far from the eyes of man in order to grow strong again.

For years I heard not a whisper of the wind, and the telling of its story also seemed to have grown similarly silent in the minds of the chosen few who had acknowledged it. As the months stretched to years I came to doubt its existence.

Life went on in the valley, the seasons turned in their cyclic proximity and the earth was made old and then new in the seasons wake. During moments of nostalgic revere I would often look westward trying vainly to catch that diaphanous flavour, that discrete sweetness and musky muskiness though to no avail and the West Wind soon became but a legend again, another blown out, over proportioned, unjust reality of a childhood memory.

It was years later that my mind caught onto a strange fragrance, a parcel of air that seemed to share only the gross physical properties of normal air and instead in its core it possessed a quality that made it quite distinct from everyday air.

At the time I did not think of the West Wind, I thought perhaps of a delicious fragrance, some sweet aroma that foretold the discovery of an exotic sweet, or a favourite fruit and I followed this fragrance from its place by the back door out over the veranda and high into the top meadow.

I lost it briefly upon a patch of damp grass and the striking sense of loss that this event brought still seems to be at the core of this memory, as does the relief when I discovered it again. I remember following this fragrance as though blind into a shadowed valley that bisected the fields like an untidy patch of hair bisects a deep and sensuous cleft of hidden anatomy.

I fell into the valley with the weak kneed will of one whose hunger strives for some unearthly satiation. I found every stick or protrusion a barrier that sought to sap the corporal energy that the mind relied upon for motion. I stumbled through every cobweb and desperately tried to remove the stickiness from my face, it felt as though it were a race.

Finally I found the waters edge, or as it was in those deep autumn days the trickle of aqua vitae amongst the moss. It was here undoubtedly that the fragrance was stronger, the valley bottom virtually oozed an ether like substance and I at once ascended the slope my feet cumbersome and uncaring amongst the rocks and roots, quickly becoming wet and heavy with the rivers autumn fortitude.

Making my way quickly at first, the rocks were little more than small stumbling hindrances, their clatter music to my motion as I made my way over and through them and then slower as my body became sapped of the energy it needed to move.

I moved deeper and higher into the valley, as the light dissipated to fantastic shafts that seemed 3 dimensional amidst the trees and it was as though the sunlight possessed a strange power of discrimination so that it would only lend its light to that which would best suit its illumination and as a result the world was made impossibly mysterious under its care.

Eventually the small pebbles giving way to boulders and thick clumps of ferns, the waters captured momentarily amidst large rock pools, dark and mysterious, only to be suddenly let loose again down narrow steep ways. I realised then that walking blindly as I had been would not do as my trousers had become wet and thick with the forest floor and my shins seemed to be bloody and bruised under the clinging wetness of my trousers and my feet wet and heavy within their shoes.

Slowing down I pulled myself precariously up on some wet clammy boulders that had been placed there in earlier days by a river that must have possessed biblical proportions. The fragrance was still strong and the wind still warm, as I drank it in to taste it upon my lips and to feel it upon my tongue.

Moving deeper, the light became even more discriminate and the boulders that felt its warm touch were made to feel even more blessed, as did I when I felt it warm upon my brow. I felt as though the power of this scent must surely begin to toss the very trees with its presence, though I also remember it being deathly silent as though this spirit breeze could not touch the lands corporal body.  

Exhaustion swamped me and finally stopped me, as I paused to take note of my dim surroundings, to behold the place that my unconsciousness had delivered me too.

It was only when I had ceased motion that I noticed some movement not far from where I had come, perhaps over the next rise and with only a moment’s hesitation and a passing glance at the falling sun I followed the first physical manifestation of this spirit breeze and I knew whether it be bird or beast I would behold it.

Rising above the last obstruction I was swamped in an instant with the smell that I had been seeking and it seemed, though I can not truly explain how, that the leaves of the trees moved as though dancing in this breeze which seemed so soft as to not lift a feather, and the light too seemed to be a part of this, like a marriage between elements.

At its centre, as though placed with such ceremony stood a girl, or woman, I know not which, suffice to say that she answered my every urge. She was in such a graceful and natural pose that I forgot the breeze at once even though it was thick upon my brain and full upon my face and stood instead dumbfounded at this sight.

Unaware of me, ignorant of me, or perhaps tempting me, she dipped her head back further allowing the water to cascade deeper down upon her body that offered itself so naturally to the waters caress and I in my stupor, in some fixed emotion that had assailed me like no other, let out an almost inaudible grown as though all the unconceived emotion of my childlike body had found their home.

Upon hearing me, or sensing some disturbance in the ether that separated us, turned her eyes towards this intruder within her clandestine garden and beheld me.

I was the one who had come, beckoned by her and her breeze and with a smile, knowing and timid at the same time she raised her hands gracefully above her head, letting her dark hair at once greet the smooth contours of her back.

She then turned like a dancer upon the spot so that she had her back to me, her eyes went away from me and I, in my childish sensuality, fell to my hands and knees and on raising my eyes, as though to behold some primitive ritual as old as the earth itself, saw her arms fall to her side and without a sound she seemed to sink into the landscape and the breeze seemed to follow her until there was no sign of her, or the breezes presence.

I sat pale, wet, dumfounded and confused though with some vestige memory of her, that shook my heart and caressed my reason to a point where it felt like some sort of unfair treason.

I made it back that evening far into twilight. I travelled, searching for the lights that signalled my home, while all the time searching with my eyes the lands around me for a glimpse of her, while I tasted the air for her presence. I could not forget her, whether it has been my imagination or a hallucination, she had been there as real as I.  

Later that night, warm and secure amidst the leftover remnants of a forgotten childhood, tucked into blankets that were now as comforting as they were confining I thought of her as I have thought of no other since.

I must now recall briefly and with some trepidation another such story that I wish I could say had to be drawn from the deepest darkest recesses of a childhood memory and did not as it did hover like some foul blight across the visage, a shadow that skitters amongst shadows when the eyes are turned away.

This memory, or vision, is one that I try to forget though it seems to do all it can to become unforgettable. It occurred perhaps in my twelfth year, a year when one is old enough to shed the many dogmas that makes childhood such a mysterious and magical place and a time when the adult world of rationality and responsibility seeks to cast the spirit into a whole new bag of dilemmas that do not seem fit for a young healthy soul.

This time, at least for a chosen few, allows the mind to entwine these opposing forces, imagination against stagnation, into a whole that can be greater than the some of its parts and if the soul is a worthy and strong one, as I believe mine was, they would forever remain in this happy equilibrium forever.

The vision occurred one summer afternoon while dozing lightly by a sun drenched window, the mind full of lazy liquid thoughts that oozed like melted caramel, while the body stayed suspended and stretched in the upmost comfort between sleep and wakefulness, much like a well read book lays stretched back upon its spine. Heaven is this semi delirious state where the trivialities of the world fade away and the sun seems as if it were the light from God. So it was within this semiconscious, wholly appealing state that I witnessed my vision.

The world seemed at once strangely translucent, as though the walls were made of mist that parted in the rays of the falling sun, the world seemed more vivid but also horribly clouded and through this strange distortion of the common place my vision came.

I saw figures amidst a landscape like none I had ever seen, a strange alien place of green grass and sea cliffs rearing high over the smooth expanse of the ocean whilst in the background, though seemingly still within the centre, a great configuration of black buildings stood like a great city, dark black and majestic against a crimson sky.

The figures seemed so unique in all their many ways, each one its own identity, as though the figures personalities had shaped their physical appearance into a shape that best suited them, similar in a way that a rat by face is generally a rat by nature.

Even as I tried to take in the multitude of sights these people seemed to become aware of their watcher, their heads turning like row upon row of sunflowers moving with the sun, rising to behold some heavenly body that had revealed itself and in their eyes I saw such a pitiful desperate hope and an overwhelming despair that nausea gripped my body.

Then, as though drawn by some undeniable power, I beheld two figures standing slightly apart from the masses and facing away from me peering into the distance. Though I could not see their faces, these two figures I knew, purely by the way they stood, the shape of their shoulders and the toss of their hair in a light breeze and then as to herald the approach of something unseen lying just beyond the threshold of my sight or imagination a darkness seemed to gather.

The breeze died and all eyes turned from me to watch the approach of this unknown thing and falling likes rows of corn to the singing of a scythe the people fell and bowed their heads until the two faceless yet recognisable figures that were my parents were left standing.

This vision; “a shadow that skitters amongst shadows when the eyes are turned away”, came to me many a time in the years to come, on some normal day when all seemed prosperous and at peace in the world and when reaching perhaps for a portion of mince meat at the local deli, or passing through the country side on a bus, I would see one of these figures collecting their shopping, or mending a fence and I would freeze with the greatest of fear waiting for their heads to turn, but then the vision would be gone and there in its place the reality that everyone comes to expect.

So this is the extent of my experiences with the West Wind, or perhaps only with my own overactive imagination that cannot accept the world for what it is.

I can tell you that I have told no lies, or embellished any facts, what little truth that may have been distorted would only have been made by the unconscious exaggerations of a childhood mind and is this not the nature of a child’s mind?

My next statement however might disillusion the few readers who have willingly, though perhaps somewhat sceptically, stayed with me thus far.

I have a proposition; perhaps those things we see as a child are there, those towering cliffs that seem to fall forever into the sea, those trees that seemed to reach the sky, that shadow that seemed to be more than all other shadows and that girl that seemed to be Eve.

Perhaps it is only those sceptical reasonable years that take these experiences away, which cast those memories into a grown up mould that can be measured and explained.

Perhaps I was right all those years ago when I put my faith in the West Wind and perhaps the only way I can be right again, is to regain that childhood spirit     

Back to the Present

Accidental wonderings

Incidental ponderings

Will you give me the patience to forebear

Reasons cold clinical stare?

 Until I hope distantly to dare

To follow your lost souls there

Weep upon diaphanous splendor

Colour the sky with amber and magenta

Feel a breeze upon thy face

And dream the dream of another place

Whisper in words what you dare not say

Words that departs at the dawn of day

Colour the world with memories true 

 This is what you memories rue

For you are my dream and the night is spent

The seam between worlds has been rent

From the West Wind was this idea sent

Was it upon this wind that you went?

What was this house, this shell whose company I had to abide? This thinly walled structure whose walls could not hide the great consciousness of the universe. What were these doors if they could not be closed like great porticles on the unsound, unreasonable part of my mind that breathed and whimpered like a hollow monster through the long nights and over the longer days?

What were these things surrounding me but the skeletons of past accomplishments, past trivialities that bore no resemblance beyond the disappearance of their owners? This roof, did it really think it could hold up the weight of the sky, or stop the breath of the West Wind from finding me as deeply as I may crouch amidst blankets and pillows in the silence of the night.

No, it could do none of these things, and while I hated it, I pitied it also.

This structure had been a sanctuary for my parents, from all that is wrong and unreasonable in the world, a place of freedom and peace and the gentle acceptance of blood. I pitied it as I would pity the master who pities a small puppy grown up and independent, no longer waiting upon the master’s attention or his generosity.

I pitied also those lost creatures that came around, those that had lost their beloved ones and had tried to find some kind of solace in the company of their only son, and it was soon, perhaps too soon, that I barred my door against them. Not rudely I must say, but with excuses, promises and the ringing of a telephone in the early morning hours and the dim beep of an answering machine in the night.

I found excuses to be gone and where else was there to go but into the forest. It was here that I let the world flee by. I knew that it would not be long before I left this place, the halls of the house were all too foreign and the rooms had become strangers. My gaze would instead drift out the windows north, south, east and finally west.

I thought it was all over, my association with mankind had come to a short and unhappy end. I could not venture into society for fear of meeting some enquiring concerned soul who found solace in the muttering of empty words and the uttering of hollow sentences.

I could not cope with the touching concern in their eyes, the way their brows would nit up over the smallest worry and the look of haunted fear in their eyes as they pondered some out of place word torn from my unhappy soul that I had muttered low deliberately so they would not hear. Though still they had.

There was not a word that their sharp gossip ridden ears would miss and then finally as I muttered an excuse and left, always in my mind that look of blankness and incomprehension that told me everything that I needed to know about how things were with me and this world.

I would leave them mumbling their apologies and excuses, leave them feeling that they were the victim of some addle brained, grief ridden despot and that too well they should despise me and that I should despise myself.

Shunning the town as I did however, shunned myself in many ways, as though punishing what was left of my spirit I could cease to exist as a human and become an automation running on automatic.

I slept long into the days awakening in the evenings to twilight and the gentle bump of moths against the windows. Occasionally I would listen to music, or pick up a book, though neither of these old friends could comfort me.

It was about this time that I began wandering into the town, traversing silent streets and stopping at empty crossroads, gazing through the gaping windows of department stores and standing like a ragged angel, forlorn and dejected under street lights. A regular lunatic I was.

In this half life the world was softened by shadows so that what was hidden was often better hidden.

It was during these times when the world was asleep and all the activities of men had fled and been compressed into the hum of a single neon light decorating the boulevard that I would come out and know some measure of peace.

During those times I felt like that light, flickering with only a vestige of energy, just managing to illuminate the shadows at my periphery, just going on and then being flicked off by a callous unmerciful hand at the break of day.

Strange things would captivate me as I walked by, my own martyr of misery, small scenes of the common place; a swirl of autumn leaves picked up into the air in a sudden whirlwind of green and gold; a collapsible street sign left out hurrying with the wind behind it along the pavement as though it would have the audacity to turn the next corner and do a block to come back to where it started, grinning secretly as if to say to the shop owner if you could only guess where I had been while you were away, a sign that when read twenty times seemed to be saying the most bizarre of things, in a language that denied comprehension; the mixture of shadows and illumination on a shop face that transformed it into a type of archetype; and the sight of a single car crossing a lonely intersection towards an unknown destination.

These became the things that made my heart glad.

I soon found a great deal of unstable pleasure in the pursuit of windows, open and illuminated to the street in which the very occupants of the room could be seen to be moving too and fro.

Here they lived in their own little microcosm of mediocrity and madness and to watch humanity like this, I thought I had found the sight of God, omnificent and omnipresent, I was as he, gazing from a secluded corner as the smell of roast chicken inundated the air.

These little families, complete with two parents and two kids were indeed the epitome of stability, how they relied on and comforted each other through the day’s trivialities and small sorrows, the way that so much that was mundane and mediocre seemed to find some infinite spark of great significance between them.

This seemed especially so when it was breathed into the air by a loved one, only for it to be caressed and cared for and sent back all sparkling and new, resolved and made clear, clean and shiny and without fear.

Cruelly I imagined what it would be like if I were to invade this little sanctuary with the ominous fury of the West Wind, what if I were to take that small child from its seat and do three laps of the room before rushing out the door like some wild elemental, and what if that child was never to be seen again, would things ever be the same?

Even though the smell of roast chicken still filled the air and the sound of a chair being scraped back on its legs could be heard, would that family ever be the same again?

It was on one of these nights, when the desolation of my soul wept for the soothing darkness of obscurity, when the only music could be that of my own foot falls on hard pavement and the only light that of the moon, my brother, and a street light glowing forever, even as its light advanced towards my vision and consciousness and became legion through tear glazed eyes, that I found the door.

This was not a wholly remarkable door, perhaps not even a door that merits a backward glance, or a small nod in admiration, but one that held and captured my attention none the less.

This door was weather stained red, with a brass knocker shaped into an effigy of a head, adorned with all manner of floral embellishments and tarnished green and grey with lack of use.

The door step, the small lintel that one first places his foot upon and takes that first decisive step to enter was well used, as though a legion of small feet had entered the premises with out the imparity to knock and had disappeared into the interior as though they had never been.

Covered by a small foyer that carried the same pitch as the roof, the door gave an outwards appearance that the building was of a place of worship and solemnity, a place where one could imagine oneself taking momentary shelter while securing one last backwards glance into the eyes of a rising storm, or shaking ones coat to free itself from a sheen of glistening rain jewels, while all the while imagining the snug interior within, as the reality of the out became a comforting memory in the back of ones mind.

I stood there peering hesitantly between the spreading arms of a pair of silver birches that flanked the door. They were like solemn sentries or welcoming friends depending on the intentions the observer.

I stood there as though afraid to be captured by a pair of eyes peering dimly from the confines of the cluttered shutters that flanked the door. All this time I stood there dejected, rejected, as though I were waiting for a sign, a signal to take that knocker in the palm of my hand, to feel its metallic coldness against the warmth of my skin, to feel its solemn sound reverberate through the house and myself, feel that shudder of slight unease, that slight giddiness that comes when you have made a decision that you can never return from.

I also imagined barging my way in, impudently strolling through the door, throwing it wide and with a waltz striving through the interior like a wind to disappear quickly and secretively out the back door, in sheer disregard to the places solemn secrecy, just as some caprices insult to the sneaky secretive owner who in all his secret thoughts could not conceive of such a thing happening!

But I did neither of these, because as much as my heart would have liked to I could not face the disappointment of this house being empty, or worse still, occupied by someone who would neither wish for, nor tolerate my presence. For me there could have been nothing worse.

I could not face the owner’s hard stoic gaze as their eyes rose to my own as though to discern my intention from the light in my eyes and then to dismiss all my pale fancies of finding the answers and revelations with a muffled ‘no’ the most uncompromising, selfish word in the human language and for these reasons I left the door and all its secrets and unprovided revelations, at least, I told myself, for this night.  

I came back, that is to say I found myself again, in this neighbourhood with the sound of the river not far away. It accompanied all the activities of day and night, autumn and spring and I could smell of the wisteria rising from the balconies so sweet and pungent and reminiscent.

The night previously I had dreamed a dream in which I had opened this door and beyond its exterior of Pythagorean angles and the physical properties of wood and stone, based on the properties of the atom and molecular bonds, of the weak and strong nuclear forces, I was met with the material of primeval creation, a blazing enigma of colour and sound and as the last of the dream faded out I fell forward into this maelstrom as if to be born again.

So here I was, once again resuming my familiar pose of dejected neck, slumped shoulders and shuffling feet, as though to balance a weight that was continually shifting, as though to settle a need that was ever changing and there was the door, as solemn and as secretive as it had ever been, so impudent in its steadfastness that a momentary anger threatened to send me and my unwilling fists against its pride in a battery of flawing fists and impotent knuckles, and yet I cooled this rage, this unbecoming undignified violence and stared as though to will this door from its hinges, to make it open with the shame that my gaze bestowed upon it.

I turned my back and with the featureless expanse of my back and shoulders tried to trick it into opening, I would turn quickly as though to catch it in the opening act, however I was always met with its weather stained red that seemed only a reflection of my dying passion.

I left, alas in shame, not even rewarded so it seemed with the faint movement of a hand moving aside a blind to view the departure of this desperate would be intruder. I left for home, the way familiar and I imagined myself and all of the times I had walked this way super imposed upon each other time and time again so that here there was a child and here a man and I imagined some time in the future an old man stooped with age and woe making again this hopeful pilgrimage to the house with the weathered red door.

Later that night my sleep was tormented again by the house with the weathered red door and I witnessed, as though from afar, legions of dwarfs shuffling through the place where the door stood to disappear into the darkness beyond. So many seemed to make up this solemn procession that I believed that the house must surely burst with the numbers, but yet they came, time and time again and I woke up in a cold sweat.

Every time I tried to close my eyes, there they were. Those little people, all who had the will to go where I would could not.

Morning came with all the joy of a sleepless night, that while heralding the end of one nocturnal dilemma only succeeds at heralding a new one. One of sleep heavy mind and lethargic dilemmas and the will to do no more than sit and contemplate and what more was there to contemplate, but of course a weathered red door!

My mind moved from the door to the owner of the door, who could this sneaky secretive individual be who invited so many dwarfs for dinner so that the house was surely fit to burst. Who could this obviously eccentric, half mad creature be, if he hides the very maelstrom of creation behind his walls and why does he not even offer the slight courtesy of lifting his blinds to see who stands so rudely before his door with thoughts of rushing at it with fists and knuckles blazing?

Obviously some decrepit social outcast, I thought, one who had shunned society before society could shun him, a man with unnatural habits that ran contrary to the values of others, no doubt he preferred his own company and the company of cats to those of the bustling, boisterous majority, he probably had had his fill of them all, their constant need for attention, their small dreams and insignificant woes, he probably suffered from some gross abnormality excluded him from the main and no doubt he shared some unnatural relationship with his red weathered door and the strange effigy that surmounted it.

He had probably been a great man, brought high in the world through art or misadventure and then brought low by his own internal suffering, a suffering that his conscious could not breach, nor expose to others, and here he lived biding his time and living his days within his head and the secret knowledge that it contained, creating a world that neither was, nor were inside or outside of his unconsciousness.

Well, I certainly pitied him, this lonesome lazar and his misfit ways and no more would I cower before his weathered door, no longer would I be afraid that he might answer, or afraid that he might not.

The Weathered Red Door

Grieve for your need as dusk leaves

Heed its image within fallen leaves 

And wreath thy fallen need freed

In tears that prosper a golden seed

Tell it to a man cragged and grey

 Also to the black cat named Le fey

Let them close their red bared way

Upon you and the day

 Then pray for the wind

Pray

The aesthetic ascetic

That evening I began my nocturnal sojourn with the firm decision that my feet would not tread the way of the weathered red door, but instead as I was prone to do to, allowed my feet their normal whimsical ways to go thither and whither as they so pleased.

I had gone maybe three blocks upon the outskirts of the town, enjoying those familiar sights that I am warrant to enjoy. Things like the gardens surmounted at its entrance with two great lions, the lawns as green as Eden in the twilight and the delightful seats that I was at liberty to look upon even though I never sat upon, for on these walks vertical was the posture that I would most admire and motion is what I strived for.

Suffice to say at their first opportunity my feet betrayed me, those two downtrodden appendages that appear from the bottoms of ones trousers, as far from the noble head as anything can be and therefore as the hands are also at liberty to do, to go their own way irrespective of the minds concerns.

These two downtrodden limbs, safe and secure as they were in a casing of leather and sole, and done up with the minds care and attention, sought betrayal at their first opportunity and when the mind could have said ‘No, this is quite enough.’ it instead just went along for the ride, totally secure and certain that it held no responsibility for the feets actions.

At first it was the intersection with the great ring of stone around it and the pretty trees in the middle, then a trip to the lamp post and before long, there it was the weathered red door.

While the feet had insisted on hurrying past just for a quick peek (it was never in their interests to dawdle) the mind now wanted to linger to take in all the details, to check the little mailbox for mail, to peer into the windows looking for light, to sharpen the ears for sound.

Did the mind receive any recipience for its betrayal, or the feet any punishment for its waywardness? In many regards they both got what was due, for emerging from this dwelling was a sound from the realm of arcadia, a sound wrapped ever so preciously in the smell of dried grass and clipped clover, a sound that mourned and made majestic cow turds baked dry in the sun and precarious paled picket fences overgrown with lichen, a sound that called to pasture and called a child home and said ‘Yes’ to a smile and ‘No’ to a frown.

The feet, ashamed and tired as they were, found new life in the melodies wake and the head that was full of concerns found solitude and within this place disappointments and broken promises were made new and fresh like the dawn that was now beginning its ascent, as though it too found a home within the melody.

I raised my head, cocked unconsciously so as not to miss a note and the melody rose to a pitch and tore around me. It seemed to lift the dust from the streets with its power as it swept away the claustrophobic aromas of gasoline and garbage amongst the turbulent emotions and freedom of an ecstasy that had been absent for so very long.

When the leaves of nearby gardens joined into this aerial dance and flickered green and gold before my gaze and when my arms rose to either side in worship and acceptance, I sensed the West Wind.

I sensed it as though it were being forced through the valves and channels of some bizarre instrument, as though it was held and sustained in a pair of billowing bovine cheeks and let loose in a flow like a river through open banks and swift flowing channels, as though the musician had a great belly full of this wind, even as though the whole of the West Wind was contained in this belly.

Through this instrument the West Wind was given its freedom just as it had been on that fateful day of the disappearance and I gazed in wonder at this house from where it came.

The house was as it always appeared, slinking silently and soulfully between its neighbours as though it bore no consequence to this sound, as though it were merely an unconscious channel for the sounds passage and all was as it had always been, except of course for this half ecstatic, half infuriating sound.

What was I to do? Perhaps go at it as I had always planned to do with fist and knuckle flying, or perhaps knock and ask politely if indeed that was the West Wind contained in that belly and if so perhaps my parents are in there also? Or I could peer through the window like some sneaky wretch who lacks the courage of his convictions, desperately squinting with the eyes, as though within these half closed apertures I might make out the bare silhouette of a shadow as I desperately tried to identify the source of this miraculous sound.

Then, when I felt I might be driven mad with the ecstasy, with my own frustrated fury, when all manner of thoughts and deeds found their unhappy home within my head, everything became calm so that even my heart had settled in an instant to its normal beat and in this instance I simply walked up to the door and knocked.

The music stopped at once and the dust and gasoline and garbage and waste and anxiety and stress came in claustrophobic return. The leaves settled back into their place as though to deny to me that they had ever actually moved, the place, the whole earth seemed deserted and the faint echoes of my knock seemed to echo off into nowhere.

I waited and I waited some more, and it seemed an age until I heard the dull thud of footsteps as though they were crossing some immeasurable distance of time and space, a place where my knock had gone too and had never returned from. And before I knew it the door was open with the abruptness that contradicted the slowness of step.

Before me, between the gap left by the door and its frame I could at first see very little, though as my eyes adjusted I could make out a beard and between the beard a pair of two soft gentle eyes that at this moment seemed mildly put out and I at once reconsidered my intrusion.

Then I realised that I knew this man and that he knew me and I felt as though I had peered into the future and he looked at me from the past and then the feeling was gone and the eyes just became eyes, soft and gentle and now not so much put out.

He spoke to me at once and the voice seemed to rise up from some cavernous depth, carrying the full force of the West Wind with it and I knew at once that he was the player of that instrument.

His voice spoke words that were lost to my conscious mind and seemed to flow past it in the way that a rock in a river splits the flow of water around it, his words seemed in some alien tongue, a strange mix of every earthly language and of none and while the meaning escaped me the beckoning of his large gnarled hand and the warmth in his eyes did not and I followed him in reverent silence into the gloom.

I first saw a long hallway, dancing with the shadows thrown from his broad back and outlining his tangled hair against the walls like the tufts of dry grass protruding around the edge of a bald meadow.

His steps seemed at once slow and short, but gave no sign of the encroaching feebleness and hesitation of old age, if anything a vestige of old strength could be discerned and as I walked behind him I was ready to crawl upon these shoulders to huddle within the shadow of his great head for if  he were to take off and leave me within this darkness I believed I would have been lost, I realised at once that these quaint shuffles could at any time become blistering strides, covering the ground as the land swept by.

His back only attested to this impression while although slightly hunched like that of a hematic scholar it still seemed strong with the vigour of youth and at once I feared for myself and the distant ceiling for if he were to straighten up both seemed as though they would have been in peril.

His shoulders seemed still strong with vigour and life and I could imagine at once a great pack slung over them as though it were slung over a great mountain. I imagined myself grasping them with my own bony feebleness as we swept together into the darkness.

The hallway was dark and not a glimmer of unnatural light could be seen, by this I mean electric light, instead the place was given the soft luminescence of candles which cast, as you know, as much of shadow as they cast of light and like this we made our way, as if on a pilgrimage, as though this place we were travelling to was deep within the earth, as though we travelled to the place where the West Wind was born.

The hall, after what seemed like eons, came to a spacious living room, or better, a living room that would have been spacious if it were not filled from floor to ceiling with everything imaginable, like the basement of a great museum, or a time capsule dug up from the past.

The majority of clutter seemed to be books, their spines flittering somewhat secretively, their titles hidden in dust, broken gilding and shadow. The rest was a disorderly amalgamation of the useful and the useless, from a thousand used tooth brushes, to a disorderly pile of screwdrivers that could undo any screw.

The walls were too much to comprehend in a single glance, perhaps in a single life time, for each shelf seemed to contain another and another and another until the eyes soon dimmed over in defeat.

I could see none of the dwarfs that I had conjured in my visions, though I could easily imagine them peering from beneath tables or nestled amongst shadows, all the time peering aloft at this over sized intruder who had to resort to a knocker to be allowed in. I could imagine them muttering together at the sheer audacity of this big foot who had come stomping down the hallway. I could well imagine their little shoulders turned from me and huddled together in secretive indignation rising and falling with their scaled down mutters and curses, their big noses even bigger at the insult of my company.

I could see nothing of the instrument either, the one that had produced that weird and wonderful noise and I had not the heart to enquire, especially in light of how quickly the music had stopped when I had knocked.

He stood amid his kingdom of the past, his shrine to the timid desperation of the present that cowered on his doorstep and was never let in. Here he stood the sovereign and lord over a past that he alone understood.

He was surrounded by the dim light and the stumps of a thousand dying candles in the dust from a thousand bygone journeys, when electricity was rampant he abstained, where the intrusion of every modern convenience could be shunned he seemed to have done so and here he sat, as the world passed by and his mind was given the grace to travel like a spirit into the past and the subconscious until he had discovered the secret of both.

He fell into the armchair that seemed so eager to accept his great frame and beckoned me to accept its twin that sat opposite and with the glow of a healthy but slowly dying fire between us we came eye to eye.

His expression had lost all the pensiveness that had marred his expression as we stared at each other through the narrow partition of his doorway and it was as though once a guest had made his way through this sacred portal then he was at once treated in a regard that was contrary to the outside world.

We sat in silence like this, the fire warming our knees equally, the candles illuminating our countenances to the same degree and also lending each of us the same degree of secrecy. We stared equally, yet not invasively at each other as the fire flickered like the quiet turmoil of all our unanswered questions and the answers that would hopefully make our heads nod together in agreement and smile quiet knowing smiles.

He was first to speak and his voice was as it was before, arising as if from some great depths, swirling with some enchantment that seemed to sweep the dust from the shelfs and to make everything new.

“Welcome my guest, for I have few.”

I sat there unable to speak, for this revelation seemed to carry with it some undeniable sadness, as though this king had sat on his lonely throne for so long, strong and secure until a single man had came knocking at his weathered red door and brought a light to his kingdom that he had thought forgotten.

I responded with all the solemnity of the occasion, that I was honoured to be the first for so long, or something as such. After this it was as though there was no need for words, and what spoken would be less than the silence.

It was in this small pause that I took to studying the room and without seeming to appear intrusive I let my eyes wander its borders taking in and not quite accepting all that I saw and he, as though giving me a pardon for my intrusion, sank deeper into the confines of his great chair.

I noticed movement within the room of stillness and a cat, as black as the dead coals that surrounded the heat of the fire and on sight I knew his name to be ‘Le Fey’. He came at once to my leg and with the impassionate intimacy and the delicacy of down, I felt his flank soft and warm and made for the purpose of patting and he leapt then across the expanse of the fire place to alight on his companions lap (for cats never have owners) and regarded me with the same curious gaze as the man whose name I still did not know.

I decided then that it was time to speak, the illicit gaze of this feline and its companion now compelled me.

“I have come about the West Wind” I said, and it seemed at once both silly and foolish, but he and I believe his cat, smiled knowingly as though there would be no other reason that I would be here.

With this revelation and the quiet acceptance of a stranger and a cat I poured forth like a torrent all that had occurred, from the disappearance, to my revelations concerning this malevolent force.

At first what I said made sense, I could trace a thread of reason and truth against the turmoil of all that had happened, but then after a while when my mind and jaw reeled from the desperation of this outpouring, when at last my voice had become hoarse within its throat and my eyes had begun their desperate search for ceiling, window or door I became aware of the absurdity of all that I said, and it was only then I realised the true extent of the psychosis that the West Wind had attributed me with.

As the last of my sentences petered out and was lost in the candle light I lowered my head, as I had been unconsciously addressing the ceiling, as though revealing the vulnerability of my throat I could expose the vulnerability of my soul. Our eyes met for the second time that night and I saw them alight with a fire that mirrored the same passion that had been within my soul.

I saw myself and all my revelations stoking this quiet fire that blazed in his eyes and in his soul and I wished desperately to feel his breath upon my brow, full of all the secrets both audible and sublime that the West Wind carried and though I had not asked a specific question he answered to me as such.

“You seek answers my young friend in strange places, but then the answers that you seek are also very strange, perhaps the strangest answers that man has ever sought. You come to me young, as young as I once was when I sought similar answers and you are as I was then, filled with confusion with the great discourse that is like a great conversation between what is and what one believes should be, and your poor soul is trapped in the middle of this great battlefield, this great tempest of forces.”

The old mad paused and lifted his head, looking straight into my soul, “I can give you no answers, your questions like the answers that I could give are as you have already realised, merely sounds that fill in the empty time and times passing. The answers you seek can never be found in this type of discourse and it would be truly foolish to believe that this were so.”

This was not what I expected from this man who seemed to treasure knowledge, who breathed the essence of the West Wind with each breath. And I told him accordingly.

“My parents. What of them? Where are they? The doll that was taken away, the other stories?”

“Your parents, who can say? Perhaps they have gone, dead like the others that have fallen in the mountains. And the doll, perhaps your mother got rid of it, perhaps even she, who had cherished its juvenile limbs that would never grow old finally could no longer stand those cold painted arbalester eyes that followed her every move, maybe she began to detest the expression within those eyes that never expressed the sadness she felt, maybe she began to find contempt within those limbs that remained young even as hers aged? Maybe this being, for all the care and consideration she bestowed upon it, could only answer with the same affirmative neutral nod of its creator’s compliance the questions that she sought within its ageless eyes, I do not know.”

“But what of the West Wind?” I shouted with one last cry of desperation, “I can sense it in your breath, I can feel it like a nurturing breeze upon my brow, what of it God damn it.”

The cat seemed to awake with a start, as though to admonish my disregard for the quietness and in the wake of my great exclamation the room fell silent.

It seemed as though the layers upon layers of dust that coated everything in the room settled more comfortably within its place and the fire that had previously burnt with a light that offered some hope of heat now died to a feeble smattering of vacant coals within the hearth.

The candles wherever they stood seemed to give one last flicker as though each exhaled its own little breath of indignation, and the cat raised its eyes to admonish with the twin moons of its eyes this desperate intruder who had been let in despite all the silent protests of its flickering tail.

For a moment the passion died in the mans eyes and he seemed to be on the verge of a great sigh that would expel for all time the last breath of the West Wind and then he spoke and from a great distance his voice came.

“The West Wind is indeed another story and perhaps the same, the West Wind by your name I know little, except that dwelling beneath this world, the practical and the perishable, lies a force that swells at times and dies at others and is brought alive by the subconscious needs of the imagination, not an act on this earth can be achieved with out its presence and those very great acts often need it in such abundance that it is sucked from the world for a time and human kind collapses into its automated existence until these reserves rise up and blow again. Some time it is stoked by great minds and other times by foolish acts and it strives to put all the evil in the world to some kind of creative good, no matter its success or failure.”

And with this he rose up from his chair and the cat fled his lap with all the indignation that only cats can muster and he spread his arms to encompass the room.

“In these books, bound and created with the material of the earth, lies the material of the mind. In these books one can map the history of the West Wind and all its achievements. In these books one can see it fluttering through the ages, sometimes a roaring gale, other times a feeble zephyr, some times blowing from the west some times from the east, sometimes it will blow with full force on an individuals face sending them into madness, other times it will gently ruffle the fringe and the eyes beneath will see deeper than other eyes. Many times it will skip individuals and bestow its touch on a chosen few, other times whole masses will be swept up in its madness. Some will feel it but once in their short lives and be taken up as though in a whirlwind, they will either create or die trying,” he paused.

“The West Wind is an enigma and its end is omega, it fills the sails of the genius, sending their minds like swift crafts upon the waters of humanity, giving them the perception that lets them see so very far. It churns the deep underwater currents raising up from the great depths of their unconsciousness all the darkness of the creative consciousness and lets it loose upon the great world with all its passionate fire. Above all the West Wind does not distinguish between creation and destruction; to it they are one and the same. But we child, we are different to all of humanity and those great geniuses whose works are still fresh even as their bones are dust, we can see it, read it, perceive it, but can not take part in it, for us it is like a wind that carries a beautiful scent that all others can smell , but alas all we can do is feel the breeze and watch the effect of the scent on others faces, watch the joy they feel in its presence, but partake of it none.”

With that the man fell into his seat as though all that was the West Wind had departed him, all that had buoyed him and kept him afloat had gone and he was like some great empty vessel, soft and porous and without hope. His breath arising from his sunken chest feebly and erratically flaring his nostrils was without any hint of the West Wind and was just an average breath in an average world.

I leant forward, angry and in great expectation, this could not be all, there must be more than this, and I felt roaring out of me all the anger and indignation of the past month well up like some awful tide, some great dark tsunami, a breath from the very dark and deep unconsciousness of which he spoke.

My arms flew back and my head forward as though the very devil might emerge from my mouth and I could feel my eyes burning with such passion that I knew him to be wrong, this foolish man with all his books bound with conceitedness, failure and lies, his dark insular abode which he sought to hide in, a place to shut out the wind and all the mystery that it entailed, while he browsed alone and forgotten amidst the tombs and the history of something that was still alive and at work within the world.

He looked at me at last with a quaint expression, of hope and sadness. He rose and ushered me out with his hands, mumbling to me that he could help me no more, that he was of no use to one such as I and I was better of gone and him left in peace. I retraced my steps back the way I had come, the cat seeming to twist in and out of my legs as though to trip me up and his gaze as it was with such mercy and sadness that I could do nothing else but fall before him and his shadow and then I felt that door open, the weathered red door that had hid so many secrets and the faint draft of everyday air find its way into his home and against my back.

I stumbled forward as though in a dream and as the cat continued its wild erratic dance around my legs, I perceived, as my head was thrown back, a portrait at the end of his hall, a portrait gilded in delicate filigree and woven in delightful shadow, a portrait of the lady of my vision that day high in the valley and before I could speak, before I could say a word, before I could make my last question, my last exclamation known, I stumbled as though not from the step, but from the edge of some great cliff.

For a moment, within my closed eyes and as my arms flailed desperately around me I saw the city of my dream and the stairs that I teetered on became the cliffs of that dream and then before I knew it, I fell not into the sea nor was I swept up by the West Wind,  but instead with out ceremony, purely with the uncouth act of gravity, my head found the stone steps and as my sight dimmed into unhappy unconsciousness I saw the weathered red door close softly shut before me and the last of her framed surmounted naked form dim and then go out like the world that then died around me.

A letter, a manuscript in moonlit night

A house, a memory, set alight

Ash and shadows, a smoke filled room

A man sent, to revelation or doom

A phoenix, from the flames born 

A page, from a book torn

A child for its parents, will mourn

Though gone was he, with the dawn

I awoke at home, I had stumbled here perhaps in some half conscious daze and my skull was a blazing pain, my knuckles were stained equally with blood and paint and I realised that I must have rallied against the door with knuckles and fists flailing and instead of feeling some vain satisfaction, I could only feel the pain as the blood and paint ran together. My skull was also drenched with blood, matting my hair with its coppery fragrance and I felt such tiredness that I fell once again into sleep and hoped that I might awake no more.

I did awake, at noon later that day so my clock told me with its solemn little face and I rose to wash the blood from my head and hands. I gazed momentarily in passing at my reflection in the steam clouded mirror and there were the familiar features yes, and the eyes, even they looked quite sane, yes quite normal. I even pulled a face at myself just to prove that I still had the facility to do so. I pushed my hair back from my brow and let it hang lank and wet against my temples, yes I was still there despite the night and all its tribulations and I grinned for some unknown reason and my eyes, even they grinned as well.

I fell to thinking at once of the nights encounter, but gave up just as quickly, all it seemed to do was make my headache worse and I instead rose to get some fresh air, some normal air that’s only magic is in the way that it cools the brow and blows away sorrow and makes the trees move in such magical ways.

As I stood their contemplating the breeze and the magic that it wrought in the garden, my sadness perhaps found some kind of resolution to a degree that it had never known. I looked to my feet and beheld an envelope wet and damp with the night’s rain. I raised it to my face and beheld upon it my name written in an unknown hand and I tore into the envelope and pulled from its depths a page as though it had been ripped from the bindings of a book. On this weather worn page there was a poem written.

WHERE THE WEST WIND BLOWS

Nobody knows where the West Wind blows,

Nobody knows where the West Wind goes

Nobody goes where the West Wind blows,

Nobody knows what the West Wind knows

Some say its home is beyond meadow and glen

Over black mountains forests and fen

Across distant seas dark and deep

From another world does the West Wind Reap?

Some heard laughter and others a song

 And some a sound where nightmares belong

For others it whispers in unknown

 Tongues incantations, instigation’s and wrongs

For some it blows only worries and woes

 And in them a deathly doubt grows

And for others it blows into the nose

Stout hat, long fringe and petite panty hose

Others swear upon the air

 That the West Wind blows from the devils lair

And others stare into the air

 Their hair a tumble not a care

Gifts the wind has brought from others

 And returned to their intuitive mothers

 Treasures the wind has found in others

 And made of them happy lovers

A recipe it makes of the nicest of things

 The smell of a rose and the sound of a violin

Though at other times it dares to combine

 Sweat putrescence and a funny rhyme

Some have heard its distant call

 In the rustling leaves of autumn’s fall

Others still in winters approach

 In the silence of frost and a scuttling cockroach

  The old and used have felt it in the knees

 A chill born on a winter breeze

And the young bless their little heads

 Find their solitude in warm down beds

Few have heard it in winter’s demise

 As its sorrowful song fills the skies

In summer it is but a whisper of things

 A cool caress on exposed shins

 Some times a whisper upon the face

 The stirring of smoke from a stone fire place

Other times a roaring gale

 On which the oceans you could sail

Many times a distant roar

That makes one lock their door

Bolt the windows and close the shutters

 Knees a tremble the heart flutters

Strange are the things that the wind blew

 A canary a cat and an old worn shoe

A button from a coat in the mountain blows

 Returned the next day so the story goes

It has stolen words and sentences too

 From the mouths of people the narration flew

Sorry, I love you it particularly likes

 Only returning them on long cold nights

 Things taken returned soon

 A decade later the same afternoon

Broken watch the owner’s dismay

 Taken and fixed returned the next day

A litter of kittens thought drowned and dead

 Returned in a silk bag alive and well fed

 Though deep in the darkness and the blackness of night

Around a fire flittering and bright stories are told that speak of strange things

And even darker inklings

Of people gone and strange goings on

 Of a strange smell and a stranger song

Of another place neither mountain nor glen

 Not a place of angels, nor a place of men

Nor a place of demons and dark brethren

 Nor a figment of imagination in the minds of men

But a place so strange none can speak

 Though many have tried to take a peak

And others have tried certainly to sneak

 But only one has tried to distantly seek

But of what he saw will he speak?

Silence sorrow storm and solitude

I have seen enough of the world to know how it should be travelled

There’s Relief in Relief

The words were strangely reminiscent; they blazed from the page with a sound and warm familiarity. They seemed to shelter my soul within the spaces that separated words. My breath drawn and exhaled at the start and finish of each verse found a home for the words inside an expanded chest and a descending diaphragm and all together these words found a home within my heart.

The words themselves floated freely westwards in the twilight of that night as I uttered them with some kind of solemn dignity and as the words left me I felt my soul follow them. Into the wild woods and steep crags of that clandestine place they went, a friend to the mist that was slowly rising, a friend to the sun that was softly dying.

The origins of the poem were perhaps less certain than I hoped, less certain than I believed, for in the wild ramblings of my brain I at once contributed them to the old man behind his weathered red door and with only a little more unconscious prompting I had at once discerned that it was the cat that had delivered them to my door step.

As I had lain in a stupor, his little feet had passed the silent streets and empty crossroads, a shadow amongst shadows, the night amidst the night and here he had deposited his little parcel before me and with one last flick of his tail he had disappeared again into the darkness and the mist that is the home to all mysteries worth knowing.

As I looked even closer I could discern little holes in the parchment as though made by the pressure of tiny teeth and that was enough for me, the cat had indeed delivered it!

I stood for a moment contemplating the decision that I had already made, firm and resolute and not so strangely expectant and I shut that door for the last time.

Before the morning that house would be burnt to the ground and I would be off into the wilderness in search of the West Wind.

I needed little for my journey save what I could carry on my back and this ended up being a lot less than I first feared.

When one makes a journey from which he does not hope to return the small needs seem even smaller and one realises what one can do with out, so with no further ado and the setting of flame to fire I left silhouetted against the smoke of my effervescent dreams and the flames of my questing passion.

When I look back onto the beginning of the journey I still can not imagine the state of my mind, and I fear that I was not as calm and as lucid as my words would have you believe, though this memory is all that I have to rely upon.

I remember as though I was in a dream, travelling from room to room with a blazing torch in one hand and my pack in the other, the torch set close to anything that would welcome its touch and I watched as the fire jumped between the inflammable and the flammable.

I could describe to you in avid detail how in those moments I had watched my world burn around me, how all that I had deemed precious and sacred within the world was now the bread and butter of the flames hunger.

I could tell you of the strange preternatural shapes that seemed to dance within smoke and flame, how they seemed to dance hand in hand together in and out of my own consciousness, but these details, these transgressions upon all that is pain and all that is painful will help neither of us understand where we are going and where we came from so we will depart from them and speak no more of their happenings.

I still look back with some wonder at how easily my mind turned its own transparent needs into the opaque reality of this situation, as though my thoughts were the bow of a ship sailing silently through fog. Small details which I shall recount later on as they become relevant were there too and then when the need to escape became so great and it was I that was soon to fall amidst the flames like a phoenix being born from its own ashes I left and there was little more to it.   

Walks upon forest and fen

Forever or until the wind says when

For what he searches no one knows

Yet still he goes, still he goes

Is that his mother upon a perch?

Or was his father turned into a birch

It seems he can not tell

He has been bewitched by the West Winds spell

Corridors of magical earth

Gullies as deep as deep as rebirth

Forests in which soft light seeps

Into ancient arcadia it peeps

Silver spire of sun drenched height

Crags cry darkness within the dead of night

Icy ruin against beauties reign

Clear blue skies against human pain

 Am I the same or am I insane?

The first days were spent in familiar territory as I farewelled the last vestiges of civilisation, as I gathered my purpose closer around me like a comfortable coat and pressed onwards. Where would I go?

Westwards of course and though I had not felt the West Wind for some time I knew that I would and when it again did blow I would follow it with its touch upon my brow and its caress in my hair and though it might buffer and block me, though it might send me over the steepest peaks and into the deepest ravines I vowed that it would always have me for company.

Only those that have set off on a trip like this would know how it feels, and by trip I do not mean aeroplanes, baggage and hotel rooms, that is not travelling, that is standing still while the world revolves around you.

By travelling I mean a journey that more closely resembles the surrender when entering a dream state where your only baggage is all your hopes, dreams and failed expectations, where the scenery is purely an extension of your unconsciousness and where you will live and die by your own limitations.

I trod the valleys and peaks with this fortitude and it kept me company and resolute in my ways. I gazed at the rising of the sun and it was like looking into the fires of my rebirth, when descending into the deep gullies I felt I was falling into the sheltered recesses of some hidden comforting strength that dwelt at some impenetrable depth below reason and on the plateau’s I was exposed to all my fears and occasionally I felt them to be to great. Then the wind would take them and all that was left would be light enough to rise up into the sky and be blown hither and thither until I fell with out them back to the earth.

These days were the days that I deserved and had finally received, this place, unlike the dark streets of the town, did not confront me with lost opportunities and high expectations; no longer did my guilty greedy eyes peer back at me from the depths of department store windows. In this place the treasures were not hidden behind quarter inch safety glass, price tags and intruding sales assistants, instead all was free to gaze upon, though unlike the town it was yours if you wanted it, but as I was, it was as if it no longer needed me.

For those who have not been to my land, that is the one that surrounds me now, I must offer a brief description; green, grey and in the autumn, gold. These colours occur in a myriad of conjunctures, and though the shapes and textures change, these colours stay forever the same. They are woven about me and apparent upon morning sky and tree trunk alike and sometimes they are like hidden jewels, so apparently insignificant amongst other colours they would only present themselves too the enquiring eye.

Lichens and fungi, those dark deep creatures that are such a strange conjuncture between plant and animal, appear in a myriad of hues, from vivid reds to turquoises and aquamarine and these creatures with their shapes of trumpet and umbrella seem to be such a community as it might have existed upon another world and occasionally I bend my ears down to these trumpet like shapes and sometimes when I listen really closely I imagine that within their depths I can hear the West Wind.

I let this land and all its contradictions surround me as I wander, sometimes aimlessly, and at other times with such fortitude that I cursed every hindrance that blocked my passage, from the exposed tree root that tries to trip me, to the low branch that attempts to knock the hat from my head, not the smallest hindrance was spared my wrath and at times the land echoed with my curses though at other times it was deadly silent.

As I tell the story of these early days I wish that like in the fairytales of yore I could conveniently miss out the details of every meal, as though such details were below fairytale significance, except perhaps when they heralded a great feast in the halls of the mountain king, or consisted of such a humble affair as an apple and a slice of cheese by a bubbling brook.

Instead I must recount the misery of these early weeks as the small treats gave way to the smaller and the smaller and my stomach would rumble like the thunder in the distant heavens, as I attempted to supplement my diet with the small amount of food that the forest offered me.

Quite soon, sooner than I had hoped my food had dwindled to crumbs and biscuits, dust and small seeds yet still there was not a breath from the West Wind, I tried at first to catch the sly secretive animals that proud the forest corridors, but either I was too noisy for them, or they were too quick for me. Later with the desperation that creates creative flare I was able to construct a basic sling from materials I had on me and with difficulty at first I was able to bring down the birds from the sky and make of them small but tasty meals.

Always I was moving forever onwards into the wilderness.

Soon there came a day that I realised that I had come further than I had ever come before and on this day looking around me the mountain peaks had become new and foreboding and the valley’s were twisted into shapes that were wholly unfamiliar.

Here, I believed, I had once stood with my parents gazing upon this wilderness and it was here that we had turned our backs with thoughts of home just starting to find there way into our consciousness.

I realised with some unease and sadness that there was no longer a home and if my parents were still upon this world they would be west, not back east the way that I had come.

I remembered then a place then that lay on the outskirts of my known universe, just as it lay somewhere on the edge of memory and the slim precipitous that separates it from imagination.

This place, I was to recall, existed somewhere north, a labyrinth of tarns on an otherwise featureless plateau, with the occasional stand of pencil pines to gain ones bearing.

I had heard of this place from others and had always wished to travel there but had never done so and now as I looked north I again felt that familiar urge to discover this place that seemed as much myth as reality.

This place, so the story went, was hidden upon an island of one of these distant tarns, amidst four humbly clad wood and stone walls, beneath a roof with the pitch of a steeple. Inside the place there lay a library of books brought by all manner of people from all manner of places and here they sat, closed and alone, waiting for a hand to brush the dust from their covers and hear the protest of their old bindings as they revealed their secrets beneath the light of sun and moon.

I thought, rather vainly, and with a touch of manic desperation, that if any place was to elude to knowledge of the West Wind then here this place would be. It was as though the indistinct boundary between memory and imagination merged with this place that held such stature and even as I shuffled my feet in indecision I could hear the West Wind weeping eerily through the weary shutters of this far off place.

I could feel the bindings of these books beneath my hands and the dust sparkling before my eyes as I lowered my eyes to these books and saw the West Wind within their depths.

While I did not know where this place was I thought it best, as it probably never is in times likes these, to follow the intuition of the feet and to let them roam as they wanted to do. I watched them distantly as they began placing one foot in front of the other and then over again and before I knew it I had travelled such a distance that it seemed impossibly stupid to turn back.

With the joy and resolution of new discoveries and foreign things, and a pair of feet that needed no more prompting than an occasional reminder not to carry the body into trees, through water and down cliff edges, I let myself go towards this impossible journey.

Soon I had philosophised a quite remarkable conundrum that rewarded me quite readily with a new perspective and an even greater hope of finding this place.

I figured, that the things that we often call amazing, unexpected or coincidence are in fact probable, likely and indeed certain.

How many times has one been confronted with the scenario of thinking of someone just before they arrived for a visit or just before you met them in the street, all these things occur and yet they are imbibed with some sought of supernatural significance.

What would be truly amazing and unexpected would be to not see them, or to not meet them, as all these things had no chance of happening from the very beginning.

If I applied this logic to my present predicament of finding the library, say if I had left with no chance of finding the library and had in fact found the library then logic says that finding the library would be an amazing, unexpected coincidence when all along there could have been no other alternative and it would have been amazing and unexpected if I had in fact, never found it.

With a new spring in my feet and the company of my superior intellect that had been sharp enough to prove such a conundrum I set off into a world where probability did not exist and all was divided between certain and uncertain and the world was a place where even readers could be made so confused that they had no chance of disproving my theory wrong.

The afternoon land was made mellow with subtle hues of gold as the light found its home amidst many a wondrous thing, creating a timeless and passionate, though slightly lethargic counterpace.

I walked amidst the land as it died in the falling sun and as sunlight gave way to shadow I made my slow way amidst tarns and the corps of pencil pine trees. My gaze would often shift heavenward as though to thank some unknown for my happiness and freedom.

My feet found their home amidst sphagnum moss, squelching and squeaking delightfully in their cushioned embrace, as my feet scraped roughly against the abrasive protrusions of Jurassic earth, my gaze would often wander between earth and sky and between the play of light that united each and I would often stop in beauty and contemplation, my back against a sun warmed rock and my eyes full of glittering light crystals from reflected waters.

The days surrender was on hand, as was mine and I soon found a place to whittle away nocturnal hours amidst a soft bed of sphagnum and the sheltering bowels of pine trees, my only company the cries of currawongs and the buzz of dragon flies and amidst this glory and as the sun fell before me, sleep came and I was no longer alone.

The morning was as all mountain mornings, the sky heavy with cloud and the air damp with mist and as I rose and roused my tired body my eyes observed the crows as their shadows were disappearing and appearing amidst the mist.

I was soon sufficiently roused to place my weary pack upon weary shoulders and to make the first tentative hesitant steps towards the future.

The land here was a conundrum of counterparts, in every direction it spread forth from me into the future ahead and the past behind and somewhere, where the West Wind blew sideways into another reality.

Although all looked the same, the detail of the west was reviled at all times and in all scales upon every seeing. I walked slowly for I had far to go and although my feet led me, occasionally they needed a small amount of prodding from the spirit in order to keep going and resolute they marched on.

How long or how far I travelled I never knew, upon this land the movement of light and shadow and the lethargy in limbs was the only measure of time, so for days it continued like this.

To know I could have walked within touching distance of this lake, to have washed my weary feet in its waters without noticing the library was no small disquiet upon my mind, but as the days wore on I trusted in my feet and the pull of the West Wind and on the fifth day when all around me appeared the same I saw before me a lake.

It was of course like all others, its waters crystal upon the dry earth and its edges clutched like greedy water parasites the surprisingly noble pencil pine. The sun was just disappearing and the fact that it hung low upon the horizon was probably one of the many saviours that has made this potentially disastrous trip ring true with the sounds of rightfulness.

Just as the sun dipped its head for the last time I saw that unmistakable flash of sun on metal, that sparkle that rivals the stars for a brief second and fixing that point upon my mind I made my way to the shoreline that stretched long and unbroken before me.

I knew from stories that there was a boat here, stashed secretively amidst rocks, and using the last of the sun and a fair degree of my former intuition I scrambled upon the rocks of the wet banks hoping madly that I could gain the islands shores before night fall.

After much searching and a number of painful falls I realised that this boat either did not exist, or it was too well hidden for night time searches and I grumpily made my bed amidst the jagged edges of rocks and the wet bogs of grass and fell, after awhile into an anxious ridden sleep.

Rousing myself in the morning I rubbed the depressions made from the rocks from my back, relieved a bladder that would have been easier to relieve before I had got into my sleeping bag and recreated the circulation that had been lacking all night with a variety of imaginative stretches that soon had me feeling fit and lumber again.

As the last of these terrestrial caused aches subsided I was able to raise my head sufficiently to judge that the weather was alas another mountain morning and that my search would be another slippery, painful, hopeless one.

I resolved to leave my pack behind and with a spring in my step that only the packless know of I sprung off amidst the fen and heather.

The banks were thick and slippery and considering the size of the lake they were surprisingly long. After hours of helpless searching I soon gave up and while reaching vainly for a rock in a type of slide, fall situation and with much frantic waving desperate hands and trapped feet, I fell into what appeared to be a weather beaten canoe that was all but hidden amidst the undergrowth.

At last I had found my transport and would not have to submerge my pack or myself into cold waters. I raised this desperate vessel from the embrace of bracken and fen expecting to see daylight through its weather ridden hull that appeared to have taken on the natural colours of moss, mushrooms and lichen. It seemed to be made of as much of these materials as the original canvas.

Lifting my boat proudly I made my way back to my pack, this vessel was no great mythical craft that was propelled through the water by the pull of a great beast, nor could its sail boast of catching within its weave the West Wind, though after I had with my knife whittled a small paddle for which to propel myself I deemed it worthy indeed of the epics of Homer or Virgil.

I took my weary craft through the scrub until I came to the waters edge and settling my weight amidst its grey and green hull I expected to hear the renting of canvas and the wetness of water against my legs, but with only a slight groan of protest, or possible indignation, I felt the aquinas hold me safe and dry and with a single prod and a small shuffle I was off across the water into the mist.

I have always been somewhat of a romantic, too romantic for romance I liked to say, but as romantic goes this journey across the mist closed waters was as much pre-Raphaelite madness as the Pre-Raphaelites themselves. What, aside from the vain hunt for romantic love, can be compared to the search for distant knowledge upon water and mist? With oneself as sole company and the chances of success being minimal added a somewhat tragic perspective to the scene.

As I paddled with a not so small degree of swaying, splashing and general unco-ordination that the reader should very well ignore, I was off at once, the seeker of knowledge that I was.

The lake stretched out before me, flat and silent, I could have been anywhere, on any ocean, upon the lithium seas of Neptune, above the lost city of Atlantis, near the stone boundaries of the lunar sea, or above the deepest part of the abysmal plain. 

The mist upon the lake had become thick and damp around me so that I felt as though I were swimming through some kind of aquatic ether, and still there was no sign of the island which I knew to be somewhere ahead.

My paddle splashed dully amidst the silence and I could hear my breathing thick and muffled in my ears as I paddled forth, the clammy touch of the mists fingers seemed to be luring me, reaching out to me.

Sounds, far off and distorted by the water and the mist seemed to be the distant call of other places, of other times, of other people who had lost their way.

From the mist came a shadow that I at first thought was a branch from the islands tree, but soon became a crow fluttering and shrieking towards me, as though to pluck my eyes from my very head, but in an instant, before I could raise my paddle in defiance and defence, before I could topple the boat and its cargo into the waters, it had perched itself upon my bow.

There it sat, surveying me with its single black eye, its tail cocked at a somewhat insolent angle. Then, as though owing to its added weight or its mocking gaze, or purely the fact that another being was there to make the next part of my journey a public humiliation, I felt beneath me the first of the water as its wetness evaded my vessels defences and still there was still no sign of the island and still this damnable fiend upon my bow.

I felt within its mocking gaze my doom. Rising as though to swat this creature from gully, aft deck, stern and bow I sent my paddle towards it, but as though prepared it merrily danced backwards and the cursed boat in my motion danced to and fro with wild perambulations, threatening to send everything, save if it had wings, into the bottom of the lake.

Luckily, with a quick to and fro of the hip, like a hyperactive belly dancer, the boat stabilised itself and I, and the crow with an insolent flutter, set ourselves back into their respective places, his eye upon mine and mine upon his.

Still though this damnable wetness was leaking through my vessel, with a quick glance from the pirate bird upon my bow I estimated that I had about five minutes of wild panic filled swings of my makeshift paddle before I was doomed.

The crow of course, as intelligent as he seemed, was enjoying my predicament to the extent that he was bobbing like a damn red robin in time with my frantic swings.

I knew then I would make it and on the stable shore I would take one deft swing at this creature and he would spend the last moments of his little life being roasted over a slow spit and with this in mind and a grin so sly that it equalled his own, we set off together towards redemption or revenge.

The mist was quite thick and my steering quite erratic and although I felt I was making much headway I could not be sure in what direction the shore was and all the time the mocking of his single black eye was upon me, shamming me further into erratic action.

Just as my feet became soaked, I noticed his wings. They weren’t following the wild swings of my oar, the crow would have to have been having an epileptic fit to achieve that, but were instead quite decisively flicking.

Firstly its left side; one, two, three, pause and then the right; one, two, three and me at my wits end and with only the feel of dry land and the sound of crackling feathers in my mind followed these motions with my paddle.

It continued like this and slowly the interior of my boat became its own little lake and me a little island within this lake and still the crow danced to and fro and I followed along like some intangible tango.

On we went through the mist and with surprise I saw the first glimmers of the islands tree before me, thrusting its crown up out of the mist and with one, two and then three desperate swings, at odds too the crows wings (who needed him anyway), I felt the bow of the boat scrape rock moments before everything, save the bird, found a home on the bottom.

With a desperate scramble I left my seat and grabbed my pack waving the foul trickster aside with an ungrateful sweep of my hand and fell forward breathless and bellowing upon the islands rocky shore.      

Knowledge procured in an unlikely place

A truth that I can not face

A raven the messenger true

Its wings misery or majesty rued 

Yet all is as it should be

An old book, the wind to be

A sea a song a sun drenched sea

 Free oh free

To be

There I lay, satisfied to feel land beneath me and there was the crow before me and though I still harboured feelings of a swift revenge, for the moment my anger was quenched moderately against the shoreline and this bird was safe for a time in my company.

My first movement was to lift my head from the sand and look into the mist filled space between me and the edge of the forest. From my present perspective it seemed to rise up before me to an unimaginable height.

As I raised my body I realised that I was somewhat mistaken and the forest, while impressive, was indeed of only normal proportions and lifting my paddle I thrust it forward too the forests edge and dragged my wrecked vessel from the grasp of the waters reach.

My pack had become quite soaked and it was a dead weight upon my aching back and to find some passage into this forest grove looked a challenge, so I decided with some pondering that I would first scout the islands edge for a more suitable entry into the islands interior.

The shore was a mottled stag of pencil pine limb and bare stony crag and before its edge the water seemed to disappear into dark depths and pretty sand shallows. The mist was still thick, though its upper reaches were becoming increasingly illuminated by a great golden light that heralded the approach of the noon sun and I felt confident that soon I would feel its drying warmth upon my weary back.

With this in mind, and the though of a fire to warm me, my pace increased and despite the often treacherous underfoot I had soon put my craft and paddle out of sight.

I soon came to a pleasant alcove that’s lands edge heralded a better approach inland and I made way with my glee subtly in check and my water logged boots squelching noisily into the forest.

I soon came to a rough path and as I had expected the mist had lifted to a degree where I could make out the small shade of mountain flowers that lined the border of the path. Entwined with mountain berries and moss they appeared delicate and feminine amidst the greatness of mist and forest.

The path I believed could not take me far, the roof as I had glimpsed it had appeared only a simple stroll from the waters edge and on cresting a small rise I realised that my estimation was correct and before me there the library was.

The building was cradled by the forests embrace and it was as though the subtle harmony of the place forgave the trees their invasion as they draped and dragged their limbs across wall and roof and in a mirrored display of coloured contrast mountain berries of blue and red hung from branch and eve alike.

The walls, originally of stone, were transformed into the walls of the forest mottled and mouldy with lichen, fragmented and decayed and if not for the door that appeared hewn from a great log of pencil pine and the small humble window the building would have ceased to exist as a creation of man and instead would have been a subject of the forest.

I crossed the small space that separated us with eager trepidation, darting and weaving between the limbs of forest giants and elder berries. The door appeared before me and at last, breathless, I stood before the gateway of answers, my arms stretched yet hesitant to break the sanctity of this solemn retreat.

Would I knock? Or stumble blindly upon the darkness within? Would I find answers or just the darkness of ignorance and the dispar of wailing woes? Would these answers be the ones I sought, or more riddles and complexes that like the rope at the beginning of a tangle would lead me along through twists, turns, advances and surrenders until I had lost all way and all perspective?

At last my hands came to rest upon the wooden surface of that door and it was as though some deep vibration arose from its wooden depths to meet my hand and with polished ease the door glided open as though guided by unseen hands.

At first my eyes could only discern darkness or more truly the absence of light. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom and my feet shuffled their way forward I gazed into the libraries depths.

What disappointment was this? The room smelt not of sanctity and the leather of old bindings, but merely of a fire long dead in the hearth. The room was blackened by the smoke and the hearth itself sat dark and dejected against the left hand wall, the stumps of half burnt candles stood like wasted citadels against the mantle piece and a stool lay, turned over backwards upon the floor.

The books were not as I had hoped them to be and sat slumped like the disappointment of cast aside friends and as much as I pitied them I wished to raise tinder and spark and finish the completion of their destruction.

I fell into the room, the cloying aroma of ash surrounding me, catching in my throat and bringing shameful tears to my eyes, my pack fell from my hand and fell to the hearth.

Why had I expected so much from this place? This was not a library! Had my delusions grown this gross and disproportionate to reality, had my musings reached such a magnitude of fantastical delusion that I could have put my faith here?

I did not know and now, I did not care.

It was the crowing of the crow that awoke me from my helpless stupor and I raised my soot filled eyes to observe it perched before me on the twisted waxen proportion of a candle stump, cocked with its full degree of sly cunning and it observed me beneath and prostrated before it and I arose.

A mad rage filled me and I pounced at its form, sure to feel its feathery darkness between my hands only to trip over the stool and fall face first into the hearth. The crow, a squawking black mass before my eyes flew out the door and I nursing my shin and head after it, back into the forest.

We made a mad dash into the trees, it before me and I behind it, my arms outstretched and why it did not take truly to the air I did not know, but instead hopped before me as though it wished to be caught.

It continued like this for some time, us both going equally as heartily, though neither of us any the better and before long I gave up on its destruction and let it have its foolish fun before me and I, a mean look if ever there was one in my eye, soon gave way to tears and then to laughter.

Wild and maniacal it came from me and went before me and around me and into the forest.

Later I gathered the kindling as I gathered my lost pride, stacking them piece by piece upon each other. I soon had enough to light an entire night and as I finished I realised that in the menial I had found again my centre and the rational world that surrounded me might be void of magnificent libraries, dragons and fairy fire but was not truly free from beauty and I let the sun fall knowing that I would soon have my own to see out the night.

Light is the great architect of appearance, its magic lends and transforms, the interplay of its presence and absence creates mosaics on every surface and with its presence one can manipulate the common appearance of the mundane.

This is what I did with my small fire and its amber hue, its delicate dance of gold and shadows against sooted roof and blackened chimney and in this disguise the books became great volumes of ancient wisdom and the room around me a cathedral of creative light.

Here I sat amidst the dance of shadows, the fire flickered with life and love against my face and before me my bed sat near the hearth waiting patiently for my presence.

I had a meal prepared with long lasted delicacies and soon my palate was satisfied and from a small tin upon the fire a brew was boiled and from it the delicate smell of spiced tea was leant to the room.

Outside, the weather rose up, and from my haven of cut bowels and tangled limbs I smiled a small smile of satisfaction and moved my stool closer to the fire. I fell to gazing into its depths, this destructive enigma that would set the entire world on fire if I let it free, and I smiled a sad smile amidst its heat and light, it was for now, my only friend.

The books were close by I could see their bindings winking at me in the light, tempting me and yet I let them be. Soon I would raise one and lift it to the fires edge so that we could both read together, but for now I was satisfied with the dance of the fire and the sound of the storm outside.

When the brew was ready, when it was hot in my hand, perhaps then I would make one of those books mine. Until this time, I would sit in silence.

I reached forward blindly, letting my hand not my eyes find the first book, it was light upon my hand and for a second I felt the old doubt and anxiety surface. I pulled it to me, from the cover I could discern nothing, other hands and other eyes had taken it all and only a glint of gold allowed me to determine that it had once had a title.

The pages were somewhat clammy and parted damply. Before me, from spine to head the title appeared, it was not ‘The Tale of the West Wind’, or ‘A Beginners Guide to the West Wind’, nor ‘The Travellers West Wind’, but a simple title that bespoke a work of fiction. I let the first page open before me and I remembered words from an old man.

 ”In these books one can see it fluttering through the ages, sometimes a roaring gale, other times a feeble zephyr, sometimes blowing from the west, sometimes from the east, and before me I had a portion of the West Wind.”

I let my head fall forward as I tipped the pages back, allowing the light to fall sparingly on the page and I gave myself up to heat, light and fantasy and the sound of the storm outside.

It was hours later that I realised that the fire had died to a soft caress of amber and the coals were like crimson pillows and this reminded me of sleep and I put the book aside and fell into the darkness.

Here I dreamed a dream and in it the characters of the book sat with me in a long boat and we rowed and rowed and rowed towards a distant dark horizon on which a sun was setting.

I awoke refreshed, the stillness of the night still around me, though unconsciously I knew that morning was not far off. I rose from my warm bed to relieve my aching bladder that had plagued me for much of the night, with some ventage of sleep still about me I stumbled through the door into the night.

I realised at once that the evening storm had abated and the sky was uncharitably free of clouds. Near the horizon across the lake the full moon was disappearing and with the last of its glow I surveyed the island that had become silver by its light.

It is such a strange time this time before dawn, a time of distinct possibilities for the day ahead, as well as a time of uncertain doubts as these two forces battle for the mind and in this time I remembered being told that this was the time when most people died, it was perhaps to these people that the doubt and fear had won and I shivered unconsciously at the thought of them, as their mind had been before death.

I thought then of my parents, many a morning I had awoken leaving the comforting presence of their sleeping bodies to venture myself into the surrounding night and many times I had been surprised, as I was presently, by the stillness, the quietness of the night and the rare opportunity that urination allows one.

I sat there the moisture of the ground finding its way beneath my clothes and yet I felt strangely warm amidst the night air and then with a flutter there was my friend before me, perched upon the silver skeleton of a dead pencil pine close by, and in our mutual silence I found forgiveness and even gratitude towards him.

Soon I could see the twin body of the sun rising before me as the moon like a slinking shadow disappeared behind as though ashamed to be seen in this new world.

I felt strangely unconfident in this new world so I sought again the darkness behind my eyes that more resembled the nightly one.

That morning I broke my fast in the sun and continued with my book and it was not till noon that I finally turned the last page and sat it again upon the shelf for the next one in search of the West Wind that I realised my dilemma.

My craft was in ruins and would not bring me more than fifty metres from the shore before it sunk and while I could perhaps swim the distance, I knew the autumn waters even at this time of year to be deathly cold and for these reasons I was effectively trapped upon this island.

I thought of the candles inside, perhaps with these I could plug the hole and as no other avenues of thought seemed appropriate I gathered my pack and gave one last nostalgic look towards the library and promised to this place and myself that when I finished my journey I would write my story here and here I would leave it for all those that came.

With my hands filled with candles (and my mind making a promise to bring candles when next I came) I left my library and made my way back to my craft. It was of course as it had been earlier and seemed even more lonely and dejected in the bright morning light as though it had withered away in the summer like sun.

I instantly surveyed the damage and from what I could see there was only one real hole and making a rough patch from the corner of my coat and seeling it with the dripping wax from my candles I had, after a time, a make shift patch that just might see me to the other side.

I loaded my pack and body hesitantly, all the time looking around for my dark friend, though for now, he was absent.

I pushed my vessel out into the depths, raising my paddle, hopefully not for the last time in farewell, and with one powerful shove I was on my way.

This time I could safely see the land glinting green before me and the distance did not seem so very great, yet my paddle seemed to have a life of its own as did the vessel beneath me and I was forced to turn many a pirouette upon the water so that despite the goodness of my patch and the brightness of the day my trip still took some time.

Soon I felt the shore against my bow and with one more push as though to dare my fixture to relent I was on dry land and again a terrestrial creature of weary back and sore knee.

As I made one last look in farewell I thought I saw through the mist the dark wings of a crow, returning perhaps to its home to guide the next visitor that sought the islands shores.

I made my way back the way I had come using the stands of pencil pines as a guide and the rough notes that I had made on the way to reinforce my memory. Soon I was on my way, the libraries disappointment long forgotten and replaced with the cathartic trip I had made and the lessons that I had learned.

Perhaps all knowledge was like this and perhaps the facts that I had attained concerning the West Wind would have been nothing to those gained in the light of experience and would have had no meaning in the larger realm of insight. Perhaps what I had learned from the simple and the humble was so much more.

I walked for days and soon I had retained my old position where I had looked out into the unknown. Now though, at least some of this was known and made my own.

That night I dreamt that while walking through a particularly dark piece of dejected forest where the foliage seemed to eat up the light and the canopy seemed to be thick with the black wings of crows and the dangling tentacles of mirthless moss, I had tripped and stumbled.

Looking down, ready to curse the obtrusive root or stone, I had discovered staring back at me through the mire the haunted face of my mother, encrusted thick with lichen and moss, yet still as fresh as softly fallen snow.

Still, that expression lingers with me, for it seemed within all those lines that had been wrought over a lifetime, the skin that had been made to conform to the passage of a thousand small sorrows, was now made to conform to an expression that I could only call pity and for who else could she pity save herself and her only son?

As I startled away from this sight I felt some small amount of guilt over that look, the same guilt that I had been akin to feel in life when those lines found there way upon my mothers face.

I had then bumped my head against the soles of my fathers walking boots and looking up I was met with his blank expression, his mouth for some macabre reason seemed to be hinting at a sickly smile and I felt, as I stared for a moment deep into those eyes, that this smile was for me.

As I fell back in dismay and into wakefulness I had the profound thought that the ancient forest I was in housed, amidst bow and limb, all those that had disappeared, for as the West Wind had gusted and buffed around this hollowed hollow, part of its cargo had been captured within the jagged foliage of its trees and here they sat as the forest and the ages grew up around them and they were seen no more.

I slept not at all for the remainder of that night and I was grateful for the rising of the sun that next morning. For all that day and the days to come I was like a ghost amidst the forest, treading lightly and carefully less I trip and look down.

For days I skirted every hollowed hollow, even if it meant I must go hours out of my way and never, as I skirted there blighted borders, did I feel the need to peer again within their dark depths, for I knew that somewhere, there was a forest that perhaps housed my parents’ fate.

Whether I could have made this long journey by myself, without the fortitude of the need to discover the West Wind and find my parents, I do not know. All that I can say is at the end of each evening, when the light of the world contracted itself to a flickering candle flame casting warm and haunting shadows upon my mind, I held onto this belief as though it were a kite in the throws of a mighty wind.

During this time, amidst the flickering of the candle in my own little solar system that surrounded the flickering sun, I would read of the parchment until every word was engraved in my head, until the words seemed imprinted in my mind when my eyes were shut, until I believed, somewhat prophetically, that I was the subject of this poem and its unknown author, that somewhere, he had envisioned my coming and possessed the conviction that I lacked and I could draw on this endless strength until I reached my goal.

A sneak, a peek, the smell of deceit

Small feat, silent and fleet

A companion a shadow, another tongue

From where came this pale one?

Is he a friend, fiend or foe?

Why so secret, if a friend he is so

Why does he hide and never confide

Is he on my side?

It was about two weeks into the piece when I felt some presence nearby, an eye upon my back, and in my mind, following me with its gaze that felt neither malevolent nor benevolent, but animated with a strange curiosity.

How I could tell this I did not know, but after giving up trying to catch this being at its sneaky, spying work, after turning too many times to catch nothing I just let it watch, let it peer into my quiet world and even this was some type of comfort to the lonely soul that I had become.

It was soon after this that I began speaking to this creature, or whatever it was, and pretty soon I had a name for it, Master Sneak, and I would invite it without success to my campsite for food and refreshment. I would beckon to it to witness a spectacular view, or to bathe with me in the cleaning waters of a stream.

Soon a type of monologue conversation sprung up between us and I would discuss all manner of topics with this fine understanding and attentive sneak.

We discussed, him somewhat passively, the invention of a great civilisation that relied upon gravity to send vehicles and their passengers from town to town, with the towns built on hills so that the force to come down, equalled the force to go up and one would be at their new destination.

Suffice to say Master Sneak, with his passive accepting silence, thought it was a wonderful idea that should be put right into practice, just as soon as we returned.

Another idea that I believe he was particularly fond of was the use of small self propelled capsules that could send a single occupant, along with the necessary oxygen, on a one way trip into space where he could spend the remainder of his hours in glorious meditation with the earth.

As these conversations sprang up between us and the words echoed through the valley’s and were lost somewhere upon a breeze, I tasted a strange taint upon the wind and this new wind was my wind, the West Wind and my eyes became dim with tears and I fell before it as though it were the Lord, letting it worship my nostrils, even as my nostrils worshipped its presence.

That night when the West Wind had died to a soft and comforting draught under a strangely sardonic sky and the moon set up camp not to far from me in the cradle of a decrepit tree, I devised a fabulous plan to catch Master Sneak at his own sneaking game.

I set my bed roll in the most cliché manner imaginable (that of a body sleeping) and my cunning trap had been set. I leapt at once to join the moon and its vigil amongst the stagnant foliage of the decrepit tree.

At first it seemed as though it might be ages until my sneaky stalker would show himself and I feared that the constant motion of my body owing to the uncomfortableness of my seat would alert him to my presence, but before my eyes could settle into a momentary rest I felt him close.

Before my very eyes a figure moved out of the sylvian darkness that the moon had ignored and trod with such light foot that it appeared as though it were afloat on the night.

It moved like a true sneak does with the hesitant hungry curiosity of the truly secretive that seems afraid of its own shadow. I could make out no features owing to the moons feeble light, but the figure had the statue of a small child and with arms stretched forward as though to feel the air for deceit, the figure moved towards what appeared to be my sleeping body.

It bent down as it got close, dropping its head to where my head might have been in sleep and its hands reached out as though to touch and then drew back. Not, it seemed, because he sensed my ruse, and not, it seemed, as though he feared detection, it did seem as thought he had come across something sacred, something that was above and beyond the blasphemy of his small hands.

And so he pulled them back as though he had been burnt by some fiery touch or a pain that dwelt only in his mind.

He then gave what seemed like a small nod as though in greeting or acceptance, or as though he found something pleasurable in the scene and turned his head with a smooth precision that reeked of the inhuman towards my place in the foliage and our eyes met.

I realised this was not the first time that I had peered into these eyes and I beheld the doll, lost long before amidst a wind swept hallway, its face the face of my childhood, its face the face of eternity, its face the face that had been lost upon the West Wind and here it sat with me now on the edge of the civilised world.

Valley’s mountains had separated us before and now here, in protest to every physical law imaginable, we had been united and without even a smile or any change in the unearthly light that glittered under his innocent eyes, without the slightest movement that would signal that he had seen me, he disappeared into the darkness as though he had never been and left only the slight taint of cinnamon and spice on the West Wind.

I climbed, or more truly fell, to the ground, a sharp stick grazing my side in burning fire that I only felt sometime later.

A rock halted my descent into the thick scrub with I winced when its unforgiving density smashed hard against my tail bone. I fell amidst the foliage in a vain attempt to pursue the intruder, doll, Master Sneak, whatever it was; I only wished to challenge it, to wring some answers from its tiny human like neck, to see some comprehension and indeed recognition within its formally lifeless eyes.

I would get some answers from this sneak; I would find the one who had the audacity to sneak up on the sleeping with neither gill, nor shame.

I kept falling, one time so close to a perilous drop, I could hear the many rocks of my fall tumble over its dark edge

Sadly, after falling too many times, I gave up hope, the sneak had gone and so the mystery with him.

For the remainder of the evening I gazed into the uncompromising darkness half afraid and half in hope that he would reappear, but the scrub neither parted with the breath of the West Wind nor his light footsteps.

I greeted the dawn alone.

The next day the land echoed with my frozen foot falls and the wind was forever my unwelcome companion, it buffeted me with none to gentle gusts that seemed to rise from nowhere and which sent me prostrate on the ground, or  made me a grovelling   animal upon the earth and when I was reproaching it venomously for creating in me such uncivilised misconduct, the wind would change and like a blast of colour and relief, from the heavens the sun would again poor forth and I would be then such a hot and humid humbug that I would instead curse the sun and beg back my capricious wind.

Though both sun and wind harried me with their utmost, the day would not have been the same without either and I beseeched them to stay to teach me the humility of the crags and to know the world as the animal knows it, stripped bare of civilisation and pride.

The whole time as I made my humble way between the peaks I imagined my secretive companion, riding with ease, the aerial currents above me, coasting with such grace upon the heavenly realm and often I would stop to gaze up and to smile at him and even to wave a hand in welcome and farewell as though bidding him to some event in the future in which our paths might cross again.

I thought perhaps to dismiss all my fear and misgivings and join him in his dance up there so that we could find the West Wind together and say goodbye to this terrestrial realm.

There came a time as I trundled and trembled over rock, crag and stone, as I was concentrating all my effort upon the upmost thought of motion and began to dolefully ignore the features that persisted above and beyond the level of the knee, my direction changed and I was too exhausted to acknowledge it, too tired to halt it and when I finally raised my head to look around the features about me seemed to appear upon none of my maps.

The nights insomnia and the mornings hunger had left me somewhat lacking in the senses and I let myself be led purely by the ease of step before me and the ease of the wind behind me and I was in this state that I came to a valley.

I saw at once my mistake, though by then it was too late. The narrow path that I had taken from the heavens was now a narrow path of half forgotten moonlight that snaked into my past and which had no foreseeable future.

This path was cobbled with the uncomfortable silence of the lost and alone; it was paved in melancholy and the damp clingy wetness of defeat, it was surmounted with such sorrow that within myself, I felt defeat.

It was a path that terminated somewhere within the half life of mist and stone, and a wind blew upon it that felt so alone. I gave my retreat a last brief glance, as if to assure myself that it was there and realising that it was not, continued my way forward.

Soon the twilight took the last of the light from the sky and the shadows of this new light changed the familiar and the unfamiliar around me until all became lost and I felt as though the world had moved beneath me and set me down in a place that I did not wish to be.

Where this somewhere else was I did not know, but the lengthening and strengthening shadows seemed keen to hide this place from view and they seemed to be doing this as men do, that is by turning their eyes away, by grouping together like lost children, by finding something else to capture their attention so that they did not have to look at what they hoped not to see.

I could feel them as they huddled together on the outskirts of my vision and laughed shyly and nervously when I wasn’t near, I could hear this laughter as it flittered off through the darkness and then became the cry of a distant currawong, and I could hear them in the clutter of the rocks around me.

I could feel them as the tentative touch of their hands reached out to me and then feel it again as their clammy hands darted back as though they sought to convince themselves that it was they, and not I, that was real.

I could feel them as they huddled their heads together when I was not looking and then when I would turn towards them I knew that they had fallen back into yet deeper darkness that was even more apathetic than they were. I wished then that I could have joined those shadows in their vigil; I wished then to be a part of their objective darkness, a darkness that would slowly take the life from the land and from me so it could nestle us both together under its dark wing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the heartless moon having at this time no real compassion for the earth and its inhabitants spared just enough light to provide a brief and hesitant illumination that allowed me to pick my way between silver boulders that were even now giving way to broken clumps of withered trees.

The rules of becoming lost state that: “When one is lost it is always best to sit down, eat and take stock of the situation, resolve fears with a heartening glance at a map and a full stomach and to give a little giggle, as if to say how silly of me and then to make off, thoroughly satisfied that you had out smarted nature and all its tricks and was with every step on the way home, or to some equally promising destination”.

It is undoubtable that this is what I should have done but instead I let my legs run away from me, as the saying goes, and before long I was running pell mell, hither and thither and falling not once, but twice and thrice into every inconvenience in my path which included a range of large spider webs designed to catch faces, a range of rocks, twigs and sticks preciously positioned not to cause grievous bodily harm, but to cause maximum disorientation and disarray and a fair amount of good old fashioned humiliation.

Like this I wandered deeper and deeper into the forest, and as I went I was all the time trying not to spare myself the briefest glimpse of my surroundings and to concentrate instead on that little bit of light, or that break in the undergrowth, or that rock that looked like a carn, that was, that could, that wasn’t a path, and I went like this for a good time and all the time the forest grew ever thicker and deader around me.

I can not truly say when I realised something was wrong, by this I do not mean the wrong people commonly associate with being lost, hungry, tired, in the dark and alone, but a deeper wrong, a wrong that runs contrary to the whole universe and all its rules.

By this stage words like hither and thither and pell mell become grossly slap stick and more at home in a story which has a happy ending and not the sad story that I had found myself in, so we will dispense with these superficious terms altogether and concentrate on other terms like hideous, horrible, hateful, haggard and horrendous and realise that even these fail miserably to describe the predicament I was in.

The situation was one as like a large dark room with a few people giggling nervously and some what apprehensively because something downright strange has occurred. A situation where each person has looked into the eyes of each other person and seen what they least wished to see, the same fear as theirs in another persons eyes, a fear that will become undoubtable, irrefutable and now recruitable purely because someone else now believes it.

Imagine that situation and times that by twenty because you are all alone, there are no walls and no one to giggle and share the event with, not that you need other eyes because this event is so strange that you do not need another set of fear ridden eyes to tell you that it is true.

Now this brings to mind a comment that a friends of mine made concerning the use of a self destruct button that allows one to end their predicament in a fast and painless way, but alas without this at my disposal and owing to the bluntness of the nearby rocks and my disgust for people who leave behind untidy corpses I was forced to move ahead and onwards to my doom as the saying goes.

I think for the true appreciation of this scene we had better jump into the third person and leave some of the slapstick qualities of the first person behind or I will be in fear of the reader thinking that I somehow managed to confuse a simple dry forest suffering from a seasonal drought and a surprisingly large population of spiders and ravens with the dark bowels of hell itself.

A murder of crows

Found my place before a dead tree

A place of darkness soon to be

A place of stagnation lamination and mire

A place of suburban asphyxiation attire

I gathered it around like a cloak

About my strangled entangled throat

And then I hoped to choke

On the images that the dark tree did invoke

The figure hugged with misery the fallow tree that clung to the earth with the same desperation as he did. His gaze, which before had been resolute, was now lost upon the land, it barely alighted on an object before it would flitter away like a restless spirit, unable to find peace amidst this deathly landscape.

The curve of his spine and the slump of his back said more about the condition of his soul than anything else and it was as though he wished to merge with the tree that held him, to become one with the fetid mud that had felled him.

His breeches were spatted with mirth and mire and the mud of the swamps in which his feet had passed. His shoulders hung with the weight of oppression and bereavement so that none could tell where he finished and the swamp began.

He tried to move on even as he fell, he fell even as he moved on, the land accepting him ungraciously with a slurping pop as he broke the surface of a bog and fell to his elbows beneath, its sluggish, slippery depths and in those depths he saw his death  written.

He rose only to fall again and his body went deeper beneath the mud and the night that dwelt beneath, soon the light in his eyes seemed to take on the opaqueness of the mud, as his soul strived to become the mud, as his head fell forward to brush the surface of the mud, as though beneath the surface of the mud there existed a place that he had been striving all of his life to return to.

Then he would rise slowly, somewhat resiliently, as though what he had seen beneath the mud was something that maybe he would rather not go to, something maybe he would rather not be a part of. He would rise and continue on.

Wading through the fen he went, a stick rotten and putrefied his companion which he grasped feebly within his weakening hand, giving him the small measure of support that he lacked so that he could go on and meet his destiny within the swamp.

If he had known then where this stick, as evil as the forest, was taking him, if he knew that it was part of the evil that would soon break him then he certainly would have cast it from his side and not continued on as he did.

He moved with the steps of the old and used up, those of arthritic knee, elbow and spine, he moved like the blind, hesitant and feeble and like the near deaf he became startled by every sound, freaked by every noise. Yet still he moved on.

On a branch, bitter and twisted by age, his pride was torn from him as he fell upon a gnarled root thick with lichen and slime and from him fell his confidence and his footfalls became more the feebler.

With the tearing of fabric and the sting of sweat the last of his resolve joined the mud, torn from his palm by a jagged stump. Soon, only his faith was left and this soon became lost somewhere amidst the undergrowth and no matter how his hands fumbled to find it, it was gone.

Gone was his consciousness and around him in the trees, like the jagged scraps of garbage bags, hung the crows.

Soon after the corporal strength of his body gave and when he fell again it was as though he would never rise again.

It was some time later when the mud had dried to a sickly smelling scab upon his back, when his hands were encrusted black with foulness so that he appeared as the swamp and his face was half coated in the foul materials of petrifaction, that he came again to consciousness.

His head did not move even as his eyes flickered to life. Where? Who? Why? He could not answer and his eyes were such a startling contrast to the swamp that the crows previously hesitant and silent moved as though being swayed by an evil wind, their eyes as black as his white, wanted so very much to feast on these white orbs from which it seemed the sun shone forth.

The crows sat in silence as though waiting for something and strangely, as though compelled by something greater than themselves, they were able to put their hunger aside and to instead be the eyes of this malignant force that seemed to be swelling up from the bottom of the forest.

Through metres and metres of death and decay this force came and with it, it brought the stench of a thousand opened graves that quickly, thickly stifled the small amount of wind within the trees and upon its presence was the burden of the disembowelled.

Herove lay there, somewhere between worlds, somewhere between words and for many moments he was as still and as silent as the world around him and then as though hearing a voice his head rose sharply, quickly, as though yanked on by the strings of a puppet.

His eyes darted feverously around him as though caught on those same strings and like a marionette controlled by epileptic hands he sprung from the mud with a surrendering pop and marched off, his limbs as stiff and as jagged as the trees around him and it were as though one of their own had come to life amidst them and was made to walk amongst them.

The crows of course followed his flight, eager to see where he was going and though they had some inkling of where he was headed, this made the thrill for them none the less and they let their happiness vent the air with their cries, as they happily pursued after.

As they went they laughed between them at his antics and as they flew through the trees above they would occasionally, singularly, or in pairs, fly down as though to whisper something horrible in his ear and such must have been the horribleness of this whisper that he would let out a moan of fear and rage and continue on more heartily with his wild romping.

Occasionally when they were feeling even meaner, instead of whispering a horror they would take his poor earlobe between their beaks and give it a short and cruel pull that would leave it red and painful.

Herove had his hands flailing about his head to keep them away and still they came until each and every one of them had had their go and then their go again!

He continued like this for some time, though if space and time can be considered one it would be this forest that was its metaphor. He soon came to a place of deeper silence and deeper darkness and he bowed his head and shoulders as though to a greater being and fell forward to the mud on which he now kneeled.

Before him greater of shadow, than of light, a trunk bore upwards to a height that was lost in the mists. Branches too followed the trunks discourse; jagged like daggers they surmounted the trunk like a crown of swords, though rusty pitted neglected ones at that.

It was here that his gaze followed their passage through the mist, before falling obediently down.

It was then that I heard in my head a voice of sweet seduction and delicate evil, a tantalizing mix of surrender and power and it spoke to me.

“Greetings thee weary traveller, rest your weary shoulders upon thee trunk and languish your drowsy feet upon my earth, let your soul look up instead of down and may your head find some kind of peace beneath my bowels as pretty as they are.”

I raised my head directly into the dark scarred depths of the speaker and looked into the face of madness. In those depths I saw myself huddled alone, curled up and shivering, the light of my eyes nearly gone, the whims of my will suffocated and the darkness all around.

”I thought I knew thee, as familiar to my eyes you are as your parents, my welcome guests and long term companions, why even now I can feel their laughter filling my halls, recesses and alcoves, tickling those delicate parts of my being with their higher frequencies, and soothing those lower parts, well, with their more lower ones. Such fine guests as they were, I suffered them to stay, long term so to speak, though I doubt they have remorse, at least not one that my ears have heard.

“You of course, you may join them, oh I insist that you do, they have been calling your name for quite some time now from the high’s to the lows your name has rung, and as gracious host as I am indeed, I insist in the absolute that they should suffer you as their companion for now and forever on and yes, it is the least I can do.

“Now where to house thee, there is I fear little room left with the genocide of a race just last century for the love of me, and there was that small incident with the blonde one and his gun, well, what about room 35698 just over the road from your parents, well if you shout loud enough you might just be able to hear each other and I am always willing to allow the odd telegram to pass between thee, of course the system is rather slow based on a pre nineteenth century model and of course the interpreter understands only a little English and has an extreme aversion to the use of vowels, but never the less he is at your disposal, and why it was just yesterday I received a resume from a retired Nazi code translator perhaps we could get him as a replacement, only on your recommendation of course, only on your recommendation.”

I stared onwards.

“Breakfast is of course at its usual time, served in the dining room at 2401 hundred hours and check out say some time after the rapture, a second or so before Armageddon. We have a wonderful staff here, my good friend Rory Jack Thompson services all toilet facilities and the deceased of Black Bobs work day and night to ensure the places runs smoothly and cleanly.  

“Now payment, well we are not your usual low down budget stay, that is to say we do not request payment until the end of your stay and this can be made in silver, 32 pieces or the equivalent weight in memories, for which we will deduct one a day for the next ten thousand years, plus interest compounded daily.

“Now your baggage, that is your back pack, clothes and body well just simply leave them where they are and let the good mud take care of them, the crows however will look after the rest, eyes, noses, tongues and genitalia and so forth, need they not be your concern. If you will just sign here we can dispense with the preliminaries and start enjoying your stay.”

Of course the wit was largely lost upon me and I felt that he was only speaking for his own amusement, however if my parents were there and even if I had to consort with them via telegram, or high pitched yelling, was this at least better than never seeing them again and yet something seemed strange about this situation. Did I indeed have a choice?

“I really need some time to consider the…”

He cut me off, “What do you mean my dear Sir? I mean with the current package deal, ten percent off the health centre where I can give you a written guarantee that you will lose your body weight in weight, and please don’t forget the two for the price of one midday meal, served twice quarterly by our own imported chef typhoid Mary and boy the disappointment on your parents face, while since they have been here I have not heard a single word that has not been torn from hoarse and broken vocal chords, why even now your mother seems to have thrown herself into some kind of fit and though I can not be certain it appears as though she is crying out for you to come in.

“If that’s not enough we have a new liquor that guarantees a hangover that will last a year that in this place is somewhat of a hit, if I don’t say so myself. The news is that the new mattresses that I ordered could be free of white tailed spiders, unlike the previous ones that created some unusually large and ferocious dermatitis, they should be ready and installed by the beginning of next year, all going well.

“Now you are probably a little concerned about our small dog shit problem which someone leaked to the press, of course it was not quite like they put it, and while we might have had a small problem, it wasn’t quite the everywhere you step scenario that the press made people believe.

“I am concerned that you might think that this establishment has a tendency to use the Mash theme song as a wake up call, I can assure you that I have since put a stop to that and have instead personally selected John Williams ‘Woodchip Woodchip, turn it into paper’ one of his and my own favourites.

“Now if all this is not enough I can only offer the following in no particular order of preference.

1. With every cup of alcohol vomited up we will double it
2. We guarantee the pool to contain one third part urine and the remainder in other bodily excretions
3. We guarantee that you will not feel alone in your enjoyment of the place as the walls are so thin the vocal and bodily functions of every other patron will be clearly audible
4. From tomorrow all doors, corridors and stairs will be made to look like one another so that you will be guaranteed to spend ninety percent of your stay trying to find your room
5. Every room is situated above either
   1. A karaoke venue specialising in eighties hits;
   1. An Indonesian dance function;
   1. A torrents syndrome convention hosted by Daryl Summers; or
   1. For the lucky ones a periodic snorer so that just when you think he’s stopped he’s soon to start again.

“Now, WHAT WILL IT BE? Never was there better stay this side of Hotel California!”

I gathered the last of my resolve and hardened myself to this lunacy, for no matter what he said its unwelcome reality had some kind of seductive force upon me and I could see myself giving in to his misplaced promises.

I could see myself joyfully skipping down pathways choked with dog shit, swimming in other peoples urine and at the end of a long day, tipping back a brew that promised a hangover for a year, just to stop my mind remembering what was before, nevermind the madness of this situation, at least it would be something concrete, something aside from the purgatory that I was in.

Just when I was about to give my yes to the affirmative I noticed a hint of colour in the tree tops where in this place no colour should have been.

Before me, above me in the very limbs of this tree there he was! The sneaky, secretive sneak, with the same face lacking expression staring at me as though through a mask.

I thought, yes, here he was at last to gloat as I went away to the promised place, it all made sense. He had led me here and here he would be, at my end.

But instead he came to me lightly through the trees, denying the slippery jagged branches that would have impaled his white flesh with only a small slip, and there he was on the ground in the mud, not a stain on his white breeches,.

He was at my shoulder his white porcelain hand upon the back of my neck, his knees bending and his eyes upon mine, and there he was my salvation and he pulled me forth from the sticking mud, and holding his small porcelain hand I gained my feet.

Before me, the tree that was not a tree rose and it would not easily give up its guest, its servants the crows spewed forth like a great black cloud upon us. My sneaky secretive friend took me tightly in his porcelain hand and we rose from the earth into the sky and flew smartly before the crows that had not anticipated our flight.

They were left angry and bitter, their sharp beaks and cruel claws clutching at each other and before they knew it we had made our escape, as they flew after us, their cries echoed like lunatics through the dead forest.

Names amidst names

Then a white hand and painted eyes

A flight through mountain skies

Swift secret silent one with him I run

From my childhood he has come

Taken from the world of suburban sighs

A place of darkness and crow cries

And brought to the world another place

A place of feminine fantastic grace

 She was the beauty of the past

The bountiful lustful ever last

Effigy of a childhood dream

Man and child redeemed

Maiden of the water true

 Sensual grace born anew

So often given to the few

Now its mine and I am new

She doled upon my moon shine soul

My head upon her breast it stole

Her form gathered into fiery light

Her form felinity and purities sight  

We sped with the swiftness of the wind through the trees, the murky swamp and all its mud and miserableness beneath us, like a pair of kites we found the fastest currents and swam upon their back.

The crows flew after, unable to match our swiftness, but still keen all the same. We soon surpassed the boarders of the valley and climbed dangerously, or so it seemed, out of the low lands and into the high, the mists and mountains were now our earthly companions, and below me its canopy was breaking the mist.

I caught for an instant the sight of a great stand of tree, its green was so true that for an instant I wanted to let go and fall within its embrace, yet the crows were still with us and all the time I could feel their anger and bitterness and in the back of my mind, like one of those dream memories before sleep, there was a silky seductive voice with not a hint of wickedness.

“We will see you again wont we?”

We flew with the speed of cowards and I could feel the West Wind rising strong and pure around us.

We came through the jagged escarpments of quartzite peaks, dipped into valleys thick with the speckled reflections of mirrored tarns and flew swiftly over the great green expanses of primeval rain forests.

In the distance I could see the sea and all about us the clouds became mountains and the mountains became clouds. We came close to the earth now, so that one could see the individual trees, so green so vibrant and so old.

We came closer still, fleeing up a valley we went, the great expanse of a river beneath us and faster we flew until the land was a blur beneath us. Rising we followed the rivers course back amidst the highlands and the porcelain face seemed fixed with concentration, even though his features stayed the same.

We plummeted through a dark ravine, the walls of its secrecy rising up high around us and I could hear the crows cry in what seemed like some kind of victory, and looking ahead I saw a wall of water and quicker we flew.

What were we to do? Hit this water at speeds faster than an aeroplane and drown ourselves asunder within in its watery turbulent depths? No, instead we tore upwards and the spray was against our chests, wet and refreshing upon our faces and I could hear the crows give vent to their surprise and despair as the water took hold of their thin frail bodies and sent them into the rocks below.

We seemed to be at once settled upon the waterfalls lip and before us spread the river and then the sea and the bodies of the crows were discernable amidst the water and the rocks below.

Like a great stain they were carried away by the current to the distance that was that sea.

I fell then as though to join the crows below, but thin arms caught me and carrying, half dragging, took me from the edge and the sight of the sea. As my visage dimmed I saw through blurry eyes the eyes of the porcelain person who was no longer a secretive sneak.

All that stands between a hello and a goodbye

I awoke to such gentle ministrations that I half feared and half hoped that it was an angel that mopped my heated brow and not as I instantly suspected with a momentarily shudder of deep remorse the hand of the porcelain person.

For though I owed him much gratitude for all that he had done I could not suffer the touch of those cold hands upon my face. With eager yet fearful trepidation I allowed my eyes to breach the confines of my eyelids and with this small slither of secretive sight I was able to observe my predicament.

Instead of beholding my porcelain friend I found that these artful ministrations belonged to a hand rather larger, though not much so, and possessing of a gentle colour that was not porcelain white, but seemed equally tender.

Raising my eyes further I was met with the eyes of a long lost vision and I squeezed my eyes shut as though to dispel for the first time during my journey a vision that was beautiful and unbelievable both the same.

I felt the cloth return yet still I squinted my eyes closed in denial, it could not be her I told myself and my eyes became such squints that I feared that my brow would never again unfurl, but her gentle ministrations seemed to have some success at ironing them out until I was again in possession of a face more worthy to meet a lady.

Despite this my eyes could not open and I feared that I would be rendered sightless forever in her presence, for to open my eyes seemed as rude and intruding and presumptuous and every other secular sin that can be made towards the fairer kind and inwardly I cursed my predicament.

Then I felt a light pressure and the gentle flutter of eye ashes as she deposited with such care, a kiss on each eye lid and even I, in my lonesome stubborn way, was forced to acknowledge this gentle acceptance and I rose as if to behold a vision.

She was as she was, though also as she had been, the lady from the stream though alas clothed in a white slip that hid many of the features that were sadly engraved upon my childhood memory from view and yet despite the absence of these I could not fail to recognise her.

Her hair parted in a sweep of blonde light and silver shadow that half cradled her eyes and fine cheeks with the consistency of spun gold that’s weave had captured the sun within their depths and bound and united it there in order to make one follow its fall as one follows the fall of a rainbow to the earth beneath.

Her large eyes, white and blue, that looked upon me with a rare hint of innocence and mischief had within them the expression of the bovine eyes in the top paddock and like those eyes I felt instantly safe and a warmth seemed to fill me as I fell as though into a deep sanctuary that smelt of milk and cream.

Her nose was fine and her lips full and a hint of mischief hung around her eyes as though she had just whispered something provocative into the ears of my unconscious mind and there this message still dwelt where it leant a touch of the provocative to all that I saw.

Her shoulders were exposed and the muscles were good and fine and for her ears I can not say as they were hidden, though I guessed that they were equally good as well. Her slip of course hid all else that I saw and yet seemed to display all that was hidden to good advantage and while a moment of irritation gripped me that this should be so and that she were not naked before me as she had been I was quick to thank the Gods for her and wondered at my luck that she might be mine again.

In an instant all the unconscious urges of childhood found there home within a mans heart.

Although I had found some facility with my eyes, my mouth had not yet reached the same level of co-ordination and what I blurted meant very little at all. I am sure that upon translation it would have gone something like:

“Greet thee fair maiden of the waterfall, who’s kind ministrations brought me from unconsciousness that even I in my worldly nature find truly merciful and becoming, thank thee for delivering my soul, as unworthy as it is from too certain of a danger and if it is of no further problem I will let my head back to your soft lap and let thee carry on.”

But instead the mumbled disorientation of consonants, vowels, adjectives and nouns said everything I needed to say and nothing at all, something along the lines of, gee your very pretty, thankyou, I am very embarrassed and confused, but I made an effort at greeting and I would rather just close my eyes and let it all blow over, one and the same all must agree.

She seemed to take this in her stride, smiling sheepishly, knowingly, though again provocatively and let me stew in some kind of uncomfortable silence that made me want to repeat my fist question in whatever language that I had at my command so that I could   return again to her lap.

The silence lengthened and it was the same as that day in the high paddock when I had seen her and I blurted at once, “Don’t, please don’t disappear.”

She looked puzzled and then perhaps recalling our former meeting replied, “No, I will not”

“My name is Herove.”

She repeated this word again as though testing each syllable with her unconsciousness, she said it again to herself piquantly expressing the two syllables He and Rove as though I might rove over hill and glen as much as one day given her grace I might rove over her hill and glen.

She replied, “Lovelorn, welcome to my home,” and I felt welcome.

I went to shake her hand in mine and at once realised that mine was still covered in the mud of the dead forest and all of the memories came back, the despair and my parents gone and when I tried to wipe the mud from my hand it stayed.

Through tears I saw my body and face covered also in mud and she at once held me to her and whispered sounds of light, she told me that the mud would not be removed by any normal means, but remove it we would just as soon as I had the strength to do so and until then she would keep me safe. She told me that the porcelain person had left, but that he would be back soon and I should have no fear of the dark tree and that I should rest and heal and that all would be again well.

I spent the time that was left to me in this place healing as she said I would. Quickly the strength returned to my emaciated body and I felt again the power and vitality that I had possessed during the early days of my journey.

Though as my body was healing, some indefinable darkness seemed to have encroached upon my mind, it tinted my sight, sound and memory with its touch, though all the time I would find her in my vision and she soon became the balance of light against this darkness.

She was there to help the berries to my mouth where their bitter sweetness mingled pleasantly with the profile of her averted eyes. She was there to offer the clean white flesh of the fish she caught bare handed from the swift flowing river and she was there when the swift flow of the day gave itself, ever so cautiously, to the immortality of the night.

I caught the fragrance of her hair often in those days and the faint unknown intoxicating aroma that inundated its dark depths mingled pleasantly with her every movement and gesture and within myself I found a peace that I had never known before.

The West Wind was here as well, flowing with that same strange subtlety that I remembered from long ago. In those days we walked the valley together and I soon found that the grotto that we sheltered in by night, and in the days when the sky was filled with cloud and storm, was in fact a cave carved by the river in an earlier time and with its Western boundary covered by a smooth flowing wall of translucent cleanliness I felt as though I dwelt in some sylvian daydream from which I feared to wake.

The darkness was still there and I often found myself lost, not in thought, but somewhere else and she would be there at once to shake me back into consciousness, her eyes and hands imploring me to return and I would, with some effort return.

At times the silence of my thoughts and haunted daydreams became too much and we would share memories and thoughts. I questioned her often on the West Wind and my parents, confident that she would be the answer to all my questions and observations, but strangely she was always secretive and any hint or desperation, or anger, or intolerance on my behalf seemed to cause a tightening of her expression and a darkness to form in her eyes that I did not wish to be the cause of, so sheepishly my questions would drift into silence and her smile would again return.

She told me that she knew nothing of her origins, that like the forests and the trees she had always been and when I told her that actually the forests and trees had not always been and that they had evolved like every other living thing upon the planet she would look at me as though I was daft and I felt as Copernicus may have done when he explained to others that the earth went around the sun and was not believed.

All her life she told me that she dwelt near stream and river and that river and stream, like her, had always been and if the need took her she would occasionally visit the sea, this too, she told me, had always been.

Pretty soon I became convinced that she was a figment of mythological character, leftover and discarded from another time, an ancient naiad that’s roots were as old as the earth itself and that I would (if I were not already) become the love struck mortal that had been captured by her magical snare and would spend the reminder of my mortal days in her care.

At times I could not believe her as a living breathing flesh and blood creature, with an independent soul and will, cloaked as she was in such a fine form. At times when everything seemed truly unbelievable, this small fact seemed even the more so.

The days sped quickly by and I, with little courage, was content to just be in her presence and in this way I was able to sustain any foolish ideas that I had as to our relationship and where it might go.

As I look back upon these happy yet unresolved days I realise that unrequited love, is indeed the truest love, for it is never given the lethargy and acceptance that requited love allows.

It is sustained when all other loves die, it never knows doubt, and it is never allowed disappointment. Never is the unrequited soul allowed to sink into apathy, never is the unrequited soul allowed to be apart, for if the mind and body can never touch and never know then the unrequited imaginations must be its whole.

Unrequited love forever keeps the mind and body supple and active, moving all on a journey to an unknown destination, a place where the merest touch, the briefest look are potent signposts to a foreseeable goal.

Though of course unrequited love can also be a sickness that can warp ones sense of proportion, it can at once dismiss the surest of signs and accept the most implausible possibilities; it is a love that is forever shy and fickle, a love that thrives on the paranoia and imagination of its jailor. It is a love that will see the end of the world, for it is a love that will always live in spirit and never know the shortfalls of the flesh.

I felt all this. In her desperate company my mind swam with delusional events, just as it was thwarting every obvious avenue that led to them, I would hold this love, if I did not speak it, if I did not utter it, it would be safe and I would wrap it around me and pull it closer when it was threatened, though at times when I felt it would never be returned I could momentarily cast it from me, only for it to crawl slyly back so that I could hold it close as I could hold no other through the cold lonely nights.

The only thing aside from this love and my quest before me was this darkness, and looking down upon the mud I seemed to feel it most there, where its surface shaded my own and I could feel some deep ache where my skin and this new skin met and a horrible uncertain shivering of fear filled me.

It was during the nights when this seemed greatest and it was as though all the darkness of the world were condensed so as to fit neatly within my heart and there my heart would quiver in its small tissue and blood casing, as it pumped relentlessly and unknowingly the darkness around my body.

My veins would greedily gobble it up and distribute its darkness to every cell, until the world became as black as the colour of my blood and the world around me became the darkness that was the blood within my sight.

In this state my sleep would be plagued by dreamscapes of a nightmarish nature, where I would wake back at my parents house and wander outside and behold a world around me of houses, thousands and thousands of them all around me, each with their lights on and yet I knew in each of these houses, with their thin exterior of life, no one was living and I was the only person in this world.

Struggling I would rouse myself from this stupor and even though the sights and visions would reside I would be left with this feeling for days to come.

Occasionally Lovelorn would awaken too, perhaps my tossing and turning rousing her from sleep, perhaps sensing the growing strength of the darkness, whatever, she would come to me and hold me despite the cost and the pain unto herself and occasionally she would spend the night amidst my blankets and during this time dawn would seem as close as it was far away.

Often, she took me from my weary rest and set me out into the world, at first it was just to the waterfall to collect water for her and then later as my strength increased I would go and collect with the aid of her eye the mountain herbs that grew upon the plateau and together we would make our weary way against the wind to find amidst the sheltered hollows all that was needed for a fine meal.

Together, hand in hand so that the wind did not separate us as it separated our words, we would return, our arms full with the mountains rich bounty and together amidst the rich pallor of starlight and firelight when her hair seemed to be filled as though with the fiery passion of my heart and not the failing passion of a dying fire we would eat and then sleep and then fall to the ground together.

We also went to the lowlands, following the water from the caves heavenly reaches we spiralled down with its flow until it was but a trickle between moss and fern and it was here, where it had gathered to itself all the juices of the forest so that it could trickle darkly against the exposed sands of the streams shores and create such a contrast of shade and light, that we sat for hours, transfixed as it moved about us.

Amidst these forests, when the sun was at its maximum, we would dwell in the forests cool shade, a sanctuary for the soul and the sounds of the giant trees creaking around us a lullaby for content contemplation.

Within the waters of these streams she astounded me by pulling forth great arthropods that I knew existed but had never actually seen and from these great integument bound primitive creatures that stared at us with eyes from a past that only they remembered we would feast and not a sweeter flesh have I tasted, nor tasted since.

Occasionally, though of course nearly always accompanied by an unsure murmur of secret trepidation, she would suggest that we might swim, that we might shed the heat of the day amidst the forest deep, that we might languish within its sheltered bowels, in places where the sun was never seen but was always welcome and here we would shed our clothes as trees shed their leaves and together we would join with the waters that swirled with such secrecy amidst the forest.

Amidst the gentle dip of tree and fern where the world was green and the shores white we would descend together and within these aquatic places we would meet.

She was at these times modest so that she would never bear all to me, but would instead give me tantalizing hints of what she held away, though I knew not whether she did this consciously, or whether she did this with the shy unconscious innocence of her own nature, regardless I was always dumfounded by her beauty and the beauty of the land around her.

Never have I seen a creature more akin to the water, for she made my feeble splashings upon the surface a shared joke as she herself delved deep beneath so that her silhouette flowed mysteriously below me. Here she would stay so long that I thought that she had drowned and then she would surface silently behind me and would be against me for a moment and I would feel the curved warmth of her breasts before she would duck me under.

Then she would be out of reach before I could surface and there she would be upon the bank, her arms resting naturally, curvaceously against all that my eyes wished to take in and again that look of mischief and again she would be gone to a place where I was fearful to go and I would be left cold and shivering upon the river bank waiting for her to return as though it were I who was the strange one for not doing as she could, as she often would.

Sometimes she would come to me through the stream, the water creating enchanted wakes around her as she moved, the water swirling around her as though she and the water were the same and with that look in her eye that I had become so akin to.

She would come right up to me and unfurl her arms so that they rested upon my shoulders and bending forward she would whisper as though she were afraid that the trees might hear, tales into my ear.

Strange tales of other places and as her breath danced deliciously against my face and I could feel the warmth of her breasts through the water, she would tell of what she had found deep, deep down beneath the stream and as these words spilled forth like a dark stream against my ear I would feel a delicious shiver of trepidation that had nothing to do with the coolness of the water and soon a longing for these deep dark depths began to grow within me and I longed to see that which only the fish and the other strange things that lived down there could see.

While I was imagining such places and the question “will you take me there” was forming on the tip of my lips she would kiss my forehead and give me a look of such longing and then she would be gone as though tempting me to follow and I would be left again on the bank alone.

One day there came a time when my love for her had grown to a point where the only thing that could match it was my fear that she didn’t feel the same. On this day I longed to drown both those feelings in the streams dark depths.

It started off as a normal afternoon, leaving the heights and the humidity behind we moved beneath the canopy of the rainforest and followed our ears to the mysterious conjunction of water and rock that bisected the valley with its sanguine sound. Following this torrent as it appeared out of the rocks we soon came to a group of mysterious pools that neither of us had seen before and we were at once as eager to swim amidst their warm surfaces as we were eager to plunder their cold depths.

We stood there in silence, as the silence became broken by the buzz of dragon flies and the cry of a far off bird and then without a sound we made our way closer to the waters edge and stood for a time gazing into the becoming pools that nature had formed and that lay before us like an expression within two kind yet unfathomable eyes.

Soon the heat of the day and the mystery of what lay beneath became to much for Lovelorn and she was at once, though it seemingly took forever, naked and with a smooth dive she disappeared beneath those dark depths and I was left upon the bank, dumbfounded and delighted, yet still lacking the courage to follow her.

It was sometime later that she surfaced before me and now it was I that was to go in as she had done and as the cold water rose to my chest I felt at once as though I had returned home, yet I also felt so incredibly far from home that for a moment my heart seemed to stop in my chest with a fearful apprehension.

Then Lovelorn was there motioning me to come deeper. I did then as she beckoned and yet never within me have I felt the warm touch of temptation go as it did then against the cool temperament of reason, as the cool water hugged my body I felt some sort of free bliss and as Lovelorn came closer this bliss only increased and I wished as I had wished at no other time before to ravage her, to take her violently and silently against the river bank and she, as though knowing my intent, as though she felt it within the water that separated us, or seeing it in my eyes, gave me one last look and dived deeper to a place that I had until now feared to go.

I saw her go; I saw that last look in her eyes, a half look of scorn and seduction as she dived and I saw her hair follow her and then she was gone, only a tiny ring of disturbed water that moved forever outwards as she moved forever downwards marking the absence of her presence and then in that second when I could have made any other decision, when I could have crawled back upon the bank to await her return as I always had before I did what I had always intended to do and dived to follow her.

The water opened up before me like the cold and I nearly involuntary took a great draft of this water such was its chill and then seemingly instantly, I became warm within the waters depths and was able to move deeper with only small discomfort.

The water seemed to be relatively clear through the smudge that was my opened eyes so that ahead of me I could just make out the shimmering silhouette of Lovelorn as she swam before me as skilfully as a fish. I followed her then as best I could.

Around me this aquatic world of eldritch enchantment began to work wonders within my eyes, the light from above transformed everything into mystery below and the glimmer of light enchanted all that was above. I followed her and even then I could feel my heart beating thickly within my head and my breath straining within my lungs and of course that so well known lethargy that was beginning to take my limbs and yet still, I kicked downwards.

We went deeper, further and the stream bed seemed to open at once into an aquatic cathedral that was hung with all manner of aquatic plants and dappled ever so marvellously with refractured light that glinted and hinted at a hundred hidden treasures. I marvelled at the beauty of 3 dimensional movement as I flew above the stream bed below and then turned on my back to view the light above.

We went deeper still as the river bed seemed to collapse into a light filled void in which tiny air bubbles and small fish moved like tiny satellites in the ever blackness of space. Within this place it seemed as though every hint of the streams former dimensions were lost and we had crossed over into a world that was inside the world that was inside words.

Then as I fell down, as though drawn by gravity, and when it seemed that the strange beauty of this place must go against, yet encompass everything that I had known of the world before, I felt the first dim contortions and soft vibrations of a heart that would soon beat no more and though I had not taken into me any water I knew that it was only time and though I feared for my soul I also imagined my body floating forever within this eldritch place, illuminated with the light of God from above and captured forever within the darkness of the earth below and for some strange reason I felt at peace and my heart stopped its wild tattoo amidst my breast.

Just then, as I started to gasp and the water began to find its new home, Lovelorn seemed to turn as though she had sensed me there or perhaps because I in my panic had brushed her ankle with my desperate hand and there she was before me, taking me by the shoulders and then for a moment, as her face moved closer through the liquid I found myself in a different world.

My identity was gone so quickly that I never had the chance to know who I was or who I had been, a great roar filled up my vision, hearing and head until I felt I been immersed in a great dark river that flowed swiftly over my head.

At first there was no sound, only this strange sensation of stagnated motion and the haunting sensation that I was not alone within this soothing turmoil and that all around me a great concourse was occurring, whispered secretly and tirelessly in an unknown tongue, a garbled gargantuan conversation between legion upon legion of unknowns.

I was in the middle, on the edge within and outside, the waters thick and rich, the currents dark and pure and the voices a soothing counterpace to my own lethargic oblivion and then from within the depths, as though rising up like a singular unconsciousness, I could feel a presence, a deep pure fount like a cup of water from a deep well and this presence all around, inside and out was malignant and benevolent all the same.

Then Lovelorn was there, pulling me back from this benevolent end and her lips were upon mine and her eyes were on mine and some glorious triumph seemed to be playing within her eyes and awake in her expression and I weak and near death fell with in her, as I fell within her arms and then as I felt my consciousness again departing to that other place she passed from her mouth to my own, a great breath of air that seemed to fill me up with love and magic.

There was enough of this magic and this love to keep me alive within this place and my lungs seemed to labour no more nor was my heart to toil and the world within my eyes opened up with crystal transparency as though a shroud of mist had been lifted from them and Lovelorn was before me and this aquatic world was around me and together hand in hand we fell down deep within its depths.

I can not safely say what I saw on that journey as Lovelorn took me down with her into those depths, I do not even know if such a journey actually occurred. Perhaps it was into my own imagination that we had instead travelled, such were the sights that I saw that I find it hard to believe that these sights could have existed anywhere else.

As I recall these images I see with in my mind great cathedrals of rock dropping forever down, great archways of glittering crystal rising up, unknown light sources and an unknown heat and water that seemed unbelievably pure.

I remember as though it were a dream being surrounded by creatures such as Lovelorn was, and they were pleading and caressing and then there was her, smiling and leading me away. I can see the sadness in their eyes when I was gone and the sadness in my own when they were gone.

I remember great leviathans that would have been terrifying if they were not truly magnificent, swimming with us, Lovelorn seemed to communicate with them in an unknown tongue as they made way to let us pass.

I remember so much and yet I seem to remember so little and all too soon we were again breaking the water above and I was again spurting and sputtering upon the bank, the dry cool air upon my body, so dry and abrasive that I remember trying to go back, trying again to immerse myself in that other world.

Lovelorn, kissing away my tears pulled me back, a look of understanding and perhaps fear upon her features as she took us both away from the waters edge.

I also remember, though with even less confidence, the other place that I had been too when my air gave out, though after a while this place became even less than a memory.

We did not swim together again.

It may have been due to the change in the weather that prompted this unspoken, unanswered decision and yet I feel that this was not the case, that instead Lovelorn believed that the place we had travelled to was perhaps better not travelled to again and that our relationship had become dangerous as each of us had become dangerous to ourselves and as this world had become dangerous to us both.

I do not know why, yet I know that as the days speedily descended on towards winter Lovelorn spent more time with me upon the land and no longer ventured forth to the other realm of the aquatic.

Though I knew, by the longing expression on her face as she looked deep down into the forest and imagined those cool dark places, that it was there that she again wished to be.        

She cradled me so I was free

She kept me from the dark tree

 Her fate was sealed by knowing me

She died so I could be free

“Its time to go,” were the words I heard perhaps a fortnight since I had come to this place.

Raising my sleep stained eyes to her countenance, that seemed mildly excited for this time of morning, I answered some what unfairly and irritably, “Where?”

She replied, seeming to excuse my rudeness, “You have the strength now for the mud to be removed.”

Looking down I realised and saw the mud upon me and I felt as though it had become apart of myself, for some reason I felt a slight stab of fear or unease at the thought of having this second skin removed and she spoke thus as though sensing my apprehension

“Fear not, this type of skin is better shed and it will only do you ill to wear it instead of your own.”

“Where will we go?”

“West of here, in a secret place, lies a pool where the waters alone have the qualities that can remove the mud and there we will travel to do as such.”

Rising, as though there was no more to say, she made her way to the caves exit and giving me one last lingering look disappeared from sight.

I rose to my feet clutching together in haste my otherworldly belongings that she seemed to do so well without and stuffing them somewhat unceremoniously within my back pack so that it seemed twice as full as it otherwise would have.

I gathered the stick that I had kept from the dead forest and that had, considering the frailty of its appearance, denied all opportunities to be broken and with one last look at the place that had given me so much but had withheld so much more I followed her departing shadow into the world again.

I ran after her like some despairing scarecrow over the slippery surfaces of the stream bed, my arms all akimbo and my pack all askew until I vainly reached her regal back and the slowly drying foot prints that her bare feet had left behind.  

I gained her side and reaching unconsciously towards her I grabbed her shoulders between my mud stained hands. Dimly aware of the warm softness that I felt I turned her to face me and before I realised that this touch, both brutal and vain, was my first conscious touch of her body, something happened.

It seemed like a fire had exploded against my cheek and I fell from her upon the slippery slimy confines of the river bed, my walking stick coming from my hand and my pack failed to cushion my fall, there were the waters swirling around my lower half my wrists aching with their impact against the rocks.

She was above me, a look of scorn and pain upon her fair features and her hand raised still with the blow that she had delivered to my cheek, her eyes filled with the devils fury, then her expression softened like the fabric of my trousers in the waters wake and she fell to her knees before me begging forgiveness.

“I am sorry, you can not touch me, not at all, not while that foul mud covers you, I can feel it burning my skin, my being, even now after your touch has abated I feel it still.”

I remembered dimly her hand upon my brow when I first regained consciousness and her body through those nights after, I remembered us together within the water and I thought of her pain and could say no more, but from then a bond of some great magnitude grew between us and raising myself from the river bed I adjusted my pack and my pace fell in slowly with hers.

We followed the stream from its source towards the sea and all the time I feared to speak, though thankfully it was her voice that broke the stillness.

“This is the sea and across it the West Wind blows from another place, look around you at the land that the West Wind has wrought, every shape, its strength and subtle touch has moulded, every tree and stone has felt its magic upon their being and all have shivered delicately with its caress from when it blows as a gale to when it is only the smallest of summer breezes. Look at this land, its uniqueness, if you believe that it could only be the chaotic whim of evolution that created such a place you are truly foolish,” and I beheld of the place she spoke.

Sea archers rose like the citadels of dead dark dynasties, their pitted scared fascia’s a testimony to the wind of which she spoke as the deep seas caressed their buttresses with a gentle touch that in moments could become a wind swept gale.

The sands of the place were the white of heaven and every shrub or small bit of greenery seemed to have been placed by the hands of a gardener after a millennium of contemplation.

Rock pools nearby revealed within their depths sea creatures of gargantuan proportions, a starfish of megalithic stature undulating its many appendages in the gentle current surrounding it like the candles on a birthday cake, a circle of sea anemones also of substantial size that would have little trouble swallowing someone’s unfortunate clumsy foot.

The sky however was the most beautiful of all, a swirling greyness surmounted with pockets of darkness and ridges of light and it was as though it could swallow the earth without a moments notice.

When she spoke again it was on the subject of food, “We shall eat now for where we are going there is nothing that can be eaten.”

She reached down into the aqua depths of a rock pool and brought forth all manner of shell fish, she did it with such ease that I at once believed that they had torn themselves from the rocks by their own will and had ridden her hand gladly to the surface and death for her pleasure.

When I inquired if this was indeed the case, smiling to let her know it was a joke, she nodded and smiled as her little white teeth tore into their giving flesh, she offered some to me and while it was a pleasing flavour the texture did not seem as though it had benefited me in the same way as hers and I spent the afternoon picking them from between my gums.

During this time the sea breeze was fresh and cool upon my features, and dry and salty upon my eyes though it was some relief from the darkness and the seas motion forever seemed to deny me the lethargy of my thoughts, though at times I would find my self motionless and alone at the edge of some airy descent captivated by the play of shadows and the ocean below, staring down as though into the future, imagining the weightlessness and then the rush of wind in my ears.

Other times over lunch, as my small knife opened a small delicacy I would be captivated by the play of light upon its edge, as I imagined its edge against my delicate skin in coldness against and within me. Other times the sea would steal my eyes and I imagined depths upon depths and the fall of the continental shelf below, I imagined darkness upon darkness and a pale naked body drifting down. 

Luck would have it that Lovelorn would be there to pull my eyes away, to fold the knife in her gentle hand and to offer a smile, to ignore the tears upon my eyes. I knew that this could not go on, soon would come a time when her hand would not be there to guide me away, or her hand to avert my eyes and on some cold wind swept night I would be forever lost to her and mortal eyes.

From here we moved back inland, first passing through one of the arches that appeared to my mind to be the oldest and most regal of them all and for the humbleness of our motion it seemed as though there was some regal nature in our passage and in passing the gate we were brought to some rightful and mysterious heritage.

From the other side we entered a very narrow beach that was surrounded by impenetrable cliffs and on its inland boundary by such a thick amassing of trees that the gate seemed to be the only entrance bar the sea.

We moved across the sands, our footfalls soon disappearing in the light breeze and the white sand like snow ahead of us unmarred and unbroken.

At the apex of the beach, waters so clear were reviled and I had soaked a good portion of my boots before I realised I was in them as they flowed with the tide into a small grotto.

Lovelorn beckoned as she found the middle of the stream and followed its head waters into the trees and I at once followed.  Soon the waters became deeper, but for all its depth, the water seemed to hamper our progress not at all.

The trees soon formed a dense canopy overhead and the species was of the strangest I have seen, with thin bone like trunks and topped by green foliage they were like long skinny men with afro like hair cuts, clustered together so tightly that one could have not squeezed the smallest child between their trunks.

We moved deeper and I soon noticed, somewhat alarmingly, that the water had reached Lovelorn’s waist and her white slip had become transparent from the bottom down, need I say I still followed her, my backpack and soaked trousers hampering my progress.

Soon I felt the feeling of another’s awareness around us but instead of residing in any particular place it seemed to arise from everywhere and everything. I felt neither threatened nor invited and it was as though this consciousness was too ancient to acknowledge our presence.

I believed at once that this was the place, but looking down where my hand had brushed the waters edge the mud was still as thick and seemingly as dry as it always had been.

We travelled further and the grotto beneath the trees seemed to open into a wider chamber at the same time as the waters became shallower and strangely colder, so cold infact that I felt my breath catch in my throat and my feet become numb and I faltered and then stopped.

Lovelorn sensed the lack of movement following her and turned and beckoned me to her side. I slowly moved on stiff numb limbs and if it had not been for my stick I would have fallen.

The waters in this part now looked as blue as they were cold, as though illuminated from below by a cold blue light. The sun had remained hidden and I had guessed that it could not penetrate the thick timber, though now, perhaps as it rose high overhead, its light came forth to bathe the waters in a golden light and on frigid legs I came to a small depression of an uncertain depth at which Lovelorn stood on the edge, looking down as though waiting for something to appear within its depths.

“Here we are Herove, here the mud will come free from your skin and the darkness will come free from your soul.”

I looked up to her and she appeared not to be suffering at all from the terrible coldness that I felt, she beckoned me at once to set my pack aside and to follow her into the deeper waters of this aqua’s pool.

“I can not go in there,” I spoke, “already I am so cold I fear that I will never again be warm.”

She looked at me and beheld knowingly my pale skin and blue tinged lips, “But you must, or else the mud will stay.”

She took my shoulders and before I could pull away and just as I saw the pain flashing briefly and knowingly upon her face she pulled me forth and down and I felt the waters cool and cold around me, taking the heat, taking my breath and all that I was and she spoke as she moved to unbuttoned my shirt.

“These waters flow from the highest mountains in this land, these waters are the snows melt, clean and pure upon this land, these waters are the cleansers of all unclean souls and these waters will wash and the mud it will go.”

All the time she was speaking my clothes fell from me and the heat left me and there was my angel gently taking me closer to death.

When I looked into her eyes I could not read a single expression and at last I was naked and she clothed, yet alluringly transparent and every feature of her was as though she were naked.

Soon I could not think such was the ice that seemed to have penetrated every pore as though it flowed instead of blood through my. I felt the gentle pull of unconsciousness, the gentle dipping of eye lids and the just audible crackling sound as the ice became loose around my eyes, how could this water be this cold I briefly asked and then this thought was gone with the warmth that had produced it.

She still seemed impervious to the cold and her limbs were still as warm and full of life as they had always been and I could see the blood pumping warm and thick in an artery in her neck and see it moving in the shallow veins that moved within the skin of her breast and never had anyone looked more alive as she did to me now.

At last she spoke as though breathless and I looked down to perceive small fish like sleek ice crystals  moving below the surface nibbling gently at the mud and consuming it in little bites and I though some what dryly, why by the time they finish I will be an ice crystal left to melt in the sun.

“Good,” she smiled, “see how they do their work, do their fine little repairs.”

She smiled with such pride as though they were her own little invention. I tried to reply to the contrary that if only the fish in this pond possessed the same gargantuan proportions as other such creatures on this coast I might just be all right but she silenced my mumbles with her fingers against my lips and spoke as though I would not hear

“It is time.”

Gently disengaging herself she pulled her slip from her and it rose like a piece of ice above her head and I beheld with almost blind eyes her naked beauty and just as her breasts had settled into their new freedom and her hair found the naked contours of her back she came towards me, the strangest of expressions surmounting her features from helpless pity to happiness and then from happiness to sadness.

She came to me through the waters that separated us and straddled my lap as though I were a chair and all I could feel was her weight as her body, as sleek and warm, as mine was numb leant against me. There she sat in silence holding my head to her breast that for all its softness was not there and she said nothing as she did this as though it were the most natural movement in the world.

Soon under her touch I felt the heat returning at first to my chest, stomach and shoulders and gradually I perceived her nakedness, the heat then returned to arms and hands and I raised them to hold her equally and we sat like this for some unknown time and then I felt just as my hope of living through this situation became solid the coldness within her figures and the soft short breaths against my cheek, the hardness of her small nipples against my chest and the goose bumps that ran down her back.

“Lovelorn, you are cold we must leave,” I managed to say even though the cold seemed equally upon me.

“No Herove, there can be no going for me, for if I went you would again become more ice than flesh.”

“But what of you my dear, my sweet one?” and it was as though all the pent up feelings of the past had found there rightful passage past frozen lips. I felt her arms with the last of her strength tighten and pull me closer and I, helpless within this grip could do nought and gradually I felt myself become lethargic and the cold became tolerably cool and then a seductive warm and my eyes fluttered closed once, twice, thrice and then no more and I fell to sleep cradled within the arms of the one I was doomed to lose and in my mind I could still feel her warmth, see the profile of her neck and lips and feel the last of the warmth leave her breast as her eye lids fluttered no more against my cheek.

It was some time later, or so I believed, the bright light coming through my eyelids illuminating my vision with colour let me know that I sat in full light of noon, before opening my eyes.

I was aware that the water had lost its chill and now swirled gently around me with little more than a slight almost ticklish crispness that seemed to rouse my remaining faculties to life. I sat their horribly consciousness of the weight and the coldness against me, fully aware yet mindfully unconsciousness of what this weight and this cold meant and opening my eyes which the sun had awoken earlier I beheld her as she now was.

Her beauty was still there, trapped eternally within the ice that become her, every detail painfully accurate and pronounced as if she had been carved by the wind and water. Her expression was not one of sadness as my mind first led me to believe, but of some kind of deliverance, as though she had overcome some great odds and had had a moments respite to enjoy them. Her mouth was still thick and full as it had been in life and it held upon its expression a look of triumph and glistening like jewels upon the edge of her eyes frozen tears were laid.

Her hair was transformed to a degree that was breathtaking, every wisp and fall trapped within the ices metamorphosis, her body was a pure glistening expanse of perfection as though the form that she now wore was the embodiment of her true essence   and then helplessly, breathlessly I could see her transforming.

At first the light danced within her as though it were life, all the colours of the spectrum dancing within her being and the sun which had until now remained a merciful observer started to do its work and with the low wave lengths of the spectrum her icy flesh began to heat, giving the heat of life that her new form could not contain and before me she changed form.

First it was her hair as it lost its detail and became a slick smooth contour and then her back as it too took on the same inhuman smoothness and before the sun could do its work upon her face I leant forward and with my lips kissed her smooth eyelids and on my tongue I tasted the salt of her tears.

After that there is little more I can say, long before she had totally disappeared I closed my eyes for I could not afford the sight.

To summarise she transformed into the aquinas and the last of her to go was the hands against my back and without their touch there was nothing and she joined the waters that would soon flow to the sea.

I then left as well, this place no longer had its magic and I made my way back alone, the same way we had both come.

Grasping my stick and pack without strength I followed the sunlit corridor back into the world, my eyes thick with anger and my head hanging with loss. Through the pale skinny limbs I went and even more did they look like bones, rearing out of the earth like a testimony to death.

On breeching the beach I stared with unabated hate at the sea and refuted myself viciously for allowing myself to think that this land could have been formed by anything other than evolution, that horribly objective dispassionate force that turned chaos and entropy into some type of meaningful system with us at its deceitful centre, that us in our longing for the spiritual and the profound could find some kind of meaning in it, only for that meaning to fall apart on the doorstep of death.

Justice to he, was dearly dealt

All the pain and anguish he felt

His body was battered and broken

His mind smitten and betoken 

Thrown into a sea, of eternal motion

A place of turbulent angry emotion

If only he, had not had that notion

If only he had spoken  

I sat there upon the beach of my bereavement and the sea seemed to be filled with tears and the last traces of her, even now being carried from my sight. I sat there upon the beach that was like the powdered bones that I had not been given the mercy to bury. I sat there beneath a sky whose colours can only be described by metaphor and imagination an image lost upon the words of science, like death and like her.

And while the world turned from noon to dusk around me my mind was trapped in the noon and the light of the sky around her before she became ice. I thought to myself if I acknowledge this new sky, thick with the colour of blood and death and my small place within it I would also have to acknowledge a place where Lovelorn was just a memory and this I would not do so for a time my eyes remained shut, safe and secure within the light of an old world.

To admit a world of dawn and dusks, dusks and dawns, forever on until the end of the world I could not do. Even though I had had only a small time with this precious soul, even though I had not known the touch of her lips upon mine, or her body upon mine I knew that she had been the one and now she was gone and I sat there desperate and afraid and with thoughts of anger rippling through me like the cold.

He came to me then, the porcelain man and just as the grief and the loneliness threatened to send me into the bowels of madness I felt the touch of his cold inhuman hand upon my neck and I thought, as I looked into his eyes eternal and impassionate and mocking, that this was the last thing that I needed.

It was then that my pain rose and changed to anger, and who could I direct it to save myself? This failed attempt at life that was now the only person I had in the world, this great abomination of the human spirit was all I could turn too.

I rose from my bed of crushed bones and towered over him like the mighty cliffs that surrounded us,  though instead of cowering beneath my shadow and the uncompromising wrath in my eyes as I expected him to he stood there as dispassionate as ever, looking from his place up at me as though to accept his fate that I would now deal out and reaching down I brought his small body close to me as though to hug him desperately against my chest, as though to comfort his soul which would never need comforting even if all the loss in all the world was piled high upon his frail shoulders and with this I brought my leg up as I thrust his head down and it was there that my knee found the spot behind his narrow shoulders at the base of his small spine and I broke him thus with all my anguish and fury.

In an instant his head and shoulders came asunder and the light disappeared from his eyes and my eyes rose to the sky which was dark and red as though with my anger and a scream such as the earth had never heard before was torn from my throat. I raised his head and body above me as though offering it to the sky and heaved both to the sea.

For an instant they blazed white like the moon before sinking into the unknowable depths of the ocean and at once after a mild elation had passed I fell crushed by my guilt and the shame of what I had done and then the darkness of the night found its home mercifully within my mind.

Fragments

Storms shadow upon moonlit moor

Darken shadows upon sylvan shore

Fairy filaments under olden eves

The swirl of flies in an appeasing breeze

A lonely waft in the portent night

Gregorian cicadas take flight

Bleached driftwood cradled in sand

Aged old dreams of life and land

Wallowed spend thrift in the tides wake

From the seas pockets will you take?

It lies like a treasure in the approaching night

Beckoning to you from a bed of quartzite

Nocturnal currents try as they might

To hide this pretty from your site

To take it under cold seas

To take it from the summer breeze

To take it from envious eyes

To hide it from starlit skies

You look to the beckoning light

Nearly consumed by the encroaching night

It seems not so far away

Not as far as the encroaching day

Yet you hesitate

Will your greedy need abate?

You grin as you reach down what have you found

To touch the seas sparkling crown

To caress the seas silky gown

Your need the sea will drown

To feel its soul with a trembling hand

To feel the heat flow from your hand

Now there’s nothing you can do

The seas tease has captured you

Because it’s then that you feel

The seas hidden deal

Salt upon your face

The cold seas embrace

Its then that you stare down

At what you thought was a crown

Instead it’s your greedy eyes

Mirrored in the seas lies

And what you thought you had found

Was yourself before you drowned

Bloodied skies upon roaring waves

Fractured rocks and storm washed caves

Blanched bare driftwood the seas entrails

The bleached skin of far off sails

Fleeing spirits

And a lonely breeze

The distant reel of storm washed seas

The scream of a distant gull

Wrecked ship shattered hull

The faded luster of a pair of shells

That the beachcomber sells

He said he found them after the storm

From a rock they were torn

He said they were the seas crown

They matched his eyes that were brown

Mans inadequacies can be found in mans inventions

The night is at its darkest a moment before the dawn

God could not give each of us all the world but he gave each to us imagination to fill in the gaps

To walk the shore of misery and woe

A place where the sea does go

To be plagued by gull cry doom

To fall into the seas swoon

To awake in the collectors room

I walked the coast my limbs like dried driftwood, my hair streaming from me like salt incrusted seaweed, thick, knotted and dried by the salt of the sea. My skin burnt by the sun and dried by the wind and my eyes full of the winds dried debris. My pack lay long discarded upon a baron beach that’s length had seemed to stretch for miles that had disappeared from my memory long before it disappeared from my sight. My boots were filled it seemed with as much sand as feet and each step was some kind of abrasive energy sapping torture and yet my will pushed me on to some unknown destination, some welcome oblivion.

The sun rose before me as we each found the beach and on those early mornings together we would walk hand in hand across the great expanse of space that separated us, together we would explore the wind wrecked shores and grime filled grottoes and the only space that the sun did not know of me was where my shadow fell and the only part of the suns sky that I did not know was in the places where its brilliance became too bright to look so though we each had our secrets we still remained good friends.

The splendor of this place was astounding for although some apathetic spirit had taken my spirit and drowned it within indolence, at times a little voice would rouse me as though the land was speaking, begging me to acknowledge the beauty that it had laid before me and I would raise my eyes momentarily to see it as it was and then indolence like the tide would drown my soul as it drowned my soles.  

During this time the sea was forever my companion, often meeting me half way upon the beach where it would throw me from my feet in some kind of playful wrestle and we would go at it, to and fro upon the shore and I would, despite my weakness, pull myself from its grasping graspingness and stagger towards an empty victory and our next not so lucky encounter.

The seas smell was always upon my skin reminding me that we would soon meet again and in the to and fro of far of currents I would often see my impending death rising upon the ruin of the distant horizon.

The birds of this place followed me, sitting just over my shoulder they would lurk in the blind spot of my vision and no matter what I threw at them or the insults that I shouted they kept their visual long after my anger was gone and though I had no friends within this land never would I make these creatures my friend.

It was like this for days and in the nights I would curl up in the forests that hugged the shoreline, the birds waiting until I rose and together we would set off. I remember vividly the day my luck ran out and the sea my good sporting companion, whose praiseworthy honor and admirable integrity had seen us both through a number of memorable and I must say honorable bouts decided that he had had enough of honor and integrity and decided to sneak upon me instead, to take me when I least expected him too, no more would we battle to and fro, me for air and he for the lack of it, but instead in a sneaky ambush amidst clean skies and sunshine he surged against me in a great frothing of foam and a great washing of waves and before I knew it my feet were gone from beneath me and I felt his aquinas exterior inside my own interior and despite the great principle of the late Archimedes I sank time and time again to be tussled cruelly by foul blows and unfair kicks, to be tumbled to and fro in his great depths and as I succumbed to his great strength I could hear the screech of the gulls crying above.

Even in my weakened state I fought on and put up a darn good fight, but the seas strength was too great for me and I felt the water enter me and I had not the strength to expel it and I drifted down and down beneath murky depths where even the sun could not find me.

It was like this for some time, the seas fury giving way to gentle lullabies as though trying to seek forgiveness for being such a bully, as though to put right all previous wrongs and to make peace with me and during this time I remember floating with the ebb and the tide, the to and the fro and all around me the nebula of sun washed seas and my bubbles rising up before me to find the air that my body would not breath again and I remember knowing the peace that I had once known before.

Whether I found the bottom of this deep ocean shore I know not, but my body must have drifted like a ship after the captain had long departed, at the mercy of the waves and the shape of the shore ready and willing to drift on the lunar currents of the moon.

As I drifted down all I could think was that I had wronged the Porcelain Person and I had owed him no injustice and that he had done all he could for me and the comfort he gave me on that day before I destroyed him were far greater than I deserved and now he was gone and I could not say thank you, or forgive me and for all this I should pay and at least I now was and perhaps be it the whim of these currents we would find each other again beneath the sea.

Some time later I came to consciousness, my first thoughts was of such a thirst that I have seldom felt and it seemed as though the sun and all the sand in the world had lodged themselves in my throat and all the salt of the earth was in my eyes and for some unknown reason my body was moving with the slow halting and uncomfortable gate of one that is being dragged to either doom or gloom by the hand of someone who cares not which and about me. No longer was there revealed the fertile earth that I had feared that I was no longer a part of, but the rough smelly abrasive form of a canvas sack that’s bursting shape I was now a part of.

I awoke again later, dizzy and feverish as though the sea were in my head and searching vainly for the plug to let it out and finding naught but two strange projectiles on either side of my skull and a place in between that ached with a throbbing frenzy. I gave up again to welcoming unconsciousness.

My mind seemed to be drifting uncontrollably amidst some feverish state where shapes expelled strange sounds and sounds were like shapes and everything repeated itself time and time again and no matter how I struggled I could not wake from this unfair delirium.

People and strange places moved within this dreamscape though they were oblivious to me and my suffering.

First it was my parents floating by on some neural current, their images delved up from some dendrite like appendage of the frontal lobe and given a touch of this and a dash of that by some malfunctioned synapse until they seemed scary and ominous and there faces I could not look upon.

Then Lovelorn, dear God, and like a spirit of the swift ocean deep she fled before me as though afraid and as I tried to find her in this dreamspace she became lost amidst the crowds of thousands and the panic of this crowd was all my own. Then the porcelain person who seemed to have made friends with the gulls was there taunting me and my death and as I drowned they sat together sharing secret whispers and voracious snorts and horrible snickers, their backs turned from me, though occasionally one would turn to look my way and give a good chortle at my expense and I grew so afraid and cowardly that I sought to hide myself from the cruelty within their eyes.

Behind all these scenes of horror as though these weren’t enough there lurked a face that was the face of the sea.

Luckily with some supreme effort I tore myself from the clutches of this dream back into the realm of sore throat, salty eyes and aching head. I found myself perched ceremoniously upon what appeared to be a long length of driftwood arranged like a shelf with slats both above and below filled with all manner of objects which immediately brought to mind the old mans house with the weathered red door and yet these objects matched and even surpassed his, from every age it seemed as though these objects had been drenched, for it was quite easy to tell that they had come from the sea as salt encrusted, blown and faded as I was and I could not help but fill some empathy for their condition.

From my vantage point I could make out a wooden pale filled with match box cars, a silk bag brimming with chess pieces, a whole series of different shoes some familiar and some fantastically strange sorted in no particular style or preference to fit. Also upon the wall opposite was such a display of Lego that I immediately felt a burst of unsuppressed joy and then, as if I was just a kid, a bitter jealousy and potent grudge against the owner who had all the models that I had not.

On the opposite wall just in my field of vision I could see all manner of clothes arrayed on the broken limbs of shop stall mannequins that’s bodies appeared more bloodied and broken than I did, but despite their condition they seemed to model their fashion some what hauntingly and from a full suit of fifteenth century gothic armor to a flowing Elizabethan dress and the uniform of a matador it seemed as though no part of history was not adequately represented and I allowed my eyes to briefly observe the long line of human history as demonstrated by its dress.

Upon the furthest sat my clothes in near complete detail minus my boots up to my walking stick and even my backpack slung casually over one shoulder, and there he crouched, my rescuer, my jailor and I could understand instantly why I had missed him at first.

His hunched back was turned from me, positively intent on some new treasure that he had discouraged from his great sack, a sack that I realized I had once been a part of and he crouched sorting amongst the contents throwing some things aside and holding some close to himself for closer inspection his hands shuffling fussily and impatiently before him.

I could discern a strange musky smell coming from him and that smell combined with the rough hessian of his sack made me realize that this was my captor or rescuer. He had not yet turned to realize that I had awoken and I was given the grace to study this strange creature further.

 As he carried out his secretive duties he omitted a series of strange squeaks and grunts and I could only guess that they were sounds of glee and happiness for the things that he had found and holding up a great glass ball like a fortune tellers he omitted a particularly high pitched squeal which I immediately recognized as one of great delight and then perhaps because he saw my reflection within its depths, or sensed my intrusive presence during his time of private gladness or even because within the magical crystal ball he was able to see into the future he turned his face towards me and I beheld the face of the sea made man.

His hair was deranged by the winds of a thousand seaside journeys, cluttered with all manner of the seas treasures from a sharks egg peering ceremoniously from beneath his bedraggled fringe too the remains of an unidentifiable crustacean perched on the top like a crown, his lanky locks fell to the shoulder and well below and the seas sand was matted there with shellfish and seaweed and quite beautifully beneath and entwined within the luminescent equatorial corals of a tropical place.

Beneath this crown of aquinas his head sat. As sun hardened and wind burnt as his features were, it was as though they had been transformed into the likeness of a crab’s carapace. His eyes were the greatest mystery of his whole countenance and it was as though age and the sea had left them alone and they were luminescent turquoise the pure aquamarine, a blue of the clearest ocean and the brightest sky and perhaps it was for this that the sea and the sand had found mercy and instead delivered their might ten fold on all his other features instead.

When he smiled as he did now it was to reveal the hideous appendages of the most ill gotten stumps and cracks, a horrible amalgamation of crowdedness and starkness as though a dentist had uprooted teeth and replaced them higgledy piggledy amidst his gums with no thought of utility or beauty and I at once supposed, judging by the wicked sharpness of the dentures, that they may very well have been replaced by some foul underwater denizen of the deeps who had had its gums plucked of its ivory treasures and here they now sat, a utilitarians taxonomy collection for the insane.

I could not tear my eyes away from this hideous and strangely beautiful sight and as he turned to look at me, somewhat shrewdly, amidst his hair the green luminescence of algae sparkled mysteriously.

We stared across the room at each other collector and collected and it was hard to know who found the other more of a novelty, me being the first animate alive being (so I then supposed) in his comprehensive collection and him being the most animate anomaly in all my collected extensive memories.

He spoke, or grunted, a series of chirps and bleeps at me like a child mimicking machine gun fire, mixed with the sounds of R2D2. I of course could not understand a word of this dialect and for a moment I was tempted to reply in the same manner and then catching sight of his hands surmounted with the longest finger nails that I had seen I decided better.

“Pleased to meet you,” I replied, “my name is Herove.”

Like a flash he was up and off the ground his wicked claws held out before him as though to pry me apart like a clam shell and I fell back before him my hands groping for a weapon and only coming up with a matchbox car in each hand though I held them poised none the less ready to throw.

He stared at me for a moment, his body tense as though ready to pounce though still with his eyes strangely serene like a Childs, and then in a quick motion that I imagined he used often to dodge freak waves on summer days he was up and out of his shanty before I could unloose my weapons upon him.

It was only then that I was able to slump back into the shelf, my fear gone with him. The last seven days seemed suddenly too much for me, a sudden head nodding nostalgia; the porcelain person, Lovelorn and now the seas anomaly, well who could not blame me for nostalgic thoughts of checkout counters and bank tellers, of engine leaks and bobbled socks, of dirty dishes and unfed fish? Who could blame me for not wishing for fake smiles and foolish greetings, of technologies tragedy and machines beeping? Not I and surely not he who seemed to dwell amidst a kingdom of his own creation, content and excited amidst all the things of his own findings.

What was I to do now? The world had seemed to condense itself to the four walls around me and my place seemed to now be that little cranny upon weathered shelf, between matchbox cars and chess set, a small treasure in a collection of treasures. I was a small object now and novel in the collector’s eyes, that would light up every so often as he spied me out of the corner of his eye, or thought of me from afar, a new addition to an old collection and soon an old addition in an older collection came the sun and a new bag of tricks tossed unceremoniously upon earthen floor and I, collecting dust and salt would fade from his eye into the darkness and around me and he would pile up all that was new and prosperous.

Yet I would have this small identity, even if it were to be cherished for just a small while and maybe one day I would be rediscovered like an old toy at the bottom of a trunk kept for nostalgia and not for purpose and he would dig me out again and brush the dust from me and the dust from his memories and I would be as new upon his shelf and his mind and he would shake his head as though to admonish himself for ever forgetting. Well that was that. Here I would stay and I curled up deeper upon my place.

He came some time later when the darkness of the day inside this place was made even darker by the night and I heard him long before he appeared a groaning, scraping, panting sound from outside in the blackness and his head appeared around the door surveying the interior with his clear blue eyes and seeing as though everything was as it should be and I in my place as though there had never been a chance for me to go he set about empting his sack with a loud and horrendous clatter.

What poured forth was such an amalgamation, such a chance meeting of the most foreign things that it was as though he had travelled on a blind folded trip through time and space reaching out his claw like hands to grasp whatever they came in contact with or as though he had, as he had done, simply walked upon a storm washed beach and taken what the seas had left.

The first thing to pour forth from his great fetid Santa sack was the sound of Beethoven’s moonlit sonata followed shortly by the mighty brass horn of a gramophone followed shortly by the sound box that played the record and it all cluttered to the floor without missing a beat and then amidst the second movement there appeared a squirming silk bag.

With clawed hand he scooped from its depths the bodies of three black kittens which immediately clawed their way onto his shoulders and sat their pruning their slim sleek bodies as though the world did not exist.

Then with all the ceremony that was owing to it from the bag fell a mighty crusaders sword, pitted and rusted by sarcicians and the sea and it gave a dull ring like a church bell as its pommel hit the stone floor and then with a mighty flap of wings a huge white owl (and how it had found its way into the sac or into the sea for that matter I shall never know) beat its silent wings and flew up and out the door before the greasy grubby claws of my captor could capture it again.

Then amidst its hidden depths fell a multitude of uneaten elegant Easter rabbits in all manner of costumes from a soldier to a maid, their glossy little coats hiding their chocolate from view. This reminded me of happier days and I almost remembered what it meant to smile.

Then the last of the seas wares fell out, or more truthfully spilled out, a number of weather-beaten volumes that’s age and appearance seemed to question such treatment and with these in hand, his claws pulling the pages apart to discover their contents he became incredibly still, his pale blue eyes dipping forward as he devoured the contents and it was as though the owl that had fled had been forgotten, the kittens that purred for his attention ignored and I, his only human friend (even as I was part of his collection) faded deeper still into the background and his thoughts.

I watched on expecting to see his impatient hands start tearing and twisting the pages in a vain attempt for pictures, to see his face screw up into a face of boredom and then impatient rage and then for the books find their undeserved place spread eagled against a merciless angle against the far wall, but all this did not happen.

I sat, dazed and confused in the same deathly silence as he, he who had the appearance of some deep sea monster and all the linguistic abilities of a drunken moron seemed to be able to turn the fine vellum pages with the delicacy of an aristocrat. His head was turned on such an angle of thoughtful sophisticated reverie that one could believe him to be the step-brother of Casanova owing to his fathers mating with a wild pig.

He was like this for an age as I watched him to scared to move and as Beethoven’s moonlit sonata came to its tragic end and the kittens giving up their quest for attention were instead amusing themselves by tangling each other in his greasy locks he still remained silent turning the pages with care and consideration.

I watched him like this until I too became bored but fearing him and his long claws I kept silent as he went on with his readings, what the book was I could not tell though its age was identifiable by the cover, gilded and bound with the care that the present has largely forgotten.

As he turned the great pages I caught fantastic glimpses of colour amidst the sea swollen pages as though they had been illuminated by a monks hand in a world that no longer existed and on this revelation I too wished to dip my head with his, perhaps within those pages there would dwell the secret of the West Wind and then I fell again into sleep and it was the appassionato that now accompanied my dreams.

It was sometime later when I awoke, still tired and unmercifully hungry, that I noticed that he had gone and the place was silent. I felt compelled by the glittering colours of the elegant rabbits in the darkness and the moons ravishing radiance and the slight darkness of the chocolate beneath to make one of them mine.

I crept forward, my eyes trying to make out his shape in the shadows lest he catch me in the act, and then I was there the little soldier elegant rabbit clutched in my hand, the smell of chocolate rising above that of the sea and I tore from the little soldier his little red coat and then his little face and painted ears and bit with the most resounding sound into the corner of one of  those ears and then as the chocolate melted deliciously in my mouth and I sat with my eyes closed in rapture I heard movement.

I felt him close and I at once imagined him waiting their silently all along, his little nest of rabbits a too potent treat for me to refuse, though before I could feel his claws peeling back my skin like I had done the little rabbit I was up and out of there though not before taking another bite of the rabbit as I went.

Onto the beach I was and he behind me, the wind ripping around my naked form and he hard and fast on my tail, his treasure, with his treasure in my hand.

I ran amidst the thick sand, and though I ran I knew he was faster, much faster, his wide thick feet finding the purchase that I did not have and he had gained on me in an instant, his big sack fluttering dangerously in the wind. I ran still onwards my feet nearly sending me down as they became entangled momentarily amidst seaweeds and skeletons, he caught me not soon after by the waters edge and as the spray fell around us he drove me to my knees and I felt his hands around my waist and his cruel claws cutting deep and how I wished then that I had that crusaders sword to show him my own cruel crusaders sharpness and turning me astride me in the cold surf I looked into his serene blue eyes and his teeth which I believed to be my death.

I said at once with out thinking, with out knowing what came out, perhaps one last desperate plea, some resounding protest, “Herove! Remember who I am, I am Gods lamb, I shall be with him true, even if it’s death you do, lonely forever shall you be, under the wings of dark majesty, and when you die I’ll be there, to drag you to the devils lair!”

With this I spat rudely upon his face and he sat there astride me as though frozen in the same revere with which he had read his books. His eyes remained so serene gazing with wonder into my own and then he was from me and pulling me and in a great rush of water and the oceans spray I was upon my feet my hands grasped in his and he spoke to me thus.

The Seas Breeze is my name

Welcome you to my hall of fame

Here I have collected everything true

But I have not found one like you

I have taken what the sea gives

And my claws are like sieves

They twist and turn and sweep the sea

And bring all that is good to me

My eyes are bright to see

All the seas gifts to me

I have a sack it is rather large

In it would fit a barge

The wreck of a boat

And treasures to gloat

A porcupine and a fur coat

A fork a spade and chewing gum

A cow’s nose and a bovines bum

Guinea pigs toes and a giraffes nose

All of it in the sack it goes

And then you came in my sack you go

And try to toss to and fro

But I hold you and take you home

And brush from you the seas foam

From your body pours the sea

And now your lungs are free

So now you can speak to thee

I was glad I pulled you free

For I have not one like you

And for you gladness was due

But you mumbled unknown words

Half of sound and the profound

But I could not understand a word

And your silence I preferred

So on the shelf your body went

And on your clothes a mannequin leant

For my collection you were due

Kept silent it was up to you

            For I could not speak to you

I thought you were like the others

The ones like you, your noisy brothers

They squawked and squeaked with strange sounds

Like rabid dogs in a pound

And I caught them true like I did you

And they cursed but did not rhyme

And for that I called it a crime

And I let them go into the sea

Back to it, away from me

For I knew we could not be brothers

And while I pity their poor mothers

In the sea they went

To another shore were they sent

One that was not habited by me

One where they could cry free

I then made friends with the sea

 Sea breeze that is he

He and the West Wind were wed

He brought my body back from the dead

 He gave me news so I could cope

He told me of a ship named Hope

I sat there dumfounded, staring at this pale vestige of humanity, this amalgamation of sea and sound, this preternatural flesh whose claws could pull from the ocean me and my living soul and whose arms could squeeze the Holy Spirit from me with so little ease. This thing that could rhyme on the spot all manner of cow trot, who had saved me and made me free, because I could rhyme on the head of a dime.

Oh God, it had begun I was immersed now in a life of rhyme and even then I had to force myself to make my words blocky and unrecognisable to each other, there could not be I, when there was a why, nor a them when there was a hen, my God I was going insane and if I was to live with this creature I had better well do it quickly, or I would again enjoy the company of matchbox cars and chess sets, music boxes and fishing nets, my God this was it!

I had survived the dark tree, survived the death of Lovelorn only to become trapped in perpetual rhymingdom where every word was not the word you wanted and would not take the story any closer to where it had to go or the truth but instead, the story would be taken upon a strange tangent, owing purely to the arrangement of vowels and nouns with in it.

Was I now to spend my last days circumnavigating the truth and finding some unrecognisable, but finally novel way of expressing my existence? If this chap was to end a sentence in because, or interrupted I would be stuffed!

Was I to live in a world of twinkle, winkle, wrinkle and dinkle, would I have to make up a whole new dictionary of words just so that I may stay alive and what would become of all those other fine words that had no rhyming counterpart, would these words no longer exist, would my existence become pure abstraction, a jolly folly that bore no resemblance to reality, would a meadow become a green below, a mellow fellow or a happy hello? I could not do this I could not!

Then I looked at his eyes and the hope within them, I saw his claws poised and the sharpness upon them and realised I could do this, I certainly could!

Welcome you

My fellow true

With you I will rhyme

In the sunshine

We will rhyme at night

Under bright starlight

With our sound

The land will resound

I will be happy true

Trust in me and Ill trust in you

While this was but a poor rhyme (and I checked his eyes just to see if he could tell that I was not thinking in rhyme) his grin, while not quite pretty, beamed it’s approval through the darkness before me and from the waters he pulled forth the remainder of the elegant rabbit and with this and a clap on the back that made me at once certain of my decision, my fate it seems was sealed.

We walked back together, the light from his shed spent stingily through the night, so that one with out the steerage of his taloned hand might have passed it by. We made our way indoors and unbeknownst to me in the corner hid an oven, or a boiler from a ship   judging from its rust and barnacle crusted exterior and with a swipe of his taloned hand against the internals he produced a meagre flame that immediately flickered to life and filled the room with warmth as steam arose from our wet clothes.

We sat like this together for a time in silence, the grim otherworldly shadows of his collection looming comfortably around us and the dim glow transforming his grim appearance into an almost gentile one.

While we sat in silence I thought that this must be how he spent his evenings, alone yet at peace with his collected world, safe in the knowledge that the ocean would bring to him everything that he needed and even as we sat it was being washed ashore by gentle nocturnal currents and that it would only take the rising sun for them to be revealed to him.

I thought of his world, his haven, and reflected at how the outside world would treat this gentle misanthrope of rhyme and brine. His existence would be shunned, placed into a categorized file somewhere between a homeless hobo on the streets of Manhattan and the mind of the insane, and yet here his was, his grim exterior giving way to a content smile and I could not help but think of his hand pulling me from the water and his delight in the kittens that were scampering upon his kind humble shoulders.

We sat like this and I in my tiredness of both mind and limb could have not uttered a world, yet alone a word in rhyme and he, seeming to understand, left me within the comfort of our shared silence.

I looked up sometime later realising that I had momentarily fallen asleep. The soft heat and softer light that was all about this place coupled with the distant sound of the surf had become such a potent soulful lullaby that I was asleep before I knew it and in the time it took me to rouse myself back into a resemblance of consciousness I thought he had gone.

As I turned my head though I realised that I was mistaken for I could see him with his back to me in the shadows and as he turned I was met with a face I was beginning to like.

He brought to my side a cup of some aromatic brew and urged me to take it. I raised its curious warmth to my mouth and took a draught of its texture and coughed immediately, then I smiled as I saw his countenance break into a grin and I knew that what he had given me was a drought of some damnable liquor that had spent ten too many years in the sea.

I realised that his contentment perhaps was owing to this brew, if not anything else and when I beheld the glee in which he was grinning as he himself raised his own cup to his lips I knew that this was probably so.

The strong liquor weaved the world of dark and light into a happy medium that we both could appreciate and within this place of light the world became yellow and mellow around us.

We gazed together within dim firelight and though I wanted to tell him of the porcelain person the shame held me back and alas even Lovelorn’s name was trapped upon my tongue, I could not utter a word of her life or her disappearance. The mystery of my parents and the search that was attributed to them also seemed unspeakable, yet despite all this and the sadness that seemed to be caught within my throat the silence between us seemed fine, as the silence between friends always is.

Soon I felt a tug upon my leg and looking down I spotted the littlest kitten, the runt of the pack against my leg, its little moon eyes staring up into my own and I reached down and with a small growl deep in its throat I raised it to my own lap where it curled up contently against me. We sat like this until I fell into sleep where my mind seemed like a warm ball of fire under closed eyes.

I awoke with a start something, which I knew was not a kitten, pulling at my arm, turning there was Sea Breeze, his mouth contorted into a deep grin and while this was not the worst thing one can be awoken too, at that moment it seemed like it was.

I discerned at once with another pull of his great arm upon my own less enthusiastic one that we were going towards the door.

Looking out with a small cry of dismay I realised that it was into the dawn that we were headed and as I caught the first glint of it like a miasma upon the distant ocean and felt the first of it within my head we were on our way, his sack upon one giant shoulder, empty and yet full of promise, similarly his eyes were upon mine, empty, yet full of promise.

As we went together, supposably to go out into the day to forage for the seas things, my head pounded and I had little strength in my arms and as though sensing my weakness, possibly by the deadweight in his hand he threw me an elegant rabbit as though this was all men need to feed upon and with another tug we were off.

We made it onto the beach and judging by its wind washed cargo a storm had run the night before and even now looking east I could see the last of it being blown across the beach in a hazy swirl of sand and salt. 

My strength had still not returned and considering the questionable nutrition contained within the elegant rabbit, my strength would probably not return at all, but before I could raise a meagre protest in words that were lost to me (I had got far as weak and bleak I need more slee….) I was joining his excited jaunt across the sand.

At first I resolved myself to not enjoy this crazy early morning sojourn, purely for the sake of being the spoil sport who had been dragged, without commitment or compromise, out of glorious sleep, yet somehow I managed to get caught up in all the excitement.

Sea Breeze in an instant had a pair of sharks jaws in his hand and was holding them up to his face as though it was the funniest, most original joke in the world, which to him it probably was, I wondered if this man was making fun of his own decrepit dentures or trying for size some new ones, though I could not even finish this thought because we were off again.

Through the sea we went, Sea Breezes talons true sweeping the sea and bringing forth all manner of strange and wondrous objects, first it was the remains of a fifties style perambulator that he could not make head nor tail of, but finding some degree of usefulness in it, into his great sack it went, then it was a stack of eight inch records, one on the tip of each finger, as though he were going to play them like a duke box, which he then did!

He had spun one on his finger and bringing his ear close, while holding the great claw of his other hand like a stylus we were soon being serenaded by old blue eyes. Sea Breeze seemed to like this because he swiftly stuffed it at once into his great sack. The next record to enjoy the his taloned touch seemed to be by some obscure trance artist and Sea Breeze giving it a quire look, he obviously did not like it much, sent it shimmering out over the ocean.

Realising that it made a great Frisbee he at once set about retrieving it, but I fell against him with what little strength I had and he must have changed his mind, instead he pulled from the depths yet another record, the single Ninety Nine Red Balloons, he seemed at once an instant fan and by its music we were off along the shore.

Now, considering Sea Breezes luck, I thought I might just inconspicuously dangle my own digits into the sea and see what I came up with, so while Sea Breeze was pulling to the surface what seemed to be the remains of a dead squids tentacle, complete with the planking of some sorry ship, I gave my fingers a little tinkle, just like he did.

Pulling my hands to the surface to examine my wares I realised that in one lucky hand I had a piece of soggy seaweed and in the other the carcass of a dead smelly fish. With a distasteful shake of my hand to rid them of this gruesome burden and an equal shake of my head to rid myself of shame we were off again, luckily Sea Breeze had cast the 40 feet long tentacle aside, deeming it unworthy for the space that was getting considerably smaller in his sack.

Within about half a kilometre Sea Breeze had collected a full set of Royal Dolton tea cups, complete with their own little spoons, a globe of the world, the giant tooth of a dead sea monster and what looked like a dozen shoes, all for the left foot.

Not for the first time I wished that he would stuff me to into his sack and let me save my strength for it was evident that unless we wanted to collect materials that would be a novelty only until they dried up and lost their colour and then were to spend the remainder of their days giving forth a foul odour on the dashboard of a glorified hippy-mobile, I was as good as useless.

It was perhaps an hour before noon judging by the height of the sun in the sky when the last of the objects dropped into Sea Breezes sack with a satisfying clatter. With a satisfied smile from Sea Breeze we were able to turn our minds and feet towards home and of course we only made it there before sunset because I was able to steer Sea Breeze away from every glimmer of fancy that took his eyes.

I reminded him of the small cats who even now, I was sure, were crying to be fed and giving me a look of horror because this should not be so, he finally committed to going home with a gait that I was hard pressed to match and it was not so long later that the resounding clatter of his emptying sack upon the floor broke again the silence of his hovel.

To accompany his findings and my return to sleep was the slightly mournful disco beat of Ninety Nine Red Balloons.

I awoke later that afternoon and delved amongst Sea Breezes considerable store of dried, vacuum sealed and canned goods, no doubt fallen from the decks of a cargo boat, or pilferage from an expired bush walker.

I had soon prepared myself quite a meal of foods that had survived the sea and were of no use to Sea Breeze as he only ate what was fresh and caught with his own hands, so with this portion of food and the kitten who seemed to favour me upon my lap and the first of the fires flames coming to life I took some time to determine my future.

I had found the edge of the southern ocean, over the expanse of mountainess lands I had travelled. I had searched out knowledge from behind a weathered red door and travelled to a library that told me no more than what I already knew of the West Wind and yet within a books time blackened pages I had seen the West Wind and understood its work.

I had then known a loneliness and in its wakes a resolute independence, I had found love and lost it again. I had found and destroyed a great friend whom I could never replace, a friend that had rescued me from the hands of the devil and that I had delivered into the hands of death.

I had battled with a foe that seemed the epitome of all my greatest fears, a fear of the uncompromising force that lies behind the mundane and all the small woes that trouble a normal world, a fear that finds its home amidst all those little woes that do not have the magnitude of famine, disease and poverty. A fear that denies the individual the strength to rise up as though to do battle with the very night itself, to pit oneself against a mountain and here I had found my hell.

A place where all those little things grow upon the conscious mind until the entire world exists in cobwebs, dust balls, blown light globes, insects and mud. A hell where all these little merciless things add up, each upon the other, where there is no glorious fire, or noble pain, purely the ache of an arthritic knee on a cold day, the ache of a sore throat in the night, and a fire that billows smoke, but fails to produce flame.

Give me the glorious fires of hell any day, give me the torment of a thousand demons each one dedicated to my pain and suffering, but please hold back the uncompromising apathy of insects and dust.

Then I had found Lovelorn and had been delivered from the hands of hell into the bosom of goodness, delivered to a place that seemed to exist on some high plateau above and out of reach of all the monotonous tragedy in the world, a place where in fact the monotonous tragedy could be seen and dealt with from afar, where fingers did not have to become black in greasy engine bays and if they did you just had to wash them and they would be clean again, where the play of light on a dusty television screen was just that and not the play of light on some darkening recess of your brain.

A place where everything could be observed in a beautiful noble light, a place where every challenge was gallant and worthwhile, a place where the world was so obvious and clear and everything had its own noble purpose and purposeful place and the flow of the world seemed in harmony with yourself and all in it.

Yet, like all high places, this place had its dangers, drops hundreds of metres down and at the bottom the apathy of a thousand faces and a thousand minds that don’t know what you know and can never feel what you feel, faces looking up at you before you fall and then look down at you once you have fallen and then finally away as you lie crumpled at their feet, a drop that falls forever and a cliff that can never again be climbed, a drop where the bottom is filled with cobwebs, dust balls, blown light bulbs, insects and mud, a place where even those that you love and those that love you must turn their minds from your pain and go back to sweeping the stairs, or fixing the dishwasher.

This place of course would be safe, those cliffs a mile away and their bottoms a mild discomfort that only reinforced your happiness if it were not for the wind. And this wind, so unlike the West Wind, a wind so capricious, so uncaring, like the sweep of fate, the arm of provenance, it can blow and pity any whose feet are in its path.

It had blown, and gone was Lovelorn into its embrace and now I was amidst cobwebs, dust balls, blown light globes, insects and mud that was salt, sand and stinging skin.

Now I had come into the world of Sea Breeze, a place of endless novelty and excitement, a place where to be alone in the company of oneself seemed to be the highest pinnacle of contentment, a place where the smallest gift, the most insignificant sight was something to take home and to ponder and prosper for hours in front of a fire, a place where that something would find itself amidst a strange dreamworld, trying to tell you something, trying to show you something, a place where all was fresh and new and possessed some interest as though seen from the eyes of a child, a place also, where all was to be shared, where their was no yours and no mine and where everything seemed to come from and return to the sea and in this place I was. But was I free?

Where to now? At the edge of the terrestrial world with my metaphorical foot prints wet in the oceans sand, a place where I had stood as I faded in the gusts of a metaphorical breeze and my foot prints falling and then fading in the sweep of a metaphorical sea.

Where was I? My eyes looked out upon an empty horizon, where upon the curve of the world the ocean swells met like distant brothers of a future time, where the earth became diaphanous and my mind with it and my nature seemed as fickle as the lunar tide.

Of all my ponderings of my journey I had not contemplated this thing, this ocean and its apathy, this mass from which the West Wind must have surely flown before it met me in my early childhood in a house that seemed a world away, where was this wind now?

I looked westward and hoped for its presence with my whole being, where could my parents be if they were not beyond this sea in the hands of a wind that refused to blow.

Where would the second part of this journey take me, would I become like Sea Breeze? Dredging the shore with nails grown long with apathy and neglect, with a face worn thin and old by the sea and its breeze, with hair that could never again hope for order and become filled with the trappings of the ocean world?

Would my eyes remain clear and bright, two holes in which a stranger could see some hint of humanity, or would they too grow old and worn with tumours and cataracts, until they resembled the surface of two worn shells that I would hold up to them as though they were treasures?

Or would I return to the ashes of a broken home and a broken dream, my parents deaths placed into the reality of probability of cause and effect, experience and conjecture filed under the likely, but still of the unknown?

No, this could never be. I would dredge all the oceans of the world until I found a sign of their presence before I returned to that world and with one last look to the sea and its improbability I returned to the fire that, if it was not answers, was at least warmth.

As I look back over this manuscript, at its poorly edited pages and its half expressed truths and concise lies, I see a long progression of sleeping’s and awakenings spreading back into the dark past and forward into foreseeable futures.

I see so many awakenings, literal and metaphorical, that I feel in an instant that every moment, every experience, is like a transition between states, every decision and experience a whim of the moment and if everything had or had not been as it was in that instant, my being would also be the same or different accordingly.

Somewhere, amidst this metaphorical mess, I could see the way that everything had begun and ended at exactly the right time. If the porcelain man had not disappeared from the hall and swam into the night in the arms of the West Wind would I have felt the need and jumped to the conclusion that the West Wind had taken him, if I had not heard those stories of the West Wind over the romantic mythology of an open fire would I be here now upon this lonely shore.

The world seemed like a tiny room with two doors that swung inwards one blocking the opening of the other, a room that required you to close one door before you could open another and beyond that door was another room with a similar door, on and on until you opened and closed a door for the last time and you were not in a room at all but in space and in this place there was no doors, no dimensions and no decisions.

So here I will end the first part of this saga, as I huddle for warmth and comfort over feeble flames, as I try to condense my existence to the periphery of four walls and pretend for a time that the world and the West Wind do not exist. 

Part 2 – Of the Sea

Strange shapes and colored light

A strange fearful yet wondrous sight

The shadow of a vessel against a cragged shore

 Two white swans upon the seas roar

A miracle the miraculous monotonies bane

The walk of Jesus and the lame 

The walk of the dark trees bane

Upon the ship of the insane

To the ship named Hope, Herove came

Sea Breeze was home. I could tell by the way the door had swung open on its own miserable way to allow his bulk to enter. I could tell by the way the hinges gave their familiar squeal of protest as though the agony of a thousand mice were being minced within their depths, the prelude shuffle of his feet were but another testimony to his approaching passage and then the bang of his head, as it always banged, on the low doorway was as it always was, a gong announcing an infamous event.

For a remorseless moment I felt such spite towards my friend that I cursed him and his daily routine that had been repeated for decades until this day and that would repeat itself decades into the future until time or the sea said that they had had enough.

I cursed the happiness that these activities brought him and I cursed this happiness that I could no longer bear so that it, and all the worlds anguish, seemed to fester up like it had done everyday past and from some unjust region of my soul, like a tide it came, and though I would swallow it down, time and time again, morning after morning it would rise back up and each morning I would be left alone with the bitter taste of regret that would do all it could to keep me awake, though I tried everything to sleep.

His bulk had entered slowly, cautiously, perhaps as though trying not to wake me, though as the whole dwelling shook as he brushed against the door frame and the none to apologetic clank of his sack rang through the air I wondered why he had bothered and then felt such shame that he had.

As I had witnessed everyday before and had witnessed everyday since his bulk moved forward and through the half open apertures of my eyes and the half opened aperture of the door I witnessed the silhouette of his sack and its contents as it came to life on the opposite wall.

Then it was all about me, the coldness of the sea as it seemed to lash my nostrils with old happy memories and flay my mind with my own desperate despair and then my small kingdom of solitude was shared by another, another that seemed to be an intruder to my despair and yet at the same time another whose entry into my world brought with it a hint of the light that filled his own.

In times past with these sounds and this fragrance I would have arisen, excited and eager to view his wares and to hear the news of the sea, though lately, as I had done today, I had not arisen nor was I excited. Instead I had remained as I intended to do today and everyday hence, silent and unmoving as if I were asleep.

 Though I had not lifted my head to see my friend I knew from the feel within the air that he was disappointed and perhaps a little concerned at my behaviour, for a moment I too felt some concern for him and for the cause of my behaviour and then this too was gone like the sack from his shoulder as it fell to the floor. I could hear him distantly as though with the last of my consciousness the sounds of him empting forth his new finds.

Oh, what a jarring clutter of misery and happiness, as the sounds rang around the room and my head. Oh, what a jarring juxposition for the need of sleep and the need for novelty. Oh, what a jarring complexity ringing within my own mind, as part of me sought to rise and the other part of me sought to stay.

Oh, what unresolved a misery, what unresolved misery.

The needs of my consciousness were quickly stifled for I challenge anyone, be you one that has been sleep deprived for a week or one that could happily sleep for a week, to keep their lily eyes closed while this cascading absurdity of turmoil was going on. I challenge even the most self respecting pride filled baloney, or the most stubborn, stifling, slugger lug not to sneak a quick peek through deceitful shutters, just to catch a snicker of what was going on.

So it was I, with a none to small hint of shame, that my eyes danced their way open with the clangs and bangs as they rang and rang around the room, and were finally thrust open by the greatest turmoil of all that was an explosion of light and colour against trembling eye lids.

A sound that might herald the apocalyptic approach of the dark one himself broke the last of my unconscious dream state, it fled as though even in its most imaginative moments it could not hope to muster the imagination to a degree that could match what was now spewed from the sack upon the floor.

My head came up and before me was Sea Breeze, gone was that feeling of disappointment that I had imagined before and it was obvious that in an instant something else had replaced it.

He was bent with his back away from me and he bore something within his hands that’s shape gave my heart a leap within its fragile breast that seemed to take me as far from sleep as I had ever been, as his shoulders raised he held it forth as though as an offering and there flickering in the last glow of the morning’s early fire demise was my friend the porcelain person.

No life seemed to sparkle within his water logged breast, I rose at once to creep closer, to snatch, to look into his eyes, to search their interiors for the forgiveness that I sought. I came up close, my dishevelled, sea smelling porcelain friend languishing limply within Sea Breezes grasp, growing in my eyes and in the fire light that seemed to have been, like myself, roused itself into wakefulness.

As I moved closer and peered deeper my heart cried out that this could not be so, never before had I witnessed a change within his expression and yet here it was, for in those painted eyes, as I peered deeper, I saw a sadness, a sadness born of a storm washed shore and the impassioned rage of the unjust and a light that used to burn so bright but had now gone out and I fell before him as Sea Breeze held him forth and begged for the forgiveness that he could no longer give.

In the grey days that followed I found no solace within those eyes and yet I would peer deeper and deeper and deeper still until I could bear it no more. I would cast that bundle of porcelain and rags away, though even as it arched its way through the air as my arm gave it the motion to shatter upon stone floors, my heart would beg that it wouldn’t and deep down in the corner, unbroken yet hidden, it would fall until the next time I dragged it out to beg its forgiveness.

Soon Sea Breeze became tired of my silent consultation and though he told me again and again that those eyes had not changed and that they were indeed the same I would not listen and soon there came a time when he forcibly took the porcelain person from me, battering aside my vain protests with the unquestionable strength of his arms until he had it from me.

He bought forth a key from around his neck and opening a chest he locked forever within its depths the porcelain person so that I would no longer peer into those eyes and though he was gone, still the expression within those eyes would linger and as the days lingered around me it was only this indolence that I knew.

It had been some time that I had gone with him to comb the sea’s borders and it had been so many days since I had had the porcelain person returned and the taken from me and though I still remember with great clarity that time, a million sea side trivialities had soon dimmed the memory so that neither the fantastic nor the bombastic could rouse me from slumber. Although I still found some happiness in his findings, even if for his sake alone, every pull and nudge of his arm in the cold morning light could not rouse me and even the disappointment in his big blue eyes did little to incite my lethargic soul.

So it was with some surprise that on this morning, when everything was as it normally was I felt an abnormal excitement fill the room on Sea Breezes return. Upon raising my head my eyes met with the said excitement mirrored in his and I summarised that this excitement must have something to do with what he had brought from the sea within his bulging sack.

I thought then of all the magnificent things that his sack could have contained and aside from the angel Gabriel, or the devil himself, I could not entertain the thought of an object that had not already been cast upon his floor.  I was at once proven correct for with a casual almost negligent toss of his hand the sack and its bulging contents were cast aside as I believed they had never been cast aside before.

The sack appeared strangely put out, slumped in the corner as it was with Sea Breeze having his back to it and yet the excitement was still clearly apparent in Sea Breezes eyes. What could this be? Something more above and beyond the day’s trappings?

My mind was instantly alert and eager of this great news as it had not been for so long, though Sea Breeze seemed as I had never seen him before, that is incapable of rhythm, though not it seemed of strength as with a bound he was at my side and pulling my still protesting body vertical and I was stumbling blindly towards the door to see what he had seen before.

What greeted me as I peered through this great portal that I had not ventured through for some time was a sky that appeared to be rippling with some unearthly magic, as though a rainbow had been torn asunder within the skies midst and had been made to sprinkle every particle of the sky with colour and as the clouds themselves seemed to swim in a great vortex that had no perceivable centre I realised that what was occurring was something that had rarely occurred before.

I raised my eye still heavenward as my sight became trapped within this seething maelstrom before me, and then I sought to look away, though to do this I needed to bring to my disposal every fibre of my being for my soul seemed as though it may have been trapped within this seething sky and into those very clouds it may have been torn if I had not had the strength to turn away.

So to the sea my eyes naturally escaped for what else was there in my sight but it and expecting to see a similar maelstrom occurring within its depths I was surprised and then astounded for my sight was met with a mirror like reflection as though all the oceans of the world had been made silent purely so that they could be a mirror for the heavens above and into these depths I stared as my own reflection wavered within the wet sand before me.

This quiet violence was occurring all around though it seemed particularly violent towards the west and we stood there open mouthed, awed and silent. I could not believe this sight, this unearthly quietness and it were as though the land and its creatures were frozen around us and if it were not for the discernable trembling excitement of Sea Breezes form I would have believed him to be in some way part of this hallucination.

We stood there as I said, silent and in awe until the sky seemed to be trying to condense into itself and vast sheets of electricity seemed to be born within it and to spread outwards in cascading showers of light, then a breeze was at once around us and swirling within the winds eddies was that unmistakable touch of the West Wind.

Turning to Sea Breeze I saw the same wonder in his own eyes, as the breeze swirled around our forms and with a glee, the maniacs touch, I took Sea Breezes hands from his side and together we danced beneath that angry sky as the West Wind rose up and around us, across the sand we went wild, with the sand being kicked up around us and the sea now alive and angry before us.

A mighty tempest was brewing and the tempest was the west and the mans words “Sometimes a roaring gale, other times a feeble zephyr.” and here was the roaring gale and I felt thoughts and ideals like wild fire flitter across my mind.

A computer that was your best friend where you feed into it a digital picture of a detested person, you fed it all the information it needed and it would agree with you on every point you made about how detested that person was.

A milk tanker converted so that it had windows and was filled with warm liquid caramel and you could travel the word in its interior watching the land buoyed and swimming with the undulations of the road as the world went by.

A mode of travelling where two people could raise their feet so that their soles were together and with this leverage push up and then make another step with the other foot, over and over until they had reached such a height.

The revolutionising of air travel by making huge air balloons that rose up into the sky with their earthly passengers aboard, rising up to such a distance that the world was able to spin below and then the balloon would come down in a new and novel location, a simple bus trip from your intended destination.

 Ideas upon ideas, the absurd upon the absurd and all the time the West Wind around us and then the absurdity seemed to reach epic proportions for at once I thought of toast that always landed right side up, technology that did not malfunction, word processing software that were able to accurately guess the word you meant and not the word that they thought you meant, cords that did not tangle, shoelaces that did not come undone and then I realised the old mans words “It will blow with full force on an individuals face sending them into madness.” and with the last thought of pulling a t-shirt over the head which always ended up the right way around I grabbed Sea Breeze and with all my strength pulled him indoors and out of the tempest as he muttered in a quiet voice a retinue of sentences that did not rhyme, not even in the slightest and then we were free from danger.

We stood huddled amidst our feeble shelter as the storm raged around us and though we felt some undeniable urge to throw ourselves into the tempest, to tear open the door and be one with the West Wind we did not, instead in the small light of the small fire we sat giggling at each other across its light.

The fire too seemed to be in the throws of a similar predicament, perhaps not satisfied to allow the West Wind to feed its heat with the small amount of air that was allowed down the chimney, but instead wished to join with the fire in the sky outside, to share its radiance with two souls and the whole world and though it must have pined miserably for this it seemed after awhile somewhat satisfied to keep these two souls warm and even went as far as to create a spectacular of light and shape amidst its depths, so that it appeared as though a story was being told amidst the fires fiery forge, and what an interesting story it was.

The flames flickered into figures and the logs became big black buildings and the smoke billowing from its depths looked to all like the sea and it was as though it surrounded the flames which were a great city.

In this city a figure began to consolidate itself from the other faceless nameless flames and take on a greater identity, this flame began to sway and turn to a strange music that was the hissing and popping of the flames, and with a start and a small jump Sea Breeze recognised this figure as Herove and he said as such.

How he could tell this thing neither of us knew, though we both knew it to be true and Herove the figure in the flames seemed to turn as though hearing his name called and I all the time looking on fearing, doubting, but knowing all the time that this was me, felt an undeniable kinship with this flame so that I wished to reach towards it and give it fresh tinder and my fresh breath so that it might go forever on.

The figure seemed to be lost, for even as the name Herove faded into nothing the flame seemed to dissipate, too again become the same stature as the other flames and as this singular flame wavered, all other flames went out so that it was left alone to tremble in the throes of the West Wind.

The flame seemed to be peering between dark buildings as it licked inquisitively at the edges of dark logs and then it rallied feverishly against the one last piece of green timber within the fires depths that had somehow not been transformed into a dark log.

It seemed to give one last cry, though we could not tell whether this cry was of hope, despair or elation. Its sound was the hissing of smoke and the crying of hot sap and then with a great gust down the chimney this flame became smoke.

As it rose into the air and hovered for a time Sea Breeze muttered a last goodbye to a friend and I said a last goodbye to myself and with that the flame was gone to flee with the wind outside.

Sea Breeze and I sat motionless amidst this spectacle, hardly believing, but knowing that this was true, somewhere, sometime, a Herove had been in a great city surrounded by a sea and he had been lost and a great wind had turned him to steam and there it seemed he had floated until he joined his vapour with the seas and whether it was only now in this fire, or in some alternate past, or unknown future they both knew that this had been true.

Sea Breeze rose with his back to the fire and from him poured forth this liturgy:       

The sky was fire and coloured smoke

On the West Wind did my soul choke

I danced gleefully, a happy prance

On the sands and sea I made my dance

The West Wind was around and the sea was grace

I could not have been in a better place

My nails they turned into claws

They looked like lions paws

I thought what was I too do

And the sea it called I have something for you

I looked down upon the sea

 It was a mirror before me

Everything was gone save my eyes

They burnt bright like clear blue skies

In there depths I saw my soul

It was me I was still whole

Sea Breeze was born at this time

And forever more did his words rhyme

Sea Breeze found his home upon this shore

He made of the sea his door

To all the things a man needs

And all the things for which man greeds

He made his shanty upon the shore

And learnt all the seas lore

And the next day he awoke

To see a vessel upon the yoke

Upon the sea a vessel gave birth

It was none like any upon this earth

It sailed with sails of souls

White wisps torn with holes

Its hull was of white washed bone

From a leviathan was it hewn

Its mast was a tree still alive

And from it branches did thrive

It moved with so much grace

It moved without haste

And though it seemed to be forever there

Disappear it did into thin air

What was this, what was this liturgy, this out spill of rhythm and reason? As the West Wind blew around, what whim of fate had put me on this coast the eve before a ship might be seen? A ship that I might gain passage from amidst other souls, with sails and hull of white washed bone. What gift was this from the benefactor and the source of all that is marvellous in this world?

What a gift. A gift that I surely did not deserve, amidst my sins against this wind, this world and the next, the sins of justification, ignorance and denial that I had made false friends of and my pride that had created such folly and the death of the porcelain person, who had been a gift from the West Wind if there had ever been one.

Together we rose, standing amidst the dancing firelight as the wind raged outside and I think that from the light in my eyes and the passion that had been so absent from my limbs for so long he knew what I knew and what I was and what was to happen. For once Sea Breeze was able to understand something that was not written in rhyme.

“It won’t be long,” he uttered with the same excitement that I felt, and just from his worlds I could imagine this ship coming forth through the sea mist, breaching storm waves and the blistering bellows of the West Wind that sought to sink it as much as it kept its sails alive.

I imagined its crew, animated by the West Wind and imagination, animated by such a creative force that the fabulous had become reality and through this link there could be passage to another world.

Amidst the darkness we feverishly sought my belongings though we realised that Sea Breezes claws had not been quite as good at what they did as I had first thought, as a large amount of my belongings were lost from his collection and must still to this day lie somewhere deep beneath the ocean, or lie washed up upon a baron shore.

With a flourish Sea Breeze produced a brilliant black velvet cloak lined with the hide of some polar creature and with another flourish its warmth was around my shoulders and I was pulling it tight against me, my boots, at least one of them, had been lost, though from Sea Breezes extensive collection we were able to make another pair, one red and one black.

For trousers Sea Breeze found amidst his collection a pair of velvet green tights that fit tolerably well and with a white shirt reminiscent of a seaside buccaneer I was covered, though Sea Breeze seemed not to think so as with another flourish he had placed upon my head a fur lined leather scull cap and upon my hands a pair of fine leather gloves. I soon discovered my pack with most of its contents intact and swung it with the familiar swing upon my back.

We were set so it seemed, until the crusaders sword leaning against the far wall caught my eye and within its burnished brass hilt my eyes were caught and in my heart its blade was impaled and as I looked upon it I felt it calling to me as though from the future, warning or beckoning me to take it.

As I moved towards it I felt as though I were moving towards this future, moving closer towards a time when the sword and myself would become one, and it seemed as though the hissing of the fire was saying let it stay, let it stay, yet I had to have it.

I reached for the sword and held it from me in the place where the cross guard, the hilt and the blade become one and raised it to the fire light in a solute to the wind so that for a moment the light danced upon the still wicked edge of the blade and promised perhaps as another had done before that I would find this holy land if it were the last thing that I was to do.

As I moved it still higher so that it was above me I saw something scrawled upon in a neat cursive script, I read the word ‘Ayoth’ and this word, though I did not know its meaning, seemed to at once ignite all the passion I had for this undertaking.

The wind had died to only a small glimmer of its former self though its magic could still be felt on the skin, a slight electricity, a slight pleasant apprehension and the slightest of touches. Dawn had arrived during the wild apprehension of the night and its murky light was cast sparingly upon land and sea.

Upon the beach we soon discovered such a wild foolish amalgamation of the seas waste, as though it had spewed a mighty spew of paraphernalia and pretentiousness upon its shore to rid itself of a great stomach ache.

As we walked the narrow divide between the aquinas and the terrestrial, it was as though we were walking through a vast museum.

Before us on the beach, pressed up right with the weight of sea and sand stood The Beatles, or life like wax statues in full Sargent Pepper costumes. Sea Breeze, an avid Beatles fan, was attempting to pull them from their sandy tombs, though realising that he did not have his sack, and perhaps feeling as though would not be quite the sight walking along the beach with Ringo Starr, under one arm and John Lennon under the other and leaving the other two behind, he abandoned them there, though I caught many a backward glance as we walked on.

Next we came too a great amalgamation of animal exhibits, as though a ship on route to some zoological exhibition had sunk and given to the sea all its creatures. Before us upon the sand lay sloths, monkeys, gazelles and all manner of strangers to the sea and Sea Breeze gave me the slightest of reproachable looks as though it were all my fault that this also he could not have.

On we went stepping over great sea creatures the like of which I have never seen and hope to never see again and even Sea Breeze looked somewhat apprehensive at the sight of these monsters and we hurried our steps over these spined, large eyed, scaly things, in case they might come alive again.

As we walked our eyes peered apprehensively out to sea, looking for the ship, hoping for the ship, and though I knew not how we would get out to it Sea Breeze told me that he had a plan and as though feeling extremely pleased with himself he had tapped the side of his nose.

We walked on and as the sun rose light came more to the land, it was near dawn and still the ship was not here. We made our way through horses from broken merry-go-rounds, props for side show antics, costumes for stage show shenanigans and a thousand messages in a thousand unread bottles.

Then upon the horizon, at first appearing like a seagull, there it was! The ship!

It moved with the speed of the wind, the ocean seemed to float beneath it like an aeroplane over clouds, it seemed to gather itself and then to dart faster and faster towards us and for a time all we could do was stare.

Sea Breeze seemed to be filled with a sudden great urgency and started running but not as I expected towards the ship but instead inland I followed on his hells believing that perhaps he had a great beacon fire that we would light to signal the ship towards us.

Upon the sand dunes we fell and Sea Breeze, as though getting his bearings, took off north, though before long he had stopped and searching in the sand uncovered with his great hands not a beacon fire but the hull of two peddle boats, one pink the other white shaped like swans.

Taking one he motioned to me to take the other and with our unwieldily burdens we made our way back through the soft sand.

The first thing I was to note was that the ship was still their rushing onwards, but seemed to not move at all, as though some great invisible barrier held it back. We took our crafts to the waters edge and climbed aboard them and peddled our way into the waves and I could never have imagined anything more ridiculous than what I was doing now.

To say that our progress was slow would be the biggest exaggeration thus far in this story, every wave sent us back more than we had gone and even Sea Breezes initial enthusiasm seemed somewhat shaken by our progress, though with his feet revolving at such a rate that they became a blur he made head way and I gritting my teeth made my own go as fast and before I knew it we were upon the open ocean.

Here our strength gave out, but then rising up from the horizon the West Wind caught us, lending as it always did, strength to the ludicrous and the insane and we tore off upon the sea with a swiftness that could not be matched by earthly means.

Ahead of us the ship loomed, moving forever onwards, though standing forever still and we were soon abreast of it, though it moved not with all the wind in its wispy sails.

We motioned to it in every way possible but the ship refused to acknowledge our presence, it sat their silent like a ghost and not a single member of crew could we see upon its decks. The ship was truly everything that Sea Breeze had spoken of and as its smooth bone like hull reared up before us I could only feel a terrible unease.

We floated there looking at it, we could not get closer and it appeared to be freeing itself from the embrace that held it back, though with one desperate gesture Sea Breeze had turned and revealed his great hairy arse to the ship and here he shook it while he beckoned me to do the same.

I, not one to normally do this type of thing, was at his side doing the same, as we laughed at our own foolishness we heard a sound like thunder and turned to see a rope descend from the deck to the waters edge, here at last was a way to gain its fabulous decks.

We tried to move further forward so that I could grasp the rope, yet the barrier held us back and the ship seemed to shudder with the suppressed force that was holding it back.

I heard a muffled voice coming from the deck, “Hurry, we have little time.”

“You must walk,” were then the words I heard from Sea Breeze.

I stared at him as though he might be joking, yet his expression was sad and worried and I knew it to be true, climbing aboard his peddle boat I shook his hand and finally hugged him as he hugged me in farewell. He stuffed something into my pack and then we were apart and I could only see his blue eyes such as they were a part of the sea and he shouted, “I will be here when you return!”

I must walk. The syllables, consonants and vowels seemed to be saying something different; you will drown. Then I remembered the secrets behind those words.

Deep in the breath was where it was, the little message that I listened too, it spoke without words, yes, this is me, hear me, feel me, and know me. And it was only after some practice and some patience that I realised that yes, I did know it and I would inhale those peoples words oblivious to their content, blind to their meanings. I would savour the breath itself, rolling it upon my tongue, filling my lungs and then every pore of my being. It was there that the breath could look out my eyes, wet as they were with tears, there that the breath could move my limbs, heavy and dead with sorrows lethargy and there that the breath filled my heart tight and constricted with pain as it was.

I let the words, youmust walk, pass through me like a mantra over and over until the West Wind was upon and in every breath. It was then that I made my first step towards a surface that could never physically support me, a surface that’s physical properties were so different to my own, a surface that science, logic, cause and effect could never marriage.

Then I was walking, even as I heard Sea Breeze gasp in shock somewhere behind me, one step, two and three and after each step my confidence grew and I was against the rope fumbling for it with my hands and just as I caught it I sunk and felt the water soak me from the waist down.

I pulled myself up hand over hand, feet against the bone white hull and for an instant before I had found the deck I saw the name of this vessel and its name was Hope, then I was upon the deck gasping and with a shudder, as though the ship might be torn asunder, we were off with the speed of the West Wind.

We voyage to Emperium

A passage to another world

I lay there somewhat apprehensively and yet quite content just to feel the vibration of the sea beneath the moving deck. It seemed that I had again been delivered from the grasps of death as if by a miracle and though I knew what I had just done, no understanding of how it was done would come to me so at this point I cast it and its mysteries from my mind and concentrated instead upon the present.

I knew instinctively that someone was quite close, probably that someone who had summoned me aboard, but I still felt too apprehensive to lift my head to greet this person who’s intentions I did not know yet, who had at least aided me to board this vessel and while I knew that nothing could change my fate upon this vessel save for I to go again into the sea, I needed a small amount of time to consolidate the past and my present before I could give time to the future.

 I hoped of course that Sea breeze was now making his way home for I knew purely through the vibrations that moved through the deck and the breeze that was fresh upon my brow that the ship was no longer trapped between worlds and was instead now moving with all its speed and magical strength towards the land of the West Wind.

The deliverance of this happy thought at once dismissed any misgivings that I may have harboured towards Sea Breeze as I imagined him riding his swan peddle boat home, his grin wide and gleeful at all he had witnessed, while a small part of his mind wished again for his home and his sack and of course the opportunity to put into that sack all that we had seen earlier (save perhaps the sea monsters) before the turning of the tide.

I realised then, as my imagination had him catching a giant wave that near took him right up to his door step, that I had breached one more impossible goal and that ahead of me, more than ever, lay the secret of the West Wind. A wild elation and a desperate courage filled my soul and I rose to great my captor.

There he was before me, a dwarf, of all things!

He looked at me somewhat suspiciously and slyly as though he felt an equal aversion to my height as I did to his lack of. His hair and beard were thick and rich around his eyes and mouth, and his expression still unchanged, perhaps growing ever the more so made me a little unsure that I had indeed jumped on the right boat.

Then he muttered a rough greeting, as though it had been pulled with reluctance from the bottom of his short legs and he was off and I behind him adjusting my crusaders sword so that it did not rattle against my leg.

The ship from this perspective seemed fantastic, it had, as Sea Breeze had said, a great tree growing from the middle of it and on it fluttered the souls like sheets. Around me there was naught but empty decks and no hint of sailor or captain and as for sight seeing I realised at once that it would have to wait as the dwarfs legs were setting quite a pace that I, in my flabbergasted gawky way was struggling to match.

We made our way inwards. The tree was well above us and its mottled aged trunk before us, then we were descending down into dark depths and steps made for people smaller than I. There was a great illumination and before me a great table seated with all manner of what I believed were passengers and about them a room that resembled any other room as it would be found on a ship.

Before me were twin girls with a great pot plant between them, they were crying and allowing their tears to flow into its depths, they seemed unaware of my entry though for a second I sensed the movement of their eyes as they rose as if compelled to greet me before they darted back down as if I was not there.

It seemed that their shy yet excitable limbs gave momentarily shudders of expressed though guarded glee that then gave way to the eager curiosity of their twin little hearts and for this I instantly liked each of them.

There was also an old man wearing flying goggles and a leather hat who surveyed me with a sly curiosity, which at once put me more at ease with the dwarf for I did not like the answers that his eyes were full of or the questions that were forming upon his lips.

There was a woman with hair that was so long that it seemed to wind itself around the room and from her I received an encouraging expression. Her expression though was also tinged with guilt and time worn grief but with a hint of happy confirmation as though I might be able to answer the question that was even now forming upon her lips.

A white dog also stood there, surveying me with the most innocent of happy expressions as though she had been given the best gift in the world, the one that she had always wanted but had been too shy to ask for and I instantly liked her the best as all the others seemed to be hiding something from me.

I could not tell which of these might be the captain, though the dwarf, who was taking his place at the head of the table, made me think that he may be.

I muttered a greeting to all and without meeting any of their eyes took the last seat around the table and there we all sat in a strange silence.

I could feel the movement of the boat beneath me, but to what force was owed to its movement and under whose command was its steerage I dared not say and I promptly pulled my mind from these mysteries to contemplate the mysteries before me.

Taking quick fugitive like glances at those before me, as though I was interested merrily in the space between and above their heads, I was able to note that they appeared to be in the same state of mild excitement as I was and hoping that this state of excitement was owing to my presence I decided to make the somewhat rash and obnoxious act of introduction.

“Hello my name is Herove, I am from a place called Tasmania and I have journeyed here through forest and fen, ocean and motion,” I paused to assess their reactions, “I search for my parents and the West Wind.”

Expecting some sort of uproarious greeting and similar such acts of pat on the backs, hair ruffles and handshakes I was mildly perturbed to watch the gleam of interest fade from all their eyes, save perhaps the dogs who still surveyed me with the same foolish expression.

To what this disinterest was owing to I had no idea and I thought it mildly unfair until before me the Dwarf, who had remained strangely silent, seemed to swell wide as he rose up and then he oozed some great tide of mirthless laughter, largely, I summarised, in my direction and at my expense.

To what this mirth was owing to I did not know, but the mirth that this character seemed to be shaking with made me wish to reduce his already diminutive stature by another foot with one clean sweep of my crusaders sword. As though sensing my intentions he seemed to peter out at once to a few meaningful coughs and splutters and while I certainly did not believe that all his mirth had been expelled (his gut seemed quite full) I believed that it had been contained at least for a time.

The rest were still strangely silent though I could see a small amount of amusement dancing in the twins eyes, thank God they had all not dissolved into raucous laughter or I would have surely thrown myself back over the side  and swam for the shore that I had only moments ago done everything to leave.

Why, I asked myself, do all my questions to the West Wind result in wild amusement, rudeness or total incomprehension and question dodging? Would I ever find a person who might give me a clear concise comprehendible answer instead of what seems like a bloody good excuse to rant and rave and to break into uncontrollable laughter at my expense?

I set about glaring at them all as though hoping one of them would say something foolish where upon I could set about reducing them by a foot with my crusaders sword which seemed to be literally trembling to be set free in order to do its holy work.

Then the dwarf spoke, “Herove, please excuse my mirth, of course you search for the West Wind and for you loved ones, you would not be on this vessel if it were not the case.”

At once all the others seemed to breathe a sigh of relief in agreement and I was able to sink back into the chair that I had unconsciously arisen from.

“This vessel travels to the place where all your questions may be answered,” he continued, “a place where each and all of you may find the solace that the real world could not give, you as have the rest of the people here made decisions, breached the boundaries and walked the corridors that are hidden from most people, you my friend have walked the thin line between comprehension and madness and survived and for your gallantry and trust you will all be rewarded accordingly, though I say now that this journey is not yet over and your goal not yet won and the dangers you now face may be greater than the dangers any of you have faced before.”

Then he did the purely expected and set about packing a great pipe with some kind of strange aromatic tobacco that smelt not too dissimilar to that strange aroma that was carried upon the West Wind.

I could not help but think that this was indeed the very aroma that blew from the confines of his narrow pipe and bovine cheeks and sent forth upon raging oceans and swaying forests where it was able to disappear and appear in open windows and unlocked doors to inundate the senses as it is inhaled through similar cheeks and tasted upon similar tongues in lands that were only a day dream away!

Enough of this pale musing it seems that I had a room full of strangers who must now make their own somewhat rash and obnoxious act of introduction and I felt at once like that poor delivered soul amidst a primary school class who made the first introduction for the year and can now safely watch with not a small degree of sardonic humour the feeble attempts of others as they did the same.

What was to follow made me realise that the world that I had lived in through the last months was not as unique as I had first believed and quietly, unknowingly in other people’s universes similar events had been unfurrowing with the same despairing ease that seems to be such an instrument of the West Wind.

These people had unknowingly, unconditionally stepped into the strange vortex that I had and had been swept down its endless corridors into strange edifices and secret domains, they too had discovered much, but still knew so very little and it seemed that this mystery would remain until the end of our journey and perhaps beyond.

The twins were named were Rohanni and Rainy. One was light as the other was dark and I was to discover they had grown up on an jagged rock somewhere in the deep expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

On this jagged acropolis, with its bright white citadel that sent its beam into the watery darkness, they had known a peaceful isolation that had created in them naïve innocence, a naivety that I believed would always be an instrument of the West Wind.

These two girls, so sweet in their innocence and so kind in their acceptance, had lost their grandfather on a storm laden night, when all was a gale he had been torn from his place upon the great light and before he had disappeared into the night sky he had given a single cry, “The West Wind…”

The girls had known such fear and suffering at his absence they had thought that if they watered their small pot plant with their tears it might produce a great limb that they could climb into the sky and from their position grab their Grandfathers ankles and pull him back to earth.

The pot plant that they referred to was still with them though its slightly diminutive stature made me think that their plan had not been quite so successful, until they told me that it had.

For one night when the sky was awash with strange sounds and surprising colours the plant had grown warm and glowing so that it had become as bright as the lighthouse light and they had taken it up all the many stairs so that its light was able to bathe the oceans all around and with this light they had seen the ship, gathering their things they had run to the cliffs edge and boarded its decks and here they now where.

They spoke all this to me with small feeble innocence and quiet goodness. They displayed small innocent smiles and bright impassioned laughs and spoke over each other in their excitement with not a hint of apology or shame. I was quite overcome and ready to believe and endorse every word they spoke even if they had told me that the earth was flat and the sky was round.

When I told them my small story they were like two little princesses rapt at the story of a great Knight, only interrupting with displays of ooohs and ahhhs and the occasional glance into each others eyes in near disbelief during certain parts of my tale that I felt at once like a great story teller, or perhaps an even greater liar.

As for the others in the room, the lady with the long hair seemed strangely quiet and reserved, but at the same time hesitantly eager to approach me and to tell me her tale, she approached me slowly, perhaps warily, all the time curling her long tresses upon her head and over her shoulders as though it were some great golden serpent that wished to escape from her scalp and seemed to do everything to become entangled in furniture, legs and underfoot.

When she finally came to my side I realised by the fine lines around her eyes that she was quite a deal older than I had first believed. She told me that that she had lost her husband one night while he had been setting the fire, he had been sucked up the chimney by a great wind and she had not seen him again and had decided to grow her hair as long as need be in order to let it blow free in the starry night sky so that her husband could latch on to it and climb his way down.

She had gone through with this plan but had instead captured a whole flock of albatrosses within her dark trestles and from there she had been lifted up into the air to be deposited rather luckily upon this ships deck as the thoughtless birds flew overhead.

The remaining character (aside from the dog) was the old man. He seemed to be quite proficient at adjusting his flying goggles and adjusting his great flying scarf and checking his large compass affixed to one wrist as though to confirm what he already knew. He did not, however, make any attempt to approach me and instead glanced at me sulkily from his chair.

He occasionally seemed to become lost in some anxious thought that made his face screw up in a considerable scowl, this caused his head to swing violently from side to side while he delivered a none to foul curse to some unknown person, object or God.

I must return to the dog, for all this time she had simply sat in the same position giving everyone the same foolish smile and surveying me with a ‘Don’t you think I’m cute?’ expression. After a while it made me want to either rub her raw with coal to turn her black, or bury my head in her great neck and pour out all my woes into her foolish eyes.

I was forced to approach her for not to do so seemed somewhat rude considering that her presence here was equally owed to the West Wind and being the silent timid sulker that she was, she was not going to come to me.

As I moved towards her she raised her slightly humanlike eyes and her polar bear like snout towards me and I at once felt the need to kiss this pale appendage and I did so at once and strangely as I did I smelt within the dense weave of her polar coat the smell of fresh flowers and old salt. She seemed quite happy with this gesture as her tail started wagging.

How she ended up here I could not discern and while I had not altogether dispensed with the idea of talking dogs somehow I felt that this one was just your rather cute but average one and as we surveyed each other foolish eye to foolish eye I heard the dwarf speak behind me.

“She lost her mistress to the West Wind one stormy night while they were out walking the mountains and she has searched for her ever since, her damn stupidity and selfless loyalty and the love she must have had for her has taken her across such a distance that I know not from where she originally came and how long ago she set out, all that I know is that she is here and with us she will travel.”

So here were my companions, my fellow passengers to the land of the West Wind, all with our own secret hopes and cherished dreams and while we consoled each other and knew each other the ship moved forever onwards to a place that is so strange that none shall speak.

The day with all its restrained joviality and blatant novelty was quickly dying to the dusk and I wished, before the day world became the night world, to look upon this ship and upon asking the captain, whose name I found was Gaultherias, I received express permission to explore the ship save one door, which I was given certain denial to enter.

While I was at once twice as curious as I had been before about that door, for the time being there were enough other sights to keep me satisfied I set upon my task of discovery.

The sky was quickly fading to the dusk, so I had little time to satisfy my curiosity. It lea me to the place where it seemed to yearn the most and once again I was before the tree that reared up alive and prosperous before me, its great branches spread out and the souls like great sails fluttering from its tips, so that it seemed the archetypical mother had hung her archetypical sheets upon the archetypical tree of creation and I gazed at wonder at this great icon.

I tried with all my intellect to fathom its purpose from its structure, though its absurdity denied all my intellects reasoning’s and my mind was left naked like the falling of the night around me. Then out of the darkness I heard Gaultheria’s voice come to me like the grating of sub ocean gravel against the skin of a basking shark

“It is my friend the tree, and I mean by this, the tree of the fall, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree that produced the apple of sin that Eve gave to Adam and spelled the estrangement of God and man and allowed man’s creative nature to break free and to rival Gods within the universe.”

 Gaultheria arrived at my side, “After the fall of man it was taken to a safe place where it was allowed to live and to grow, though no fruit did it ever bare and now an age later it stands here, its roots sustained by great barrels of soil gathered from the graves of people from the four corners of the world, its branches sustained by the magic of the West Wind.

“Though down deep below us, far below us within the hold, within the depths of the ship, its roots spreading and seeking and nurturing, lies the counterpart of this tree, it is a mirror image of above in everyway, it is the dark to its light and since the fall it has grown and prospered much to the detriment of the above parts of this tree.

“Before the fall this part did not exist for in the garden of Eden all growth was owing to the light of God and the earth was as though it did not exist, then after the fall when Adam ate of the apple of Eve, God removed his divine presence from the garden and the tree for its survival had to gain nutrition from elsewhere so it grew its roots deep seeking that nutrition and in so doing it brought the light of God deeper into the earth and brought the darkness of the earth deeper into the tree and into God, the moulding of both formed a magical gateway between God and the earth and through this gateway evil was born in heaven and upon the earth though now man was free.

“This strange bond helped to link man also with the earth and to combine his earthly and heavenly nature within the tree. Some say that in an age not so far away the dark part of the tree below will overcome the above parts of the tree, some people say that when mans greed and cruelty reach there maximum a dark age will rage and all will bow to the bowels below the tree and the top half which unites us with God and our heavenly nature will die and forever will man toil within the soil of the earth until the light of the heavens go out and then still will man toil.

“Though my friend this is all knowledge, folklore if you will, stories that have survived since the start of time itself and though no one can doubt that much of it is true after thousands upon thousands I would be surprised if much of the original lore still existed.

“On its branches fluttering and capturing the West Wind are all the souls upon this world whose genius and intuition fed upon the West Wind and produced all the works of greatness that are known to man, upon this tree we can see Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Goethe, Blake, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu.

“All these people and more are here, every one of those that added to this world with some type of creative good help with the movement of this vessel and these souls will forever know the joy of the West Wind amidst their filamentous bodies as they form a link between this world and the next.”

I stared up with even greater wonder at this tree that was the embodiment of creation in the literal, metaphysical and spiritual sense!

Looking more closely from an angle that did not best suit my observation I could see some type of flying craft that resembled an ultralite in only the widest sense as it seemed to have a number of makeshift appendages added to its skeletal structure which included among other things a large balloon like structure (deflated), a great row of megaphones and radar devices (broken), a great trowelling net affixed to the bottom (ripped) and an observation deck arranged with all manner of strange monitors and dials (smashed).

“That my friend,” Gaultheria said, noting at once my curiosity and with a despairing shake of his head, ‘is the flying machine of that ridiculous German with the flying goggles and scarf who had the audacity to use the great tree as a makeshift landing pad for his stupid flying contraption and in so doing sent the souls of Wagner and Klea into the infirmary, where they remain in a critical but stable state.”

So this was the reason for the mans guilty though haunted expression, no wonder he was not able to approach me to tell me his tale, it is no wonder that he did not throw himself overboard in shame.

Then all thought of the ridiculous German with his flying goggles and scarf fled me as I heard a whisper and felt something brush my mind and  I mounted the small aperture that the trees base grew from and without thinking, though while hearing a warning that had lost all its metaphorical relationship to the grating of sub ocean gravel against the skin of a basking shark and instead sounded like some one purely concerned and purely afraid and without asking permission for this privilege, without considering the risk or the insult of my gesture, I raised my hands and held them flat against the rough bark of the trunk.

It was at it had been before all those months ago when I had stood upon the doorway to death before Lovelorn had brought me back

My identity was gone so quickly that I never had the chance to know who I was or who I had been, a great roar filled up my vision, hearing and head until I felt I had been immersed in a great dark river that flowed swiftly over my head, at first their was no sound, only this strange sensation of stagnated motion and the haunting sensation that I was not alone within this soothing turmoil and that all around me a great concourse was occurring, whispered secretly and tirelessly in an unknown tongue, a garbled gargantuan conversation between legion upon legion of unknowns and I in the middle, on the edge within and outside, the waters thick and rich, the currents dark and pure and the voices a soothing counterpace to my own lethargic oblivion and then within the depths as though rising up like a singular unconsciousness I could feel a presence, a deep pure fount like a cup of water from a deep well and this presence was all around, inside and out, malignant and benevolent, all the same.

A voice seemed to distinguish itself from the featureless mass, and then another voice and then another as they rose like a disharmonic symphony around me and I floated upon the tremulous current of their criticism and spluttered and sputtered upon the denseness of their debate and then as I slipped blindly beneath the surface, waving with one arm a goodbye to reason and with the other beckoning to me madness, I drowned within the drone of their diaphanous discussion as my consciousness became overrun, overruled by the countless identities whose voices whispered and shouted such a dirge of desire and dismay that I felt all my reason sway and then give way.

Finally I could hear words, sentences, conversation upon conversation, rising up from the nonsense into sense, argument upon argument and all directed towards this benevolent, compassionate being that seemed to sit amidst the current like a rounded stone as he let their wrath, as though it were water, wash around him, letting the conversation, the criticism, the accusation wash over him. He was silent with such impurity and patience that I felt myself crying out in his support, as though the small cry of my own voice might stifle the seeming less endless cascade of this tireless argument.

As the accusations, the conjectures rose up around him and drowned out my anger and woe, when their reason, their wrath swelled to such an abysmal peak that I felt myself dissolving into it, the words became more than words as the ether like substance was transformed around me.

Now it was not just words, mathematics like those never seen upon the earth were spewed forth from pens that never ran out of ink, from chalk that never ran down, onto paper that once filled would be swept aside as though by a breeze to leave another clean pure white sheet that was ever so quickly filled again with this logical catastrophe. Then in the background as though preformed by the most virtuous of musicians and the most creative architects of the common place, a dismal symphony, a stagnant dirge, a symphony of thousands and then only a pipe played alone under whispering woods.

As it joined as though with the wind it became the most heart wrenching soliloquy and then the most lively jaunt and then such a great catastrophe of noise as though all the sounds in the universe had been amalgamated together in an instant and its percussion then resonated against my reason with fantastic wonder and then as though far off only the quietly crying cry of an infant and then the whisper of a word, goodbye.

There were tastes that collided upon my virtual palate, as though some great master chief had defined the formula for pi and baked it masterfully into a real pie so that I could taste 3.142 on and on and on reoccurring, reoccurring, reoccurring so that I could not swallow and then it would seem as though my eyes had exploded and my soul dipped into a palate of colour that out-stripped the real world and made my past seem grey.

With these colours great murals of human suffering and human tragedy were created within my minds eye, every figure with Rembrandts eye’s and Picasso noses until I transformed these great works into a great smudge through tear stained eyes that edge was signed mysteriously with the name Chagall.

The concourse seemed to be going on and on, it seemed as though it never had a beginning and would never have an end, each point scored by one side seemed to have at its core some identifiable flaw that would be raised to the status of profanity by the other which would then start a new row that united and divided the masses so it seemed as though this world was continually uniting and dividing, supporting and prosecuting and from this great concourse it seemed that the most fantastic inventions were built, from the ashes of one revolution rose another and another until it seemed as though every possibility except perhaps the possibility that was the name of God had been explored.

I was becoming a part of this discourse, I could feel someone using the ratio of the length of my large toe and dividing it by the circumference of my waist and then using the square root of some universal constant to get the distance between the waste paper basket and the desk in office number 3.

Some musician was creating a biological symphony using my palpitating heart beat as rhythm, the continual squirt of fluids into my kidneys as a melody and the sound of my brain commuting all this as some type of pretentious accompaniment that he then used to support the argument that God was a lie.

All the time I could sense this presence, this calm amidst the storm, I could feel its patience tangibly soothing my tired heart, gently stroking my worrying brain and from everywhere else I could only feel the anger and indignation from every other creature, it rose and beat down upon this being with such a self justice that I felt sick with despair and cold, so cold with what I thought was creation.

Then, as though from a great distance, something seemed to instigate itself between me and this world and I cried out.

No, I want to be with god. No, this is my place, to suffer and to endure a place that never knows silence, to live amidst an argument that knows all endurance, this is what I want, to know the presence of God like a slippery smooth rock amidst a swift current and then I was torn apart from this great consciousness as I fell to rest upon the cold deck, the great argument resounding in my head, the anger still palatable upon my palate, the argument like a great pendulum swinging to its antipodes only to swing again to its podes in my head.

I realised that at all times man was in the middle, riding its length through space and time and then I knew only unconsciousness and the quietness of God and the distant echo of a laugh from a belly that I was beginning to know too well.

Gaultherias had broken the silent realm of my unconsciousness, with his right arm he had separated me from God and with his left the genius of man and with this fracture gone was the place within The Tree of Good and Evil and I was again staring at placid starlit skies and eyes that were composed of mischief and concern.

“My young friend,” Gaultherias spoke, “you really should have not done such a thing, it is quite lucky that you survived such a dipping into the yoke of creation and I do not, can not comprehend why you committed yourself to such a foolish act.”

This was all I needed, if I had indeed dipped my head into the yoke of creation so to speak, it had certainly not been on the impetus of a wild fancy and was in fact as I stated earlier, the fulfilment of a summons from somewhere in the tree and I told him as such.

He shook his head in uncertainty, telling me that never had such a thing occurred and it was quite unheard of, and that normally such a wall of foreboding hung over the place that to stand even at arms length to the tree was like standing in the middle of the road with a London double decker bus passing to either side only a fraction of an inch separating you from rage and ruin and I could only nod in the affirmative, just in order to still his unjust accusations and unreasoning mind.

I soon found the strength to stand and though my head seemed to still be swimming I was eager to move away from this tree and this righteous dwarf and to ponder what I had learnt from this tree before it all became mixed up in the dwarfs condemnations and justifications, so with a smile that I knew could silence the most bestial beast and leaving the dwarf in an unsure silence I was off hesitantly into the starlit night searching for a place where I could rest my head and ponder The Tree of Good and Evil.

I found my place, all the time ignoring the dwarf and his feeble attempts at consolidation and aid and ignoring his threats that became warnings and his warnings that then became threats, I moved to a place where all I could hear was the workings of my own mind.

There were greater things to ponder and a bigger game to play. I rested myself as best I could then on the bone white deck, the engine of its motion a comforting vibration against my body as the dwarfs cries of protest faded into defeat.

Though my knowledge of Christian theology was somewhat limited I knew that what the dwarf had stated concerning the tree seemed in accordance with what I already knew and this knowledge, shaped by my present experience, led me to believe that I had stumbled upon something truly astounding and with flickers of my past experience moving upon my mind like a dreamscape I gave myself over to remembering.

The place, as I said before, had no dimensions, nor structure and could have been the size of the universe or it could have fitted upon a pinhead. The figures and experiences were totally ephemeral, they too had no dimensions and no centre, they seemed to be everywhere at once and nowhere at all and this presence, this maddening contradiction of stillness and peace, within such a turmoil of feeling and voice, could this be the mind of God?

What of the voices? I had indeed seen the name Chagall and whether this had been a projection of my own unconscious imagination onto this realm, or whether the artist had been there to comprehend, and then to sign his name to a piece of art that was my tear stained vision, I did not know.

Thinking of the sails, like spirits waving in the West Wind, the spirits of all the geniuses that had used the power contained within the West Wind to shape feeling, matter and thought into a creation to equal the creator.

I realised that this experience could be attributed to them, trapped or contained as they were within The Tree of Good and Evil, free to carry on their private discourse, creating and improving their theorems and art through the eons, creating even greater ideas and explanations, exploring their own creative consciousnesses in order to explain their own creation and all the time in the company of all the other creative geniuses that had walked the earth and I thought, it would be no wonder that they had created what they had.

I thought of the other things that the dwarf had told me, about The Tree of Good and Evil, the branches containing the souls of geniuses that captured the West Wind and gave the ship motion and the tree life, but also its roots, which he said were sustained by soil collected from the graves from the four corners of the world and I realised then that this tree must be some kind of link between the spiritual world explored by theology, art, mathematics and science and the corporal world below, exemplified by the bodies of graveyard victims, their earthly materials used to sustain and keep alive the great tree.

All of those helpless souls who had died, their bodies below and beneath me sustaining this bridge like the Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse mythology. All of those semi decayed bodies and the dwarf’s grim visage as he moved through graveyard gardens filling a great wheelbarrow with consecrated and feted earth.

I imagined half decayed bodies spilling out upon the ground as the wheelbarrow nearly tipped, sized with its great gross burden and him piling ton after ton of fetid earth into the ships hold and The Tree of Good and Evil soaking up this foul nutrition and giving life to the branches which held the souls, which powered the ships movement between this world and the next, and all the time the spirit of this God-like creature at peace, seemingly unconscious of all that transpired around it, the ship carried forever on.

I could think no more, my mind had grasped and could not grasp anymore and I had an uncomfortable urge to return to the tree and grasp its rough bark again, though I knew this to be a folly of the greatest kind, for though the tree might have summoned me for some unknown purpose, and for this reason perhaps I was somewhat protected from its malevolent power, I knew keenly that my mind felt different from how it had been before, there was some small change in its processes, in its structure and if I was to grasp this tree again this would only be more so and I was afraid that this would spell perhaps the end that was me.

I instead sought the solace of the ships company to franchise again with strangers and to lose myself within their problems and significant woes if only in order to forget my own.

On entering the hold I was at once elated and cheered by the sight of the twins who sat upon the table playing cards. This normality upon a ship that contained so much novelty was at once startling, shocking and so wholesomely pleasing that I at once came to their sides.

They chirped little cries of greeting and joy from their cute radiant faces and in an instant I had my own little hand of secrets and we went to playing the game with such joviality that my woes were quickly forgotten amidst the cascade of black and red and the joy that each transition made upon their counterpaces.

We played all the favourites; snap, fish and cribbage, though we left out those dark sneaky back bar parlour games of 500 and poker for another time, for which I was made to solemnly swear that I would teach them. They in turn, through pinkie promises, made it so.

We went at these games until well past midnight and still the twins seemed to show no sign of tiring, if anything they become more excited and keen as the night wore on.

As for me, I was close to sleep and the cards by this stage had become a distant blur that my eyes could not concentrate on and though the twins would chaste me for not paying attention and for missing the most simple tricks they seemed to gain equal delight in my clumsy inefficiency as they were winning the hands from me.

Soon it was all I could do just to keep my eyes open and I realised that I must bid these two good night and escape to somewhere to sleep, and though they taunted me with all the little jibes that the little ones knew they allowed me after a time to make my departure.

I bid them goodnight and asked them if there were any place to sleep, they replied that down the hall there was a spare berth and if it suited me I could take up my residence there. I was off at once humbly begging their forgiveness and leaving my down trodden pack I was soon nestled into a cosy if not small bed and asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I awoke, or more truly I was woken by the twins, and upon raising my despairing eyes to the port hull I could see a sun that was well high in the sky and I realised that I had slept away half the day. As my eyes focused I could see the twins holding something towards me, it was a black squirming shape that seemed to be doing everything in its power to escape the clutches of their tight little hands, I realised it was a kitten and looking closer further realised that it was my kitten.

By the state of its wet little head it looked like it must have climbed into my pack before I left Sea Breezes, and here it now was rescued from its bonds by these two sweet things and I instantly grasped its silky wetness and brought it to my face, trying vainly to hide my tears cried for my friend Sea Breeze whom I had left.

The girls, perhaps sensing my concern, stood silent and unmoving for the first time since I had seen them, allowing me the time for my sadness to pass with the grace of the truly sympathetic and the truly innocent.

Then they took it from me, perhaps thinking that I had had my turn and now it was theirs and in an instant it was between them meowing sulkily, though good naturedly, at their well meaning childish ministrations. Squishing and squashing its little head so even it did not know which way its fur should be facing, then with the cat between them they made off with it. It made one last desperate meow for freedom before they were out the door and I lay back glad to have my peace back and grateful to be going back to simple kind sleep.

I awoke again when the sky was all dusk and feeling a presence within the room I looked around to see the dwarf Gaultherias peering from his position out the port hole, his back turned from me and his shoulders some what slumped

“So my friend you have slept and awoken and I see that you have recovered some of your vitality during the night, it is a good thing that you did so for The Tree of Good and Evil can be a great strain on the strongest of souls and I am truly grateful that you survived its presence as you did.”

I was shocked but grateful for this dwarfs words, kind as they were, yet I still felt some hostility towards him who had replied to me with such unbelievable scorn and had emptied what I hoped was the last of his full belly of mirth upon me when I was at my weakest.

I replied that I too was grateful that I had survived, though I was hesitant to add anymore on the subject and instead changed it, asking where the ship was and how long it would be before we found our destination.

“None can truly say how long it shall take, it seems to vary with each voyage, sometimes days sometimes years, but we always make it.”

“So their has been other such voyages,” I asked, “Others like ourselves have made this journey?”

“Of course my friend,” he replied with not a small hint of his former smugness, “this ship has journeyed countless times between this world and the next, it has in fact never stopped journeying since the world began”

“And you have been here for all of these voyages?” I replied, thinking him to be some Celtic ferry man.

”No of course not, though I come from a long line of dwarfs whose job it has been to pilot this vessel.”

“Then you would remember my parents!” I gave him a description and the approximate time of their passage.”

“No my friend the names and descriptions do not ring a bell, still it would not be out of the ordinary if I had made this voyage and carried them, sometimes there are thousands upon this ship.”

“If they were not here, is there any other way they could have made the trip to where the West Wind blows?”

“No my friend, in all my time and in all the time of my ancestors stretching back to the worlds beginning as far as I know, indeed as far as anyone knows, there is only one way to get to where the West Wind blows and that is via this ship.”

With this statement resonating upon my mind and with the failed hope of finding my parents fading into the furthest future, I let my head fall back to its resting place and allowed the smug dwarf his leave.

Only in love is their sacrifice

When I finally did rise it was late in the twilight and I beheld the white shimmering deck with moonlit eyes and surveyed the ocean against the moons pitiless passage with the vain hope that the sun would never rise.

No one else was on deck so I allowed myself the solitude of my own thoughts and finding the rail belonging to the ship named HOPE I leant my desperate frame against its solid expanse, letting my limbs languish over the edge and letting my eyes drift down into the ocean.

Was Lovelorn there? Was she even now caressing the ships hull with her diaphanous limbs, was there something of her in the small drops of water that were being flung against the bow by the ships silent passage, could she be here, silently with me as the ocean was, or had her soul fled when the waters of her melt and now was there no being in any form upon this world with her name?

I could not believe that we would not meet again. I could not believe that I would never see again the light in her becoming eyes, would not feel again the entanglement of her soft limbs….

What questions would I ask her if she were here, in what wondrous ways would I probe her mind and ponder her thoughts and of course, if she were there right that second, I would certainly confess my love for her.

If she were here I would give myself every opportunity to thrust my desperate desires upon her, to make her realise what she meant to me, if she were here…… 

There was suddenly a presence beside me and the soft caress of hair upon my cheek and neck, with a start I believed it was her, thought I saw it was she with the great mass of hair beside me instead.

Her hair sailed out like midnight upon the horizon and she looked at me as one who knew what I was thinking and how I was feeling.

“My friend of the solemn and solitude, we can pity ourselves by pitiless starlight and wash our sadness closer with the company of cold dispassionate seas, but in the end, we must all crawl back to the warmth of the sun and the company of our own. I know your grief I see it in your eyes turned to the sky and sea, I too have stood here and thought my sad thoughts in the night’s company. I too have berated my looses upon cold oceans and the hope of hidden shores, though I fear this is not the way to resolve our grief, only to explore it, to gather it, to thrive upon it. Come with me now my unknown friend and tell me of your loss as I will tell you of my own.”

Together we went to a hidden cabin deep beneath the sea where we sat and I told her of Lovelorn, of our meeting and her departure and in her eyes I saw understanding and she told me of her husband, gone by the West Wind and I knew not only my grief, but the grief of others and our grief’s were married together in the mutual silence and the give and take of that evening, I was then able to celebrate Lovelorn’s life and sacrifice.

We talked then of the mundane things, those things that I had reflected upon as I watched families around the dinner table during my long lost nightly sojourns, which were indeed a world away, and in those small niceties that Lovelorn and I had shared a smile of gladness was brought to my expression and for the first time I smiled in her memories company.

We returned to the ships company together and it seemed that all were present aside from the man with the flying goggles.

The dog was at once against me with bountiful joy and I dropped to my knee to look into those kind eyes and ruffle his polar bear like neck and buried my head in his broad powerful chest.

The girls were there with the kitten between them, their whole beings alight with happiness and I hugged them like the dog and all of us made a strange amalgamation of opposites married together in a mutual sandwich and then we were all apart as the chatter spread in and around us.

We sat to supper which the dwarf uncharacteristically proceeded to spread before us with little smiles and gentle chuckles so that for a time I was able to forgive his smugness. The feast the that proceeded was like none I had seen before and where this great amalgamation of food came from I could not say, though I believed that if the graveyard soil that sustained the great tree came from the four corners of the world so too did all this food.

I fell upon it with a greedy gusto that had the twins in fits of laughter. Sated later with food and not a small portion of fine wine I allowed my body to fall into one of those strangely comforting postures which if sober would be uncompromisingly uncomfortable and sat to observe the company around me.

While smiling secretive smiles through strangely numb lips I became my own soliloquy.

The twins were of course together as they always seemed to be, the kitten crawling desperately between them and even the more so when one of their childish ministrations became too much. The poor kitten looked as though if it were poked, patted, prodded, pressed and pulled it would prick a little poppet with painful pincers!

The lady with the midnight hair was alone, perhaps caught up in the same jovial melancholy that I was, happy to observe, though not to take part.

The Dwarf seemed to have retained his jovial mood and had pulled forth from  heaven knows where a small wooden pipe which he commenced to play, his great hairy forearms and knobbly digits holding the instrument as though it might split apart, or be broken in twain, though despite all these threats a surprisingly sweat tune arose from his bovine like lips and I thought that this was a much better way to put mirth and smugness to use.

I fell back, my eyes closed, just to enjoy the melody and the flow of the ship beneath me, aided as it was by the blood sea of red wine within me.

I was awoken sometime later by the sweetest most purely passionate sounds and looked around through drunken eyes to capture its source.

Seeing the attention of everyone else in the room captured, I saw the woman with hair of midnight rocking to and fro as though in a swoon, the music coming from in and from the strings around her, as the violin soothed and wailed with all the passion of the human voice and all the inhumanness of heaven, even as the pipe trilled a somewhat contradictory accompaniment that was purely pastoral in its nature from the bovine shaped lips of the dwarf.

The two girls and the dog where equally caught up in the excitement even if the dog cared not too hoots for the music, only for the excitement of 8!

Dancing legs started serenading around the musicians with equal heartiness. I myself sat aside, happy to enjoy the musical spectacle, letting the melody wash over me like a warm sea until the twins mistaking my silence for unhappiness, as so often occurs to ones like myself, had one arm each and me in between.

Taking a moment to find my own drunken rhythm I set about shamming everyone with the agility of my lunatic like legs. We went like this for an age that must have really been no more than minutes. We were all totally done by the end and we all slumped to the ground in our own private exhaustions.

It was here in this private exhaustion that the world took on again its veil of wonder and it was then that I began wondering as to the location and whereabouts of our strange goggled companion who had crashed his great flying machine into The Tree of Good and Evil and who had been the most slyly secretive companion since.

Rising from the ground I mumbled a few words of where I was going and set about finding the man.

Deficient is the mother of invention

Friend or fiend

Tall tales, of vespers breathe

Against the cliffs of the Isle of Rest

 Of a wind, soon to sour

 In the roots beneath, the golden bower

Where twin girls, will soon sour

Like the petals, of a golden flower

And yet hope lies, in a flaw

Within the tree, with the silver door

Though now its doors, are closed like shutters

And a dwarf, his voice darkly mutters

 Within a world, sundered by woe

Where divine dark machines grow

Where tears are formed, only from fear

And the birth of God, grows ever near

He will travel, to save those dear

Moonlit passage and old fear

Does the dwarf, smile or leer?

Will it all, be made clear?

Firstly I decided to explore the places of the ship that I knew and supposing him to be in a cabin of the size and location similar to my own I set off at once.

The cabins on this part of the ship were as I thought them to be, similar to my own, and by the array of belongings I was able to discern which cabin was whose and yet I did not find a cabin that could have been the flying mans so I moved on into the deeper corridors and recesses of the ship until I had lost sense of all direction and perception.

Moving deeper amidst the pale corridors I passed row upon row of doors that upon opening were more and more cabins. The ship, as the dwarf had said, could provide passage for thousands.

As I went deeper the cabins became fewer and more spaced apart until the halls became blank, yet still the corridor wound its way deeper.

Soon I felt a warmth emanating from the walls and the further I travelled it became all the more so.

Suddenly the corridor opened up into a large chamber that I was able to look down into as though from a gallery and below me was a hive of acute activity.

At first I could not believe my eyes for before me were row upon row of what seemed like middle aged ladies. They sat with great beams of wood between them which the moved in circular motions and I realised that they were oars and the distant memory of seeing these leg like appendages coming out of the ships side came to me.

These women rowed on and on and I could not believe the strength that their arms had, they moved these great timbers with ceaseless abandon their teeth gritted and their eyes passionate, their feet firmly planted on the floor beneath them as they completed their great strokes.

I sat, captivated by this motion, until I felt a pulling at my arm and looking around I found myself looking into the goggled counterpart of the goggled man.

“Look!” He exclaimed, “See how great this ship is? Look at these women, look at their strength, this ship and this dwarf has managed to harbour the strength of 100 women who believe that their children are in danger, 100 women who can harness that super human strength that is known only to the mother in need.”

I looked into those mad goggled eyes and then down upon those poor whose strength was being utilised to send me to the home of the West Wind and I could only feel disgust.

“How do we get down there you fool? We must stop them; they will work themselves to death!”

“We cannot young man, believe me I have tried, those women can not be roused, their minds are somewhere else,” as he spoke that desperate mad light appeared in his eyes, “and if you think that this is the only marvellous invention of this ship think again!” and he had me in his arm, his desperate maniac like strength pulling me from the poor women who believed they were rowing to their children’s aid, with one last look of horror I was out in the corridor.

“Look upon these walls young man.”

I looked and could see nothing.

“Look closer you blind fool.”

I looked closer and slowly ever so tiny little engravings appeared, like marvellous scrimshaw, so that each and every space was filled with them.

“See them now you blind fool?” and I did! Though I could not make head nor tail of these scribblings.

“Here, upon every surface of this ship, is written the complete book of God. Here, upon every surface, in Hebrew and Greek, are the words of God, pure and unchanged since they were spoken by Him, His son, and the apostles.”

Before I could grasp the significance of this we were off again along the corridor that was now to me a great book.

We went further through a door into blackness and when my eyes had adjusted I wished that they had not for before me in this huge hull I could see a great mechanical machine reaching above my head, whirling and whining before me, its cogs and wheels glistening wetly with oils and bare metals.

Upon or near every surface, polishing, cleaning or buffing, were the stooped shapes of countless aged men, they moved around the great structure attending to every surface with selfless abandon.

“What is going on?” I was able to gasp before the goggled man spoke.

“This, my friend, is the great machine that senses where the West Wind is blowing from, like a great compass it measures, calculates and commutes with the wind and finds its source, without it we would never find the wind, and these are its faithful engineers, who scour its length and breadth, which is truly great, fixing, repairing and restoring the machine so that it can search for where the West Wind blows.”

The goggled man turned to me, “and these men, why they are the fathers of lost sons, who have been made blind and stooped in the darkness, so that their hands may know more sensitivity so as to better serve the great machine.”

As I looked I saw a great cog become stuck and a stooped man, with horrible desperation, bent and contorted his form to gain purchase on this metal mechanic, soothing and stroking this cog back into life, he became black and greasy with the machines excretions and as I watched I saw the painful passage of penance pass across his visage to be replaced with some kind of momentary peace.

“But this is ghastly, as ghastly as the poor women.”

“Ghastly you say, this is great, this machine can sense a mere molecule of the West Wind and can trace it and find it over the vast oceans and these men, with their great sensitive hands, can sooth life into the most malfunctioned machine, with their touch they could bring to life the most ceased of engines, the most jammed of shafts and the most sticky of pistons!”

I could only fall from him out of the blackness of the room, thinking with some desperate horror, that above me two twins played with a kitten.

“Take me away, I want to see no more of these devilish inventions.”

He followed me out and slammed the door, as though sealing a tomb and was off again.

“But you must, you must.”

This time we went to a door that revealed behind it a great amassing of grief, a great pouring of sobriety, as a great mass of people gave vent to their woes and as the tears poured from their faces they were collected in a great channel that ran into a great vat and as each tear fell the vat grew deeper with grief.

“Is it not marvellous?” the man said, “Look at all this grief and look how it produces all the water that one needs at sea, look at how it is used, recycled and replenished on board this ship, truly I say, truly an invention of genius!”

Before he could show me more, before his whispered promises of places that were filled with more horror could become reality, I pushed him from me and ran like a great librarian flicking through the pages of a book back to the top of this ship, back to the place that I had, only moments ago, known some kind of happiness.

Oh, the horror of this ship. Who would have thought that beneath its ivory appendages dwelt such misery? Who would have thought that beneath the creative genius that was The Tree of Good and Evil there dwelt here the abysmal toil of mankind as it was enraptured in the chains of mans genius.

Oh God, was this fate? Was this a symbol of the darkness that could be creation, was this the dominion that the genius held upon the earth, to enchain the common man, to feed from the common man, to make the common man a great cog in the motions of genius?

If it were would its significance outweigh the great and noble, the pure enlightened and free, or were these works just the same, a way of ensnaring man and making him a pawn in the idle chatter of philosophy, of sending his identity to the masses and burying his intellect beneath the wool of sheep?

In this ship the great and the miraculous had been achieved, great machines had been rendered from the earth by the mind, great machines that allowed man to see further, to peer deeper into the universe, yet still their very motion was indebted to those that could construct, maintain and operate these inventions, the men who had given up their own creative genius into the hands of others, the men who had sacrificed their intellectual and creative freedom to be the tools of others.

Had they been set free in a universe that provided only maintenance and upkeep, as they spent their lives servicing the great machine and maintaining the status quo?

Perhaps these creatures were happy to go on supporting the system that supported them, perhaps they found some degree of comfort and security in the designs of the greater good, perhaps they were safe in their ignorance and prosperous in their positions, maybe they did not need answers and proofs, discussions and lies, perhaps they were happy to just be and as long as they had what their neighbour had perhaps they were just happy to exist.

What then if things had been different, if they had not been born into a world that required them to serve, would each of these who shared the same divine spark of creation, could they not have found the facilities to go on and to create for themselves, instead of being the latent tools of the creator.

If they had been given this opportunity, what of the needs of society, those little inadequacies within the human spirit that required him to have security and comfort, procreation and regeneration, who would maintain these facilities that we become more in desperate need of each day, as the minds of the genius open up new doors that allow us to see further and to look deeper, to unravel the very act of creation while creating!

These scientists, philosophers and empiricists who slam the door on God, even as they open up the doorway to the heavens, who see not in the pulsating light of a distant quasar the stopwatch on the hand of God, or at least an aesthetic beauty beyond and above God, but instead see only the reflection of the workings of their own mind.

Was this the law of the universe then, were the genius creatures merely the tools of God, the tools that God used to find the root of his own creation, as the genius used the playground of mankind to build his ideas and to discover the roots of his own creation.

If this was the case was the common man, the toiler, the provider, not the epitome of creation? With his common identity that could provide for the empirical experiments of the psychologist, was he with his homogeneous spirit, that had been enchained by other men’s genius, not the foundation that all the constructions both physical and metaphysical, that the worlds inventions were utilised, consumed and discarded by.

Was he not the great critic who decided what was great, what was needed and what should last?  Was he not the judge who stood above the house of God?

I did not know, yet still these thoughts came to be, an endless procession of parables perambulating my porous brain. I saw these ideas like they were being spewed from the conveyer shoot of some great factory, the workings of each were hidden from view.

A great factory that’s products were spewed forth, confused and in disarray, yet still with some great truth at their core, a great truth that gave only a desperate hint as too the processes behind it.

I ran from Revelations to Genesis, the red of the wine I had drunk within and around.

I broke into the room, full as it had been when I had left, everyone as though they had not moved even though it seemed I had been gone so long and seen so much.

I heard the music stop at once and by the ghastly expression that must have been gripping my visage, the ranting of my breath ragged and short in the narrow confines of the corridor and the utterance of words that made little sense, I left their faces not as I had hoped, with expressions of loathing and disgust at what I had seen, but with some loathsome aversion too myself.

I had an expression that in its manic desperation made even the twins draw closer upon themselves and to hold the desperate wriggling’s of the kitten closer. Even the dog, whom I had maintained the utmost hope for, seemed hesitant to come to my side.

Finally he did and my head was again buried in the soft unconditional sympathy of his white coat.

When I finally raised my tear stained eyes to them they were as they were, silent and confused, my twins were nearly overcome with some quire derision that seemed so alien to them that I nearly started weeping again.

Madam with the long hair was holding her violin, no longer at the nape of her neck, but had instead dropped it to her side where it hung long and lank, like the weeping of a Salvador Dali clock and I knew at once that there was no chance of her playing me a great passionate dirge that turned all the suffering I had seen into music.

The dwarf had tucked away his pipe when I had entered and he peered at me with suspicious eyes and from the bushy abruptness of his brow and the consolidating spitefulness of his jaw I knew I would only receive more hot air from his great belly of mirth and a scold from his baritone bellow if I were to repeat again what I had seen.

That left the dog, who was looking at me somewhat queerly, as though he might join the majority at any moment, he might turn tale and give favour to those that were more fun, so to prevent this one last insult I gave a great yank of her collar to turn her about and then we were off.

Up on the deck we were again with the passionless touch of forsaken starlight that so happily silenced idle chatter.

So here we were, the dog and I, while the disbelief and displeasure thrived in the hull below, while deeper still a sad old man stumbled through darkened corridors trying to find even greater inventions of misery, while the slaves of genius were left to their minds of misery.

The Tree of Good and Evil stood before me, below me and above me and never had it seemed before the symbol of what it was, I had now seen its darkness and its light, its genius and its terror, I could see now the mind of God protecting the innocence of Adam from its revelations, I could see the desperate arm of Eve offering him the apple and I could now envision a world on fire, set alight by a serpent who was a mad old man with flying goggles.

The West Wind was no longer a pleasant blow upon a sweat soaked brow, but was a frigid breeze blown brown upon a dead earth. It was the cold caress of a northerly wind in the harrowed hollows of the homeless. It was the desperate moan of the minority meowing meekly outside the meeting rooms of megalomaniacs. It was the roar of sawdust from a machine that could machinate mercy from majestic megaliths.

It was the last weeping wavering wind from the windpipes of the willow thin. It was all this and so much more and I could only hug the dog to me in its defiance.

Dawn came as we sat there; man and his best friend greeting it together, then finally we made our way to bed where our dreams became the prisoners of nightmares.

I could not eat breakfast as I imagined some great invention in the depths below giving rise to it’s freshly splendour, the water I could not touch for it was the tears of the innocent. Perhaps I could never breath the air happily again, for its was now tainted with the inspiration of suffering and I knew then that the old man was correct, the West Wind does not distinguish between creation and destruction, to it they are one and the same.

I had not seen the rest of the crew for some time, at least not since that fateful evening when I had party pooped their party. I could not approach them with what I knew, after all even if they did care what could they do?

We were all on the same ship sustained by the same suffering, heading to the same destination that was the end of the world, we could all voluntarily give ourselves to starvation and the same suffering as those below, but to what end?.

Humankind after all, makes its decisions based largely on group ideology which is then shaped by personal identity and most of this ideology is purely abstract, based upon known facts and the general consensus, it is largely ignorance and mostly denial, how was this ship any better?

Vegetarians the world over are convinced that plants have no feelings and meat eaters are convinced that animals have more feelings than plants but less than they, belief and ideology, ideology and belief, that’s all it was.

Everything ate everything; there was always suffering for others good, there was always good made of others suffering. Could I approach those twins who seemed the symbol of innocence upon the world, the archetype for childishness, could I tell them that those things that sustained them, those things that allowed them to enjoy the water and the sunshine were owing to the suffering of the majority? Could I tarnish their sweet little world with the truth that made the joy of sea and sky a lie? I could not and I would not I would bear this suffering alone.

The dwarf, our good captain, could I suffer his silence upon the matter? Could I sit through his wilful renditions played upon his pipe, even as I imagined it disappearing into the same voluptuous pocket that held an imagined whip that he used to coax his crew into greater feats of human endurance?

Could I see him waltz in on his little cruel legs and serve to his crew a table of suffering, garnished with his little lies? Could I see him chuckle wilfully as he watched one of the twins drink from a cup of tears? No, I would not, I could not and I would confront this little monster, the first chance I got.

It was not as long as I would have liked before I and the dwarf found ourselves alone together again, perhaps being as we were great lovers of the horizon this would always be the way of us, at dawn and dusk together in our ammocete starring towards a horizon envisioning different lands and asleep at night dreaming different dreams, while our shoulders rubbed together during the day.

Is it not the same everywhere? Do not the master and the slave, the victim and the perpetrator, the guilty and the guiltless, share a common physical space and yet be so apart on everything else?   

Despite all this, it was still his face that I least wished to this evening, none the less, resolute in my argument and still strong with the indignation I made my move.

“I have been below,” I spoke simply, and the silence grew between us, “I have been where the goggled man has been, he has shown me all this ships attractions and sites.” I curled these words into a sneer too demonstrate my disgust and to let him know that I held him responsible.

“You have, have you?” he replied somewhat neutrally, so that my indignation was doused and a new anger arose to replace it, an anger that equalled and surpassed his and the world’s apathy.

“How could you let it be? How could you let it occur?”

He turned to me with such a pitying expression, such resentment, as though I had questioned the unquestionable.

“You fool! Still you do not realise it, you do not see it, you who have been given, above most people, a chance to see above and beyond, you have been given such a chance and you still douse your discovery in the tub of human sentimentality.”

By then I was all for strangling him, all for throwing his form over the edge to be lost in the waves below though he stopped me with words that I was forced to listen to and of course if I did not like them, there would still be the sea.

“Still you do not see, all so human fool, The Tree of Good and Evil is named accordingly, it is a great amalgamation of the collective consciousness of the world, it is all mankind’s hopes, fears, desperations and yes also mankind’s sentimentality that you seem to hold so desperately to, if only the rest of humanity could do the same. The tree wields our feelings, inspirations and hopes from the conceptual to the concrete and this ship is but an amalgamation of them all and when we get to the land of the West Wind you will see that side of it too.”

“What do you mean, you conceited dwarf?”

“What I mean is the tree created those inventions, or more correctly, the tree used the imagination of man to best decide upon what inventions would best suit the passage of the ship to the land of the West Wind, it did not use morality, it did not use ethics it just did what it had to do to get the ship there and back again.

“Many years ago there were other ways that this shipped moved, some so ghastly that it would have made the current inventions that sustain the ship seem like Disney Land and some so beautiful that the universe may never know anything like it again and if one were to look at those times, to place those inventions within the great convention of human history one would see why these inventions were so. If you don’t believe me go down their tomorrow and see for yourself, note the little changes, the little discrepancies, see it as though it were reflecting the changing world of man, but do it quickly if you will!

“Things have been changing things have been getting worse, only a month ago the old men attending the great machine that allows the ship to sense the West Wind, were not as blind, were not as bent, were not covered in as much filth and their eyes they were filled with such ecstatic worship that has now given over to despair.

“Not so long ago the great tear vats would only produce a gallon of tears a month and before that, long before that, it were tears of happiness that those great vats procured, now they are producing double and it goes on and goes on….. And still the ship goes on. There are changes going on aboard this ship and your anger at me is doing nothing to alleviate them.”

So once again my anger was thwarted, so like a disgruntled customer on the phone continually being sorry for his misplaced anger, directed as it was to levels of middle management and not the manager himself, I was left feeling only guilt and regret.

“My friend, do not be so hard upon yourself, I forget that all of this is new to you, that you are new to it, and that I have had a lifetime of old law to grasp it, I apologise for my anger and mirth, you have done well to come this far. Let us hope together my friend that we reach the land of the West Wind before the ship changes further.”

I knew that what he said could be true though I still had my doubts, whether it was the conditioning of a hundred fictional dwarf characters that seemed to only represent the slyness and sneakiness of human nature, or my own pessimistic nature I did not know, though I did know that I must descend into those lower levels to witness these changes myself. I was keen to wait for day break but I knew that I could not, for sleep would only come with the truth.

I went down again through the hallways of biblical scrimshaw, through the portals of portent power and down the steps of sterilisation. I knew that down here the goggled man must still be, probably lapping from the very fount of tears his own nutritional needs, probably sustaining himself purely on the ships inspiration, as The Tree of Good and Evil took from him all his foul ideas and wove them into the ship about him.

I came to the first hold and there were again the mothers, line upon line rowing into oblivion, I could see no change here. Then I noticed discern a slight change in their strokes, I could discern a small discrepancy in their pace, a slight hesitation in their pull, they were slowing down, as though the hope they had for their lost children was becoming less and less.

All I could do was to move on, to leave them to their fate, but before I could turn to go I noticed amidst the rows a space where no space should have been, the absence of arms where arms should have been and no matter how hard I looked, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that this had always been I knew that one of the wet eyed mothers had gone, but to where I knew not and for this disappearance my heart gave one uncertain beat.

The next door was the one leading to the great machine that the Dwarf had alluded too and I watched for myself the blind stooped men moving around and I could see a small loss of hope in their eyes, a greater stooping of neck and shoulder and then as though I were imagining it, a man stooped down before me to attend to a jammed wheel and before I could shout a warning a great piston descended down and another great cog turned up and he was swept from sight into the internals of the great machine, a slow cry dying upon his lips as he disappeared.

How I wished to awaken them, to let them see there folly, to let them know that finding the West Wind was really not that important and then I was against them shouting to them though they could not hear, they could not respond and their strength was such that I could not physically break their concentration upon the machine, it was as though their eyes had only the attention for what was machine, for what was metal and then Gaultherias was there pulling me away from them and we were out in the corridor and then upon the deck and there I stood screaming out to the night sky.

Later I felt that I had regained enough of my sanity to approach the others and I found them again in the main room. I had not yet decided whether I would confront them with all that I had seen and strangely it was only now that I realised that some of them at least might have seen the same.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten my wild outburst, or at least given me the sympathy of acting as though they had forgotten, and I was able to move amongst them as though all that had been had not.

The twins were eager to come to my side and they deposited at once into my lap the kitten that they had become bored with and again at last it was mine to be upon my own shoulders and to play in my own hair. The long haired woman kept giving me strange looks as though she had not quite forgiven or forgotten my little act and perhaps owing to our former intimacy thought she should be owed some explanation.

Gaultherias was there of course looking over his passengers with a critically appraising eye as though at anytime anyone of them might break out into the same frantic sickness that I had succumbed too.

Strangely enough so was the goggled man, he sat slumped in the corner eyeing me suspiciously through his mirrored eyes.

I sat down upon the table and the long haired woman came to my side and gave me an appraising look that said to me with out words, “Come outside dear one and tell me of your woes.”

Though I wished for the calm innocence of the twins and the comforting interior of walls I owed her at least this and we rose together as two pairs of suspicious eyes followed us to the door, one pair goggled and the other eyes hooded in thick hairy brows.

The night was calm and the wind light, the souls above though seemed to be billowing full and the ship seemed to be making great progress upon the lunar sea. The Tree of Good and Evil seemed strangely translucent in this lunar light, like a ghost of its diurnal self and the woman with long hair sensing my puzzlement must have been thinking the same for she spoke thus.

“You see it too don’t you? It is more transparent, less opaque that it was before; there is less colour in its limbs and less texture in its leaves.”

“Yes, you are right; see how the moonlight seems to pierce its upmost branches?” I replied, “See how the bark around its apex seems less real?”

What this new mystery meant neither of us knew though in our own respective silence we pondered it. She spoke breaking the silence.

“What happened to you before, when you broke into the cabin, ranting about machines, about the worlds tears and old mans blood?”

So here it was, the question that I had been waiting for, what would my answer be, a nightmare, nothing at all, or would I tell her that this ship is sustained by the most malignant of marvellous inventions and that if it were not for them this ship and us would not be here?

“Do you know what this tree is?” I asked.

“Of course! The dwarf Gaultherias explained it all, The Tree of Good and Evil”

“And you believe this?”

“Of course my friend, I have been a Christian all my life, for this tree to exist, even in its current state is no surprise to me.”

Oh dear I had the faithful to commune with, someone who would believe all with no hint of doubt and then as though to pull down all her biblical fabrications the question came out.

“Have you been down into the depths of the ship?”

“Of course I have, what more is there to do on this ship but sleep and explore?”

“And what did you see?” I asked, thinking at once that her faith in all this Christian idealism had led her to justify all the atrocious acts below.

“Nothing more than cabin upon cabin stretching on and downwards, why this ship could provide passage for a city, and indeed it did, or so our dwarf friend told me, apparently this is the great ship of the flood, that brought Noah and all the animals before the flood to safety.”

There it was, one of us was either blind or lying, sane or insane and without thinking I grabbed her hand and pulled her below, her in protest and me in a rage we went down beneath the decks.

Door upon door I flung open and each door only revealed more doors and more quarters until it seemed as she said that every animal of the great flood could be contained here with room to spare.

“What of the vast mechanical machine? What of the tear machine?” I ranted and she looked at me with shock and fear as though fearful of a mind that had the capacity to devise such marvellous tortures, “Where are they? They were certainly here before!” I shouted.

“I do not know of what you speak Herove; this is as it has always been.”

Then I was away from her and racing back up the stairs, my God, was my life to be the continual unravelling of mystery only to reveal more mystery?

I needed to find the root of this problem once and for all and in the same insane fury that had led me to rap on a red door until red paint and blood ran together and the same fury that made me break the spine of the porcelain man I caught hold of my crusaders sword and was off upon the deck, searching for that sneaky Gaultherias, or better still that sneaky goggle wearing grimacer.

I was on deck in an instant hunting out Gaultherias first, probing his likely haunts with my malicious eye and I found him before The Tree of Good and Evil. He turned to see me and my sword and devised at once my intentions and tried to flee.

I had him at once against the deck my sword before and above him.

“What is going on, where did the great malignant machines go, why were they not there when she looked?”

“Herove you must understand,” Gaultherias replied in haunted broken speech, “this ship is stranger than you imagine, stranger than you can possibly know, tell me why when the children go into the ships depths they find nothing but play rooms and toys, tell me why? I do not know, no one knows, it just is. Tell me why when I go down below the halls and walls magically change to fit my dwarf stature, I DO NOT KNOW.”

“I don’t believe you dwarf, not at all!” I raised my great crusaders sword to better illustrate the point.

He, obviously believing that there could be no reasoning with me, seemed to collapse upon himself, as his great belly of mirth deflated into dwarf like dimensions and all the puffed up pride dissipated from his eyes.

“Something is wrong with the tree,” he murmured, “I was watching as you noticed it yourself, you were not wrong, the moonlight pierces its upmost branches. The tree is dying.”

I could not believe him, though I knew it to be true, he was not trying to divert my attention from rendering his own skin, the despair and concern in his eyes were more than that.

“You cannot be right, the tree can not die, you said yourself that it has been here since the fall and will remain forever so.”

“So I thought, though now I do not believe this is so, I went down deeper than you have been, through a door that I forbade you to go, through this door I went to a place where I could see as much of the tree below as there is above and this part of the tree, these roots and rhizomes have grown thick and strong, greedy and thirsty, they seek more nutrition, more nutrition that I can feed them and they move through the ship seeking this nutrition from wherever it can get it!”

I remembered the man being dragged and pulled into the machine to disappear from sight, I saw the empty berth between the rowing women that looked as though it should have been occupied and realised that perhaps all he said was true.

The twins were next to me then, pulling the wretched sword from my grasp where it clanked to the ground

“Leave him alone Herove, what has he done wrong?”

“He has done nothing sweet things; absolutely nothing,” and I let them lead me away from the dwarf, leaving the prostrate length of my crusaders sword behind me upon the deck.

The weeks went by and still there was no sign of the place of the West Wind and the dwarf could not provide an adequate explanation as to why we had not found the land, reverting simply to his former statement that “None can truly say how long it shall take, it seems to vary with each voyage, sometimes days sometimes years, but we always make it.”

Though I believed the first part of this ambiguous statement I was beginning to doubt the second.

Everyone on board was now feeling quite done with all the popular pastimes and even the twins were showing not only a small degree of impatience, but had gone back to watering their plant with their tears in the hope that it would shine again and show us our way to the promised land. The lady with the long hair had decided to cut it short and it now hung at a short but respectable length and the remains sat as they fell wrapped around the room in defeat.

Gaultherias had reverted to a sulky silence that no one could awake him from and the sound of his pipe and its soulful accompaniment was heard no longer through the ships hold.

The goggled man was more gone than he was present and even I had not the courage to follow him again into the depths of the hold, into places that perhaps even the dwarf had not been, and though I sometimes wished that The Tree of Good and Evil would take him I was always strangely relieved when it didn’t and he would return to our sight days and weeks long past, yet the sights that he had seen still fresh in his eyes.

The days went on like this and worriedly I would survey the dwindling of my rations and contemplate defeat as I was forced to consume the ships food, or to starve and in so doing become a part of the greater evil.

We spent the most part of our time in the hold until the small irritations of each others company sent us to our cabins or onto deck where we had each secured our own little place where we could each be found, or where we could find each other if that need arose and then we would come back together like a flock of sheep in the evening, finding perhaps some small measure of security in shared worries.

The dog too seemed to have lost some of her joviality and seemed to spend the most part of her time on the deck gazing out to sea, as though looking to catch sight of her mistress and this above all seemed to be the most depressing part of what we had become.

All the time The Tree of Good and Evil was losing more of its opaqueness, until it was a timid hallucination of what it once was, a tree that bore all the insubstantial fruit of all our worries and woes.

The weeks flowed like this and I wondered what Sea Breeze was thinking, did he still rise in the morning to catch a glimpse of the ocean hoping that he might see the ship named Hope upon its waters, did he still look fondly upon our time together and look forward to the time when we would be together again, or had our time become like another time, another place where only thoughts go?

I wondered about home, of that sleepy hollow of stagnated suburbia, that place of doldrums and delirious dead pan, what was going on there? And for the first time I realised that people would be looking for me, searching for me, though now I realised that they had probably given up hope, I had burnt in the fire, I had been driven mad, I had been driven into the mountains to die like my parents and I thought perhaps maybe there was someone even know searching for me and in so searching for me was also searching for the West Wind and I laughed sardonically. I thought of home and my parents and I thought no more.

Things changed little upon the ship and some strange routine seemed to keep us together and at other times to throw us apart.

We were our own world unto ourselves and trapped as we were between the ever receding configuration of the horizon where ocean and sky met we may as well have been trapped within the dark depths of space for the ship and the stars were our only fixed point of reference as between them and the horizon we made our voyage.

None who have not experienced it first hand can understand the lonely freedom of that time as the wind and the ocean made us their play thing and the ship called Hope was swept upon the seas shallows as we turned our minds from the faithful depths that were always falling down into the darkness below.

We hoped together and then sighed together, often and as though with one breath when upon the horizon our attentions gathered upon a distant speck of land only for it to rise into the sky and become an ugly black cloud or it became to our horror the rising fury of a storm that would sweep towards us, an ugly creature of vengeful darkness that would rein the fury of the earth upon the holy shoulders of our ship, as though to punish us for seeking what we sought.

In the earlier days we often feared that the ship would go under, when the sun and the moon and the stars were hidden from our view by the rising wrath of the sea we feared that this would be the end and yet the ship would rise from the very depths of this deluge to sweep again towards the land of the West Wind and our fear would turn into elation but then to disappointment as the morning brought again the motionless, the monotones, the merge and our misery.

Then something happened, the twins went missing. Some thought it had been only a couple of hours, but others believed that it had been far longer and brought together by this tragedy we at once found the oneness that had been lacking in us and sought to find them.

We at first searched the deck, it was the most plausible containing many places that children might have liked to play, though they were in none of their familiar places, their room seemed too quiet as though no one had been there for sometime and though we kept thinking the best we knew that something was amiss and by the time the goggled man knew of the disappearance, a disappearance that threw him into some kind of ranting fit, we were all beginning to feel more than a little concerned.

We devised, or more truly I proposed, that Gaultherias, the goggled man and I would search below, while the lady with the long hair would remain above and with my crusaders sword strapped securely to my back we descended below the invisible trees embrace.

What we would find together none of us knew, we had all shared the same experience when last we had descended though it all seemed different now and we each voiced our concerns as to what the ship would show.

Descending, it appeared as though we walked through a discarded playground, a closed crèche, a toybox of gigantic proportions, before and around us were strewn the most fantastical toys made, as though by the greatest of craftsmen, dolls and teddy bears of life like proportions with faces painted and sewn into life, great panda bears that rivalled the best the circus had to offer, musicboxes that emitted the most pure music and dressing up clothes that resembled those of the greatest theatre.

Amidst all this upon the floor we saw it, like it had been cast aside the twin’s plant sat like it always did, but then we saw what was near it, a small door unlike any other I had seen, though Gaultherias, coughing out a suppressed moan, realised that it was one that he had seen before. It was indeed the door that he had eluded to when he had warned me to go anywhere but in there.

How could this be? How could these sweet children of innocence and light have found there way here, here of all places upon the ship?

The goggled man was at the door pulling at its handle, throwing his weight against its weight, we moved over and were pulling him back as he cursed the ship and its retched insidious knifings and berated its bastard like boundaries and we all fell together weeping in the silence.

Gaultherias told us that we could not go there, we could not go to that place, not as it was after all this time when it might have grown stronger and more evil. The goggled man raved that we must and ranted that it was only just, Gaultherias told us no, for beyond this door lay our death and then I thought while clearly not thinking, that if we could not go below then we could still clearly go above and while the two lay slumped in their collective grief, while they cursed and muttered amongst themselves I was up and back the way we came.

I was on deck in an instant and by the curses behind and beyond me I knew that Gaultherias and the goggled man were probably there too. I knew that Gaultherias would have some rational reason as to why I should not do this thing, the goggled man would probably support whatever he said merely to spite me, and so for this I blocked my ears and hardened my considerable resolve to their masterless mutterings and set about doing my work.

The Tree of Good and Evil was before me, above me and beneath me, all I had in my mind was thoughts of the twins and I raised my sword high and hardened my resolve for what I intended to do.

Gaultherias was behind me trying to topple me with his weight against my legs and instead of completing the downward stroke that would rent the tree in twin, or at least give it a mighty good gash the sword was torn from my hand where it went up and over and before me and impaled the tree to a point half way along its blade and in an instant the very universe appeared to quake and the ship came to rest and all its odd sounds became silent, all its many vibrations were stilled and we were at once alone and unmoving upon the sea.

“Well, you have truly done it now,” I at last heard Gaultherias say, and for the first time I had to agree with him.

We all rose from our prostrate positions as the lady with the long hair appeared on deck and stood captivated as we were by the sight of my great holy crusaders sword embedded as it was in The Tree of Good and Evil.

The ship was still as silent as it was before and not even the creak of wood, or as it were in this case bone, could be heard and it was as though the silence of space had settled over the ship and not even the sea could be heard brushing against the hull.

Far off a number of sea birds spiralled, though they seemed an eternity away for not a breath of their cries were brought to us and closer we could see the wind moving small troughs upon the sea and yet we could not feel it, not in our hair and not upon our skin and not in our mind.

We stood their dazed and confused until the enormity of the situation began dawning on our minds like a slowly rising sun, then as I expected all eyes turned to me, expressions deep with accusation.

A type of insurmountable shame ran through me, as though if anyone was to make the situation worse I was of course the prime candidate, as of course I had been.

“It was for the twins,” I feebly muttered with a small hint of my former pride surfacing towards the end of this desperate sentence.

It seemed to dawn on them then that the twins were still missing and I had not, as they had first seemed to think, simply struck out at the tree because I was bored and wanted something to do.

The dwarf slumped, “Well the twins are still gone, no matter your gallant but particularly fool hardy attempt to free them from God knows where, and now we are stuck upon a sea in a vessel that refuses to move and I might add that we do not know what God awful things might be occurring at this moment in the hold due once again to your foolish logic.”

I guessed he was right, though if my plan had been successful wouldn’t they all have sung a different tune? Would they have sung my praises all the way to the land of the West Wind, with cries of gallantry, honour and sacrifice surmounted like a mighty chant the name Herove?

Would not the great Gaultherias be already within his study chronicling the amazing feats of Herove so that all the dwarfs forever more could pass on to their passages my great feat of bravado?

Yes happily they would have done, though it seemed that this was not going to be the case and instead I may have ended a long line of voyages, a long line of dwarfs and an even longer line of passengers who wished to go to where the West Wind was.

“Well, why not just pull it out?” I spoke as I was moving on towards the sword and the tree.

“Do not move Herove, do not even bat an eye lid,” I heard the dwarf speak behind me, “one foolish act from you today is by far enough.”

Perhaps he was right, perhaps they were all right and I let myself be led away from the tree and the sword embedded within it that was now my shame.

We all, out of instinct, moved into the cabin and each took our respective positions amongst the chairs, save of course the twins and the dog that now seemed to be missing.

It was of course Gaultheria’s turn to once again surmount us with the gravity of the situation, as though we had not just observed it only moments earlier and using words like horrendous, hideous and hedonistic (heroic?) he went to great lengths to make me feel somewhat better about what had just occurred and even went as far as to stand behind my chair as he used these words, perhaps in order to offer me some mutual support, or perhaps again just to illustrate graphically that it was indeed I, not him, not the goggled man, nor the long haired lady and certainly not the dog who had brought this calamity upon our shoulders.

Now it was up to us, though not me as I had been spared all responsibility for any task that might rectify the situation and as the argument/discussion raged a consensus was finally reached.

1. Herove would have nothing at all to do with the rectifying of this problem
2. Until the damage caused by the sword could be accurately gauged then it would stay where it was
3. The door that had appeared downstairs was to be bricked and barred and no one was to go near it
4. The Tree of Good and Evil would not be approached at all (illustrated again quite graphically by a none to subtle glare in my direction)
5. Gaultherias would consult his great log book (the one that Herove’s great act was to be recorded so eloquently in)
6. The mystery of the twins would have to remain a mystery at least until Gaultherias could find out more

Well, there it was, a plan completely free of brazen rash acts of Herovic proportions and one I believed to be doomed to absolute failure and though I shouted great streams of protest at this puffed up conservative I was not listened too and soon everyone had disbanded to carry out their respective duties until I, the root of this small problem, was left to stew in my own silence.

We will soon see if Gaultherias and his great library can save us I thought, we will see if it does not take just another swipe of the holy crusaders sword to make things right again, and with a final curse in his short legged direction I left to to the deck above where I could find a place free of helpful do-gooders.

It was certainly true, the ship was not moving, and somewhat sardonically I imagined all those wet eyed women in the hold below fussing around like a bunch of housewives with nothing to do, I imagined all the little old men sitting down and finally getting a chance to wipe their sweaty brows and to remove a small portion of the grease from their hands and to discuss the small tribulations of their wives back home.

It is surprising the thoughts that one comes up with after extreme crisis, the type of crisis that blows the world clearly out of proportion, the type of thoughts that seem only a little bit absurd, in the light of the greater absurdity that was worry, stress and panic.

Here I sat as the world fussed by and if you think that I harboured thoughts of removing my crusaders sword from the tree perhaps just to commune with the spirits beyond, you would be absolutely right, if you thought that I was thinking of squeezing my bulk through that dwarf like door then you would not be mistaken, though if you thought that I was going to do these things now after all that had been said, after all had been implied then again you would be absolutely correct.

I would bide my time, let them stew over my little crime, let them come to all their little conclusions and then perhaps when they came running I would lend them my aid.

To tell you the truth this act of mine, as much as they raved that it was thoughtless, inconsiderate and full hardy, was far from the truth, in that small amount of time when I realised that the door would not be a safe access to the tree I realised that the above parts of the tree would. I had also realised that if I could anchor myself to the tree with some tangible link I might just have a chance of communing with these great men and women of genius and devise from them a solution to our problem, if that link was my sword with its hilt shaped as it was in the form of the Christian cross I might better be able to commune perhaps with the mind of God himself and who better person to ask advice from, especially when it concerned two of his little innocent children?

So, Herove was not just the rash and the clumsy, but the thoughtful and the thinker who had analysed every step of his actions save perhaps the stumpy little legs of a dwarf who had tripped him up just before his great scheme was put into action.

There would still be time to carry out my plan and though I felt not a little unlike the goggled man who I had berated for being such a sly sneak, I knew deep down that the only way to rectify this situation was my way and that even if I tried to convince the others that this was so they would not believe me and would not allow me the chance to take this risk.

I also knew from what I had seen and from what Gaultherias had said that we really had little time. Gaultherias knew deep down that his great log book would reveal little, if anything about our predicament and like all scholars at heart he only wished to bury his head in other people’s actions if only to alleviate the lack of action of his own.  

So it was like this, just a matter of time to wait until nightfall and for all the little innocents to go to sleep and then I could make my herovic move. Well we met again, as they say in action novels, for reconnaissance and as I thought everyone had little to say.

Gaultherias himself spoke of a wide range of topics of fantastic interest yet none of these topics had anything remotely to do with the job at hand. The goggled man seemed even more goggle eyed after spending so much time in the vicinity of the door as he boarded it up that he seemed to spend the whole time ranting and raving about nothing more than the dreadful fantastic sites that had appeared and that had been seen on the other side of the doors key hole, all which proved to be interesting though bore little resemblance to the facts that we really needed to hear and if anything only provided us with a lifetime of material in which to make nightmares of.

The long haired lady was of course her usual diplomatic self and had at least partially forgiven me for my rashness, which of course made me feel slightly guilty for what I intended to now do, though no less sure that I was going to do it.

The dog was still missing and while I was moderately concerned and wished to raise this matter a little higher on the agenda, Gaultherias, self proclaimed master of ceremonies, would have nothing to do with it and instead proceeded to produce glorious images from his book of the internal structures of the ship and The Tree of Good and Evil.

Save for I, in my secrecy giving little darting glances towards it, and the goggled man who broke off at once from his insane perambulations and tried to wrestle the book from Gaultherias, his images gained little interest from anyone else, that being the only one remaining, the long haired lady.

Here we were, cut and divided, and all the time something dark and brooding was building in the hold and we stuck fast in the ocean at the mercy of time and it.

It would soon be my time I told myself, as the confusion and discussion spilled around me, it was time for a man of swords and not a table of words, they would soon see and yet I did harbour some small doubts.

I mean what if the tree trunk was injured beyond healing, what would happen say if my sword came out, would all those spirits escape their confinement, would God himself come out, what if I was stuck forever within the tree with the company of a thousand ranting geniuses who could no doubt devise the most piquant insults and devise the most humiliating and painful tortures for someone who had interrupted their great discourse with his great sword and his small concern for a pair of twins.

What if…. and the list went on and yet I knew my mind was settled and by the small suspicious glances that Gaultherias gave me in between trying to tear his great log book back from the greedy hands of the goggled man I think that he knew that I had resolved myself to do something too and judging by his look he though it was something sillier than even I had devised. 

My time came not long after, everyone had left into the uneasy silence of failed hopes and the ships foreboding, the starlight was just what I needed to see my way and not long after I was in front of The Tree of Good and Evil and as I stared up, looked ahead and felt it beneath me I felt a summons, though at the time I was blinded by what it was and I figured that it was the tree summoning me again, the geniuses asking for me again and I was blinded to the true caller by my vanity, by my hope.

The sword was had taken on the same translucence as the tree as though they had become one.

As I stared up at this tree the world seemed to contract until it was only the tree and myself that shared the universe, then it was the tree, myself and a dwarf as Gaultherias was suddenly beside me.

“So you have come to do what you always meant to do my friend?”

“Yes I have Dwarf and if you think to stop me you might quickly find that like dwarfs in all story books you lack the ability to swim.”

Though I said this with a rough gruffness, we both knew that I would not do such a thing.

“Oh Herove, I have not come to stop you, we all make our own decisions, and perhaps yours is the best, I do not know.”

“Can you offer me no small advice; I could certainly do with something?”

“All I can say Herove is that The Tree of Good and Evil is more than you suspect, more than anyone suspects and to take it literally, even to take it symbolically would be foolish, trust your instincts my friend they have served you well thus far it seems.”

With that little more could be said and as we shook hands, he wished me luck and I said goodbye and in what seemed an age I had the smooth cold hilt of the sword between my fists.

That’s when I heard it.

“Ahhhhhhhh. So you come again Herove, room 35698 was it not?”

Part 3 – Suburbia

Who would doubt evil in a world of good?

When you can not do your art put your art into everything

In monotony lies madness

ONE MUST NOT CONFUSE THE MOON WITH THE FINGER THAT POINTS TO IT

Some use all their energy in the world so that they have none left for imagination some use all their imagination in the mind so that they have none left for the world

“Ahhhhhhhh. So you come again Herove, room 35698 was it not?”

A purpose and promise and a silent prayer

A sword to free him from the devils lair

A mistake a tragedy all is not right

 Once again within the suburban shite

Suburban darkness back I fear

The end of the world must be near

Then everything is made clear

And I say goodbye to my fear

Every shadow no matter how deep is threatened by morning light

The words carried the same seductive whisper as they had done before, amidst every vowel, noun, syllable and sentence I could smell the reek of dog shit. I could feel it squelching with satisfaction between my toes. Amidst the sentence I could discern the promise of cobwebs, tangles, dust balls, blown light globes, insects and mud, a great congregation of the mediocre that would never reach greatness.

All the time the voice carried this seductive promise, this is what you truly want, this is your only goal within this miserable world, let your only company be the left over remnants of bulging bake beans in tomato sauce on pastel painted plates and the turned in diminutive dumps of disposable diapers.

Your only goal is to sweep the dusty stairs of reality, to change the dimmed light bulb of illumination and to sweep the carcasses of insects into dark places between curtains, under beds and beneath mats, until they are so well hidden that it is only you that know they are there.

The voice was there within the darkness and it had replaced all the great voices of humanities genius, no more was that slippery rock within the river that was the mind of God, of its presence I could discern nothing.

Here, as it was not before, there was some sort of solid counterpace of the either like reality of ideas in motion, of creation in construction, of genius in conduction and around me appeared the speckled fanciers of red brick bulwark, the aluminium un-enlightenment of venetian blind bound windows, the sickly texture of hydrangea hydras and leading to it like a great portal into plagiarism a path strewn with Canis Shites from all manner of speckled, striped, spectrum truanting pompous pounds.

From the street on which I stood the sulking suburbia spread forth under the sallowed sky and the world was so many closet carcases, the faint stench of flatulence and settees sunk from voluptuous silhouettes possessing bovine like buttocks, on which polyester pants were stretched.

Before me the path, as though there was no other way, and before me the hotel as though there was no other thing and my feet walking, trying to miss the dog shit, stumbling, treading upon the dog shit and then the almost violent explosion of pungent poo and my nose trying to contract its nostrils, my mouth closing and yet still that worse than death aroma around me, upon me, within me.

Here I was and from this place I could not go, the other place even as I thought about it was gone. My hand reached involuntarily towards the door, though before I could grip it their was the porter grinning a fake smile of mistreatment, bustling me, hustling me with the boasts and bragging that I had heard all ready and then we were off, me in front and him behind through endless white washed corridors and around us the reek of diminutive disinfectant and all the dried derelict like dregs of decadence and decay.

We went on through this hallway of droning doors and wailing walls and stifling stairs, stairs upon stairs where going up felt like coming down and going down was still going down, then we were there, room 35698.

The door looked like all the others was thrown wide open and I was jostled through with a resounding, “Good evening sir.”

The room was what was to be expected, shaggy shagpile of a serviceable colour that appeared as though it had never been serviced, dim dull blinds encrusted with derelict dust and grey light coming through between, a soft sulking sofa of a colour that lent itself to every stain. Upon the wall as though it was all the room needed to lift it to a precipitous beyond style, a morbid mundane landscape of impressionist, putrescent pastels.

All this style was illuminated by three great naked megawatt light bulbs that made nothing in the room lend itself to the imagination. The air too was filled with an impersonal icy aloofness that seemed neither warm nor cold. A television, blank though ready to transmit tenacious terror and transient trends, stood against one wall and I knew that with one flick of its little switch I could writhe within the monotony of the masses, I could sympathise with the sarcasm of the stupid and triumph with the tragedy of the third world, within its little version of reality I could feel again like a human being.

Then peering beneath the putrescence of painful blinds in perspicacious pragmatic pessimistic per function, I could see through the folds of agapanthus and weed-choked grass into a backyard of Hills Hoist heaven, where pink and blue clothes whipped too and fro on a fetid breeze as though it were a germ laden sneeze.

A humdrum holding of bulging garbage cans spewed forth the trappings of a culture in decline, greeting me with glossy garbage bags, giving way to greasy chip wrappers and fast food favourites and beside this a great amalgamation of empty boxes that held the precursors to empty dreams.

From every window, from every portal, blared the blatant compressed noise of television advertisements and the bludging nasally bellows of race track announcers, above and surmounting that, as though a testimony to suburban soap operas the seamy, secular, self satisfying, self seeking brazen bitterness laden gossip of bastards and bitches, and on and on into the flat expanse of distance, the urban sprawl of decadence, the rising wail of willingness, the suburban winter of woefulness.

Then breathless benign billows of bumptious bilge buffeted my bohemian boon until I felt I might fall into a swoon and the room seemed to sway under some undefinable lonely secret sorrow that my mind was now a part of.

The next door revealed the bedroom and the bed was a great bumpy bovine bladder of blankets and bulges, a similar such landscape stood above the bed above where would soon be my head. The bathroom was a bile-like colour, which had seen too much belching, budget minded, burlesque, and bourgeois that it listlessly languished in the expelled contents of unrelenting unremitting urine.

The shower over bath looked liked it had never taken the time to bathe itself and it was thick with fantastic fungi that fumbled and fidgeted within the fractured filaments of fallowed fissures and was thick with the hideous hair wrenched from dandruffs scalp and caked with the liquid soap of washed away sin.

Before me a rust speckled smudged portal that peered back at me with my own perturbed expression, a marred mirror of malpractice masquerading as magnificence and I before it and within it and my spirit sunk, slinking, sliding, suspended briefly, beautifully, a moment before the mundane and merciful madness mastered it.  

  Partitioned within purgatory

A place where dreams go to die

I sat up from the damp and sweaty pillow and pulled the blankets from my body, the bed creaked once before my feet were on the floor and I shuffled out of the bedroom door and into the living room.

The room was cold, but I did not have a heater and all my clothes were already on. I fell into the sofa at once and gazed at the television screen that had been left on during the night it was transmitting images of a train crash in Russia. The day was overcast it had been like this for days and I sat there as I did every morning waiting for something.

The television had changed, the news show was over and now a variety show, with a blonde, slightly attractive, but getting on in years host. She was interviewing an equally middle aged man in a grey track suit about his recent fight against cancer. I was not hungry but it was breakfast time so I raised myself with a small spell of dizziness from the couch and approached the door where I knew the food would be deposited and there it was, as it was every morning, a chipped plate and upon it burnt toast, charred bacon and cold baked beans.

I brought it back to the couch, as it was the only seat in the room, but as I sat down the toast slid off and landed on my knees, I just brushed it off and put it back on my plate and ate as I watched the variety show.

The show was now showing an act, which consisted of a solo middle aged man singing with a pre recorded band on a dark stage surrounded with little flood lights, he was singing something about love. I watched the screen and ate and soon all the food was gone. I put it on the couch beside me and just sat.

I thought about changing the channels, but I lacked the energy and the inclination to do so. My feet felt itchy within my socks and I knew that I probably had another of those fungal infections that I had been getting quite regularly. My scalp itched as well.

The new segment of this show was showing a man, middle aged again, talking about his new self-help book that had him on the cover with a big grin. He seemed to be saying that to get happy you needed a good job, a relationship and a nice house. I couldn’t have agreed more.

I shuffled over to the window and looked out, it was as it always was, though the pavement was wet and the grass smelt damp, I could hear from the neighbours the sound of an argument. I went back to my sofa and just sat for a little more time.

From the next room I could hear some one moving around, some one who had a really bad cough and who kept slagging and spitting the contents of it somewhere. I thought about having a shower, not because I wanted to be clean, not because I enjoyed it because I didn’t, but because it was the next thing to do in the morning.

I rose and shuffled some more and went into the bathroom, it smelt damp like piss and mildew and the toilet water was yellow with both, I got undressed and cold and turned the rusty taps and watched the water go from a trickle, to a stream and back to a trickle again and then got under the facet and washed myself with its luke warmness until it became cold and I was able to move out from under it and turn it off.

I then dried myself with the yellow towel that was also damp and smelling of mildew and put my clothes on again, which were now damp because of the damp floor they had been left on.

Now colder and not any cleaner I went back to the couch. The television was now showing a long spill of advertisements which all had their own little jingle. I discovered that I could get everything I wanted and be the envy of my friends for money that I could pay back in a year’s time.

I changed the channel, but it was the same on every channel and thought about switching it off, but decided to leave it on. I sat there thinking about my future and questioning the decisions of my past. I would probably get a job soon and then I could be happy like everyone else, I also wanted some money so that I could afford some of those electrical gadgets that everyone else seemed to have, those little things that came in big boxes, those things that beeped all the time and broke down so that you get a newer, better one quicker.

Instead I decided to just sit rather than do all these things. The television was now showing a medical show, which showed real people having operations because they had things like cancer and heart disease I seemed to feel much better after watching this. I decided to go for a walk outside my room.

The halls were white and the floors dirty, it smelt like someone may have trodden dog shit into the carpet. I walked out anyway. I didn’t go out much, there was never much to see, outside the hotel things never seemed to change, just repeat themselves day after day.

Sometimes I would stand out the front just to watch all the cars go past, to see all these people going somewhere and then coming back the same. It seemed like I had been living this life for such a long time, though sometimes it seemed as though time was nothing at all. I thought about walking, but I could not really be bothered, I did not really have the energy and anyway the game show time of the day would be soon, so instead I decided to go to the common room to see who was there.

The common room was nearly empty and smelt of flatulence and cigarette smoke, though I barely noticed them as I had smelt them for so long. Darren was there.

He was a long greasy long haired overweight guy who thought he was funny; he would often act as though he was a stand up comedian, but now he just seemed depressed.  It was only when I sat down next to him that he was able to raise his head, his eyes looked vacant and we looked at each other across the stained coffee table that divided us.

“How’s it going Herove?” he asked, as though he didn’t care.

I answered, “Okay.”

We sat like this, hunched and quiet, together only in our bodies. We sat in silence until I he asked me if I had seen the new show, the one where they get really average people off the street and put them in a big game show where they make a mockery of their whole life, by getting people they know in to talk about them and every one gets lots of money and complementary prizes.

I told him I had not, but I would look out for it, and he smiled through black teeth as though he knew that I wouldn’t, but didn’t care

He asked me then if I had seen on the news, the train crash in Russia that had killed fifty eight people; they believed that many more were still trapped in the wreckage. I said that I had and he smiled and said how horrible that it was, though I could tell that he didn’t care.

He told me then about the new phone that was out and all its fantastic features that allowed you to do a whole lot of things that didn’t seem important.

I told him it sounded great and left.

On the way back to my room, which I spent a couple of hours finding, I passed a woman called Sheila. She was twenty five though looked older; she smoked and swore a lot, she was full of more sexual innuendo than anyone I had ever met, though none of it seemed exciting only depressing.

We talked for a while about things that would offend neither of us and then left our separate ways. I was then safely at home, on my couch watching the same familiar game show host, pull all his familiar expressions and cracking all the same bad jokes before he introduced the contestants that he would do his best to humiliate over the next half an hour.

The contestants were this time a middle aged lady dressed in yesterdays fashion that she seemed to think was still quite ‘groovy’, a young man who wanted to go to university, but worked in retail instead and a middle aged man who seemed just happy to be happy.

I watched the show and tried to get into it, dinner arrived while it was still on, it was macaroni cheese, thick and congealed, it looked as though there was quite a bit still on the fork from when it had last been served, I ate it anyway and stacked the plate on the other where it would probably sit for days until it was taken away. I watched the television like this well into the evening, by the time I decided to turn it off the plates near my side were thick with ants, so I decided to go to bed.

The blankets felt cold and damp, I couldn’t fall asleep because someone was shouting at their wife in the next room and a kid was crying. I lay there and thought of nothing, felt nothing, until I fell asleep. I had no dreams and yet all night a horrible anxiety seemed to stop me from sleeping.

I sat up from the damp and sweaty pillow and pulled the blankets from my body, the bed creaked twice before my feet were on the floor and I shuffled out of the bedroom door and into the living room. The room was cold, but I did not have a heater and all my clothes were already on. I fell into the sofa and gazed at the television screen that had been left on during the night, it was transmitting images of a mass shooting in America.

The day was overcast, it had been like this for days and I sat there as I did every morning waiting for something. The television had changed, the news show was over and now a variety show, with a blonde, slightly attractive, but getting on in years host was interviewing a woman and her child who was dying of Leukaemia.

I was not hungry but it was breakfast time so I raised myself with a small spell of dizziness from the couch and approached the door where I knew the food would be deposited and there it was, as it was every morning, a chipped plate and upon it burnt toast, charred bacon and cold baked beans.

I brought it back to the couch, as it was the only seat in the room, but as I sat down the toast slid off and landed on the floor, I just brushed it off and put it back on my plate and ate as I watched the variety show.

The show was now showing an act, which consisted of a solo middle aged man singing and playing keyboard. I watched the screen and ate and soon all the food was gone. I put it on the couch beside me and just sat.

I thought about changing the channels, but I lacked the energy and the inclination to do so. My feet felt itchy within my socks and I knew that I probably had another of those fungal infections that I had been getting quite regularly. My groin itched as well.

The new segment showed the presentation of a new piece of fitness equipment that could transform an overweight, ugly lady into a super model, with just twenty minutes of work a day, over 3 weeks, with three easy payments of $99.99, plus postage, and if you ordered now…..

I then shuffled over to the window and looked out, it was as it always was, the pavement was wet and the grass smelt damp I could hear from the neighbours the sound of an argument.

I went back to my sofa and just sat for a little more time. From the next room I could hear someone moving around, someone who had a really bad case of diarrhoea, I tried to ignore it and pretend that it was something else.

I thought about having a shower, not because I wanted to be clean, not because I enjoyed it because I didn’t, but because it was the next thing you did in the morning.

I rose and shuffled some more and went into the bathroom. It smelt damp, like piss and mildew and the toilet water was yellow with both, I got undressed and cold and turned the rusty taps and watched the water go from a trickle, to a stream and back to a trickle again and then got under the faucet and washed myself with its luke warmness until it became cold and I was able to move out from under it and turn it off.

I then dried myself with the yellow towel that was also damp and smelling of mildew and put my clothes on again, which were now damp because of the damp floor they had been left on.

Now colder and not any cleaner I went back to the couch. The television was now showing a long spill of advertisements which all had their own little jingle, I discovered that I could get everything I wanted and be the envy of my friends for money that I could pay back in a year’s time. I changed the channel, but it was the same on every channel and though about switching it off, but decided to leave it on.

I sat there thinking about my future, I would probably get a job soon and then I could be happy like everyone else, I would start a relationship with someone I just happened to meet, I would recognise all the things we didn’t have in common and then make huge compromise, we would then live together for the rest of our lives.

I also wanted some money so that I could afford some of those electrical gadgets that everyone else seemed to have, those little things that came in big boxes, those things that beeped all the time and broke down so that you get a newer, better one, quicker. But I decided just to sit rather than do all these things.

The television was showing something about an election and the new government was saying that they were going to revolutionise the healthcare system, put the environment at the top of the agenda and create more equality for the poor. I decided to go for a walk outside my room.

The halls were white and the floors dirty, it smelt like some one may have pissed on the carpet. I walked out anyway. I didn’t go out much, there was never much to see, outside the hotel things never seemed to change, just repeat themselves day after day.

Sometimes I would stand out the front just to watch all the cars go past, to see all these people going somewhere and then coming back the same. It seemed like I had been living this life for such a long time, though sometimes it seemed time was nothing at all.

I thought about walking, but I could not really be bothered, I did not have the energy and anyway the game show time of the day would be soon, so instead I decided to go to the common room to see who was there.

The common room was nearly empty. Haden was there, he had a shaved head and muscle turning to flab. He always seemed aggressive, as though he would really like to hurt you but instead, like he always did, he rose like he was your greatest friend and hugged you, shook your limp hand in every deviation imaginable, from gangster to sports star until all the dignity of a handshake was used up and your hand was left feeling numb and strangely ashamed.

He then would ask you a whole lot of irrelevant questions that he already knew the answers to.

“How’s it going Herove?” he asked, as though he didn’t care.

I answered, “Okay.”

We sat like this hunched and quiet, together only in our bodies. We sat in silence until he asked me if I had seen that boxing match on the sports show last night where a guy, a Mexican guy, had been hit until he was unconscious and in a coma, he illustrated this with his own arms, as he mimicked each and every punch, looking at me the whole time as though this he might do that to me.

I told him I had not, but it sounded exciting, and he smiled through black teeth as though he knew that I didn’t find it so.

He asked me then if I had seen on the news that the AIDS epidemic in Africa was still increasing and that the population was now what it was twenty years ago. I told him that I had and he smiled and said how horrible that it was, though I could tell that he didn’t care.

He then told me about the new computer that was out and described all of its fantastic features that allowed you to do a whole lot of things that didn’t seem important.

I told him it sounded great and left.

On the way back to my room, which I spent a couple of hours finding, I passed a  woman called Sharon, she was twenty five though looked older, she was full of more sexual innuendo than anyone I had ever met, though none of it seemed exciting only depressing.

We talked for a while about things that would offend neither of us and then left our separate ways. I was then safely at home, on my couch watching the same familiar game show host, pull all his familiar expressions and cracking all the same bad jokes before he introduced the contestants that he would do his best to humiliate over the next half an hour.

The contestants were this time a young pretty girl who flirted constantly with the presenter, a middle aged man wearing a cardigan and sporting a large pair of glasses and a short plain woman with short hair who seemed angry.

I watched the show and tried to get into it, dinner arrived while it was still on, it was sausages, they were thick with fat and animal juices, I ate them anyway and stacked the plate on the other where it would probably sit for days until it was taken away.

I watched the television like this well into the evening, by the time I decided to turn it off the plates near my side were thick with ants, so I decided to go to bed.

The blankets felt cold and damp, I couldn’t fall asleep because someone was shouting at their wife in the next room, and a kid was crying. I lay there and thought of nothing, felt nothing until I fell asleep. I had no dreams and yet all night a horrible anxiety seemed to stop me from sleeping.

I sat up from the damp and sweaty pillow and pulled the blankets from my body, the bed creaked three times before my feet were on the floor and I shuffled out the bedroom door and into the living room.

The room was cold, but I did not have a heater and all my clothes were already on. I fell into the sofa at once and gazed at the television screen that had been left on during the night, it was transmitting images of a mass grave being excavated somewhere in Asia, lots of people were crying.

The day was overcast, it had been like this for days and I sat there as I did every morning waiting for something. The television had changed, the news show was over and now a variety show, with a blonde, slightly attractive, but getting on in years host was interviewing a guy who had developed a new get rich program, it was immediately evident to me that he would be the only one getting rich.

I was not hungry but it was breakfast time so I raised myself with a small spell of dizziness from the couch and approached the door where I knew the food would be deposited and there it was, as it was every morning, a chipped plate, upon it were burnt toast, charred bacon and cold baked beans.

I brought it back to the couch, as it was the only seat in the room, but as I sat down the toast slid off and slurped down my front, I just brushed it off and put it back on my plate and ate as I watched the variety show.

The show had a stand up female comedian, she wasn’t funny. I watched the screen and ate and soon all the food was gone. I put it on the couch beside me and just sat.

I thought about changing the channels, but I lacked the energy and the inclination to do so. My feet felt itchy within my socks and I knew that I probably had another of those fungal infections that I had been getting quite regularly. My face itched as well.

The new segment showed the presentation of a new cosmetic product that could transform an overweight, ugly lady into a super model, with just three applications a day, over 3 weeks, with three easy payments of $99.99, plus postage, and if you ordered now…..

I then shuffled over to the window and looked out, it was as it always was, the pavement was wet and the grass smelt damp I could hear from the neighbours the sound of an argument. I went back to my sofa and just sat for a little more time. From the next room I could hear some one moving around, some one who seemed to be angry at someone on the telephone, I tried to ignore it, but kept hearing the words: I want to speak to the manager.

I thought about having a shower, not because I wanted to be clean, not because I enjoyed it because I didn’t, but because it was the next thing you did in the morning.

I rose and shuffled some more and went into the bathroom. It smelt damp, like piss and mildew and the toilet water was yellow with both, I got undressed and cold and turned the rusty taps and watched the water go from a trickle, to a stream and back to a trickle again and then got under the faucet and washed myself with its luke warmness until it became cold and I was able to move out from under it and turn it off.

I then dried myself with the yellow towel, that was also damp and smelling of mildew and put my clothes on again, which were now damp because of the damp floor they had been left on.

So now colder and not any cleaner I went back to the couch. The television was now showing a long spill of advertisements which all had their own little jingle, I discovered that I could get everything I wanted and be the envy of my friends for money that I could pay back in a year’s time. I changed the channel, but it was the same on every channel and though about switching it off, but decided to leave it on.

I sat there thinking about my future, I would probably get a job soon and then I could be happy like everyone else, I would start a relationship with someone I just happened to meet, I would recognise all the things we didn’t have in common and then make huge compromise, we would then live together for the rest of our lives.

I also wanted some money so that I could afford some of those electrical gadgets that everyone else seemed to have, those little things that came in big boxes, those things that beeped all the time and broke down so that you get a newer, better one quicker. But I decided just to sit rather than do all these things.

The television was showing something about the government who had failed to deliver on the healthcare system or the environment, inequality was at an all time high. I decided to go for a walk outside my room.

The halls were white and the floors dirty, it smelt like some one may have vomited on the carpet. I walked out anyway. I didn’t go out much, there was never much to see, outside the hotel things never seemed to change, just repeat themselves day after day.

Sometimes I would stand out the front just to watch all the cars go past, to see all these people going somewhere and then coming back the same. It seemed like I had been living this life for such a long time, though sometimes it seemed as though time was nothing at all.

I thought about walking, but I could not really be bothered, I did not have the energy and anyway the game show time of the day would be soon, so instead I decided to go to the common room to see who was there.

The common room was empty. I left.

On the way back to my room, which I spent a couple of hours finding, I passed a  woman called Wendy, she was twenty five though looked older, she swore a lot, her arms always looked unhealthy, she was full of more sexual innuendo than anyone I had ever met, though none of it seemed exciting only depressing.

We talked for a while about things that would offend neither of us and then left our separate ways. I was then safely at home, on my couch watching the same familiar game show host, pull all his familiar expressions and cracking all the same bad jokes before he introduced the contestants that he would do his best to humiliate over the next half an hour.

The contestants were this time a young pretty girl who flirted constantly with the presenter, a middle aged man who thought that he was funny and an old woman with grey hair and a pink cardigan who seemed genuinely happy.

I watched the show and tried to get into it, dinner arrived while it was still on, it was lamb chops, they were dry like old leather and had no taste, I ate them anyway and stacked the plate on the others where it would probably sit for days until it was taken away.

I watched the television like this well into the evening, by the time I decided to turn it off the plates near my side were thick with ants, so I decided to go to bed, the blankets felt cold and damp, I couldn’t fall asleep because someone was shouting at their wife in the next room, and a kid was crying. I lay there and thought of nothing, felt nothing, until I fell asleep.

I had a dream.

Somewhere in the sorrow laden countenance of my subconsciousness there was a little colour, it was not the colour of the suburban palate which divides itself between the garish and gross and the gargantuan grey, but colour as if it were from another place, a place where colour exists in hues and hints and does not confine itself to white washed walls and the clean sweep of coloured motor cars, but instead textures every surface with subtle shades and silky shadows.

Somewhere within my subconscious a small part of this colour, long gone and forgotten, found root and like a sun at a low angle of incidence converging upon and within autumn foliage, like the sun upon a swift flowing stream, like a mind awoken to a summer morning, it came back to me again.

And with the appearance of this colour there came with it a melody, as though I possessed a great pair of earthly ears that could hear the workings of nature. With this melody was a great dirge, a great cascade of winter darkness interwoven within it until harmony and disharmony became one.

I leant my great earthly ears to this melody as they became pasteurised in poppy pollen, as they became anesthetised in ancient arcadia, as they became like a great shell filled with the sound of the sea.

In the darkness that was my subconsciousness I felt all this come alive, I felt nerves that had been dead for so long become excited again, I felt dendrites that formally deployed innocent pleasure come awake and I felt the sedation of serendipitous cells lift.

What or whom I owed this sedation to I did not know, though my mind was again awoken to the sunshine and its innocent seduction.

But of course the dream could only last so long.

I sat up from the damp and sweaty pillow and pulled the blankets from my body, the bed creaked four times before my feet were on the floor and I shuffled out of the bedroom door and into the living room.

The room was cold, but I did not have a heater and all my clothes were already on. I fell into the sofa at once and gazed at the television screen that had been left on during the night, it was transmitting images of another outbreak of foot and mouth in Europe, the burning smell of flesh was almost evident through the images. The day was overcast it had been like this for days and I sat there as I did every morning waiting for something.

The television seemed quite happy to keep transmitting its depressing message of deceit, doom and death. The noises from the other rooms tried to fill up my head, and I tried to ignore them.

What I was waiting for I did not know, though I got the sense that I had awoken many times in the past and waited for the same thing, that many mornings in the past I had sat thus until I had grown bored, or had become occupied with some minor triviality and done something else instead of waiting.

I got the sense that many times in the past my mind had been on the verge of what it was on the verge of today before some feeble want, some tiny concern had thrown it out and into the world of useless action.

Then what I was waiting for came to me and I remembered my dream, I remembered the colours and the melody, those two things that could not be adequately resolved by fitness equipment, self help books and cosmetics, those two things that floundered and flopped in the wake of other side of the world horrors, people dying alone in white hospital beds and the corruption of corporate complexes.

Those two things that were swept under shag pile carpets, stuffed down urine stained toilets and were so often drowned in lukewarm baths, these two things that were the font of existential existence, these two things that were the font of holly innocent happiness.

I sat there as though in an anesthetised daze and perhaps I sat only as I had sat every morning before. As the images flashed in front of my undistinguishing retinas, as my brain failed to commute for itself, but allowed the television to commute for it, there I was slumped alone upon the couch and while my eyes devoured every flickering image, every scene of horror and hate, my minds eye turned inwards and remembered and then comprehended a greater beauty.

I sat there as though dead to the world, as though all the small acts of senseless suburban slathering had disappeared and while the insidious reality of this place remained I felt now somewhat apart, but still conscious of the horror. My mind wreathed in desperate disillusionment as to my predicament and the predicament of a mankind that lived in this world.

I grasped the horror of this place, this breeding ground of humanity that had stifled all its higher aspirations, all its higher hopes and dreams and had become fully the desperate calculating tool of the genetics that ran within it, the evil demon of DNA that needed the biological automation of the human flesh to carry it.

I saw horribly and hatefully that the genius was merrily some side effect of this molecule that strived for a small amount of novelty and ambiguity for a small part of its life, I saw that the genius and the function of the genius was just a way for the DNA to better understand and to better exploit its environment, to better insure and through some novel way exploit its survival, if only to create something, anything that made the chance of its success more certain and sometimes it would make the wanton, sometimes the wise, this molecule cared not which.

Of course it would only give this opportunity to a few, and for those few they would take the great leap out of the flock, to distinguish themselves, to make themselves the mercy of nature, the predator and the flock and for a time they would be given the chance to do something great before nature or the predator or the flock took them down or raised them up.

I saw the parasite that was DNA, I saw how it had entwined itself around the flesh, even as it had grown the flesh around itself, how it had instigated itself within every cell and made each cell its slave. I could see why it chose this place called suburbia as its breeding ground, why in these sheltered expanses throughout the world, free as they were from the natural threats of the wilderness and the social threats of the city, it had found its home.

I could see humanity like a great school of fish, or a great flock of sheep, trying to hide their personal identities, trying to hide what made them individually human, trying to want, to feel like others. I could see the fads and fashions as they were, merrily the tangible manifestation of mankind’s inability to be individuals, preyed upon by commercial corporations that need change to make money.

I could see these great trends in fashion, loved and despised by the same people as they tore down yesterday’s wallpaper for the feature walls of today, as they looked towards the minimal tomorrow. I could see them like this great herd, a homogeneous mass whose safety was in numbers and I could see it transpiring to create, through the minds of its prisoners, a place where every convenience was made more convenient, where every function was steeped more and more in regulation, safety and control.

It developed its own vast network of chain stores, franchises and conglomerates, so the world became such a place of merciless monotony, where nothing was left to chance, and excitement and freedom were conveniently packaged within the bounds of a packet of TV snacks and the latest blockbuster release.

Lawyers swept the world with a fine tooth comb, evening out the rises, filling in the dips until society was a great flat mass, so that the smallest indiscretion, the smallest mistake would stand like a mountain above a mole hill so that a charge, a fine or an infringement could be met, so that a court case, the prosecution, and the defendant could meet.

On the outskirts there were genius others that prowled the margins of the flock, others that wore sheep’s clothing but were not sheep, these creatures were perhaps the worst, they killed and raped within the safe suburban setting, they prowled dark streets and saw invitation in unlocked doors, they plundered the prosperous and stained the sane, they were like a great curse upon humanity, though all they did was largely what the sheep did with the consent of the flock.

The land was ruled by voyeurism, where any experience that could be, was witnessed from the objective third person, preferably and conveniently from a sofa couch. I saw a place where the primal instinct had been reduced to materialism, pornography, rape and road rage, a place where the old, less developed, though soon to be renovated parts of the DNA molecule could be expressed, where those things like danger, exertion, and survival could be given one last chance of virtual reality until they too disappeared.

The sky had been replaced by a flat screen television, the wind by an air conditioner and sunlight by fluorescent light.

The new little parcel of DNA created by the blissfully unaware parents would be given the greatest chance of survival; every chance event of possible destruction had been reduced to a bill that was even now being passed through parliament. I saw this child grow up in the stiflement of suburbia. I saw it try to raise its head over pale picket fences; I saw it trying vainly to catch a glimpse of the haunted countryside as the car blurred the earth’s reality as it went by.

I saw a child sheltering under an ancient oak before it was cut down because it might fall down. I saw it try to climb up the stale scaffold of society so that it could catch a glimpse of the sun and I saw it as it was pulled down by parents with the fear of negligence, by teachers with the fear of litigation and I saw its eyes dim over with the loss of liberation.  

A child who was alone in a virtual world of synthetics, a world of manufactured pleasures and imitation delights. A world where the tastes of fruit had been reduced to a chemical concoction, where vegetables had been reduced to vitamin pills, where milk and honey existed no more.

I realised that this place was not life itself in all its uncertain excitable glory, but a pale silhouette of life that was more concerned with continuation, propagation, and commercialisation than life and the act of living. I envisioned a place where the most common of common senses was not needed, as there was a rule, or a sign to replace it. I envisioned a place that protected and only propagated the stupid.

This was great place of stagnation ruled by a molecule that did not care for the individual and only cared for the masses. I saw the masses clawing and creeping upon and behind each other, I saw them squinting through envious eyes at each other wanting what they did not have, wanting what they did not need.

Corporations were mercifully carrying out the work of this molecule, a molecule that stretched out through the world like a great surreptitious multi national company that carried out its covert ministrations to multiply itself within the four walls of brick veneer buildings world wide.

I saw between the lie that was the third world, I could see even now images of this place being beamed into living rooms and simultaneously people were raising their remotes to switch off, to change channel, the television that was the causes of their own unhappiness, their own slavery to technology and status and ignorance, even as that television manufactured and materialised was the slavery and unhappiness and the plight of third world countries. I could see this great divide between the haves and the have nots and yet I could not tell who was happier.

I saw the world of advertising as a great front for the inadequacies of human nature, I saw these great billboards being feasted upon by envious eyes, I saw the masses wanting and needing the things that sent them further from happiness, though the billboards kept crying, you are unhappy, with this you can be happy, bigger, smaller faster is best.  

The lies of society turned in and upon themself, the denial of human nature manifests itself within the cluttered bedrooms and crowded living rooms, in the dispassionate gaze that turned everyone who is different into outsiders, strangers and threats. Everyone who wishes for something that is different intangible and not based on wealth, an anomaly to be considered different, then crazy and finally ignored.

I saw a thousand miserable dehumanising acts of sexual and violent torture committed by loved ones against loved ones. The loss of personal power generated by a system that supports the masses and takes away personal freedom manifested itself in a thousand petty deeds that further alienated humans, making them more callous, more selflessly cruel and better able to inflict more cruelty upon themselves and others.

This place no longer worshipped nature, but had become the master of nature. I saw the movement of science with its empirical studies; its mathematical models reduce the beauty of creation into the precision of a decimal point. Mans reality became the cold callous razor that parts the flesh of laboratory victims, scientists were blinded by their work and the masses blinded by scientific lies.

I could see the look in a dog’s eye, as a synthetic gloved hand touched its brain, as I could also see a child given again her sight.

A thousand justifications spouted by a thousand justifiers and underneath it all, there was only a crumpled smelly dollar bill. I watched the discovery of every fabulous invention further facilitate the disentrancement of humans from creation. I saw the work of scientists beamed into the bedrooms of the billions as they went to sleep and dreamt of the day that cancer would become like the common cold.

I glimpsed a small amount of the science that had become so removed from the reality of the common man, a science that delved into dimensions that could not be seen, could never be measured, but still through the balancing of an equation now existed.

This science was so caught up in mathematical riddles that it made the book of genesis seem familiar as it was similar. The desperate creational fabrications of scientists redress creation into a form that suited the needs of man. The masses lapped up this synthesised form, even as I watched their spirits, the quintessence that made them spiritual creatures ooze from their heads as they dreamt of new washing machines.

The last of the earth’s faiths fell either out of favour as the mind of God was dismissed by the mind of man, or into corruption as Gods kingdom became stained by the infection of man. I saw the world of religion and science part and then become one, then though the amalgamation of the two become the death of spirituality.

The world within suburbia, a world that clung so desperately to the yang and denied so desperately the yin was out of balance and out of control.

At the bottom of this was the dollar that was the new bottom line, the new measurement of hope, happiness and freedom, the tangible talon that clawed its way into the flesh of a billion bent backs, the green leaf that grew from the destruction of a thousand fired forests and the tinkering twinkling monetary mobile that hung just out of reach of green backed babies. It was the hope of the world, the envy of the masses and the property of the few.

There was a price tag written upon every surface denouncing and elevating every value until the world, obsessed with getting more of it, decided to judge every value by it and that was when humanity spiralled down, down into a black and dying planet inhabited by people with greedy green eyes.

I saw the great lie of capitalisation, the consumerism that consumed itself. It was a great industry headed by the whore of Babylon. The seven deadly sins were served on a vacuum tube and a plasma screen. Lust, envy, sloth, gluttony, greed, wrath and vanity became the trademark tragedies of corporate complexes; all these were used as potent powerful preliminaries to self destruction,

Lust was marketed and sin packaged in consumer friendly black plastic to be glanced at by adolescent eyes and spied upon by religious reviles. Small secret packages held all the precursors to self-loathing, self-debasement and self-satisfaction on the friendly sized shelves in supermarket mockeries, illuminated by fluorescent firmament, out of reach of the innocent and within reach of the insolent.

Gems of carnal creation were like black crows amidst peach trees, nestled between journals on home improvement and magazines on healthy human movement. I saw the ugly, the old, and the interloper pulling these from the shelves like apples from The Tree of Good and Evil, their expressions were of horrible anticipation, followed, all to quickly by horrible self-loathing as they glanced timidly into the eyes of glassed sales assistants and sensed, as though in their reflection, sticky page damnation.

Stuttering, scuttling scavenges of lost hope scurried away to lonely abodes amidst carnal clutter, creating with their prize a small safe secure piece of sexual salvation, they would nod off in self-satisfied satisfaction, salvaging the single expression that they could do it all again when they woke up, though they knew it would never be enough.

I saw this world, a creation of sexual frustration founded on false religious indoctrination, a clergy of fundamental dogmatic dictation, delivering the devout into dark red light districts and I saw disgusted dysfunctional dissimulates, dredging the drains of societies sexually serendipitous, trying to find sexual salvation amidst the worlds guiltless.

The laws in this society tried to protect the innocent, tried to saviour and prosper the pure parentage of proper thoughts and appropriate action and I saw the spread eagled sprawled out scantly clad scrumptious sensuous sinews of sale sign sluts.

I witnessed the extent of suburban sensuality as I lifted the metaphorical curtain on carnal creativity and saw a falling into a fat house wife, hopelessly trying to regain her risky irresponsible identity by wearing pink panties, precarious presumptuousness as her pitiful, trying to get into it husband, looked on.

Titillating tight topped teens, in thin thongs, thrilled the insatiable eyes of bulging bourgeois business men. Middle-aged worn out meek housewives marvelled at majestic air brushed bodies of Calvin Klein impossibilities. I witnessed the straying eyes of stringent secular sodomites, surveying the smorgasbord of the cities sensuality and behind the eyes of everyone the DNA dichotomy of perseverance and perversion.

This world was in dire need of new and novel experiences, it had grown long tired of love and the majesty of monogamy, it was teetering on the edge of emotional degradation, pushed by the callous hand of sexual deprivation.

I saw a world that fed from the left breast of Babylon and the right breast of a multi billion dollar budget, bourgeois, big breast, tight bum, mind you don’t come, industry. An industry based on failed dreams, insatiable needs and the selfish selfless drive of sexual greed.

I witnessed the disenfranchisement of the masses by the creation and construction of class. Deep within suburbia were the horrible hollow hallways, the doors to dormitories where the lower class bred like maggots upon the meat of ignorance and consumerism, where the gross values of their ways rejuvenated through the generations as they became like a great monotonous tide that washed over the earth. I witnessed the abasement of their morals as they rested upon their lazy half arsed justified laurels and the products of convenience and indulgence that would never decay were fed to them by the media, the cattle’s hay, and they slurped and burped up natures decay, consuming and assuming that money was all that they paid.

Their lives were a short lived happiness, a happiness that only lasted until a new happiness came along, I saw them flittering, fluttering between commercial cons, constructing and deconstructing as though they could do no wrong. I heard their feeble justifications as to the justice of society, as they battled a world that was against them. They were before flat screen televisions spouting unfairness as the rest of the world starved because of their plenty. I saw it all and thought, how petty.

Their temporal pleasures were lectured to them by the television temple, and also from it the voice of their God, preaching to the ignorant hordes. I saw through their eyes a world that had no future and no past, it extended to the borders of their lazy imagination and was limited by their doped out conceptualisation.

The middle class was the growing class of affluent ignorance, the class that the entire world was soon to become. They rose in society with new wealth, stolen from the back pocket of third world health and with their mortgaged lives they preyed upon the lower class knifes. Their wealth rose and their awareness fell as their intellects stalled.

I detested these middle class dopes the most; I could justify to myself the lower class lives but not the middle class on which decadence thrived.

Universities fell into instrumental institutions, where knowledge was a commodity tailored to the few and then given to the masses to undo. Knowledge became a text book thing, not at all a real thing, and these students with their tailored lives had not a free thought amongst them, but still they would thrive. To these shallow intellectual dopes the world would be taken by the throat.

In the upper class I saw the clean sweep of burnished brass, keeping the world in ignorance and denial and hide it behind a plastic smile. These were the thinkers and the back room tinkerers; they tied the masses to weighted sinkers. These few controlled the world, the megalomaniacs and distributors of power, their souls would make a flower sour.

Countless people, all with their own private hopes and inspirations, their own small pieces of the creative genius, fired from the womb towards a crash course with suburbia. Then there was me within in this place and I wished to see no more, it was then that the insignificant suffering that was suburbia turned and then went out forever around me.

I felt like an impostor, my new found identity bore no resemblance to the sticky humid ass that had prostrated itself, as though it were to grow roots into and under the sofa beneath me. I felt like an abomination of this place, a pale alien creature that had had all its familiarity taken away and while the walls still seemed thick with the fragrances of humanity and the stains of humanities desecration, while the television buzzed with the hype of hate and the window revealed the sterile architecture of the masses my mind found again the melody.

I let it come to me and pass through me and I sank into a daze of daisy lands and daffodils, like a drug addict drunk on Daytura I delved deeper and deeper towards a natural discordance, a pure unmolested resonance.

The temporary nature of anxiety and worry were gone, in the timeless place of melody these forces had no relevance, and I was like an empty vessel being filled with liquid music, though where this music came from I did not know.

I didn’t know where this subjugation of the five senses came from but it seemed to come from within me, from around me, it was as much a part of me as my eyes, ears and heart and now that I had heard it, now that I acknowledged it, I could not turn from it.

The music was my master and I let it lead me as though it were the silky soft hands of a beautiful dancer, with her body against my heart and her hands around my neck, as she whispered sweet words of warmed breath encouragement, and satin like seduction in my ear as we delved together and wove together upon the giant dance floor of creation.  

Amidst the melody I could discern possibilities, I could see beauty and romanticism come forth from my eyes, I could see the fabric of reality change around me and a deeper beauty that had not been there before.

The melody transformed the grossness of the commonplace, to underlie the insignificant with a deeper significance, as the melody wove around me the scenes of war and nature’s rape upon the television gained some natural beauty, some enchanting quality that was wholly unfamiliar and while my mind was awoken to the tragedy, my emotions were awoken to beauty and I perceived what I had not perceived before.

I gazed with adoration and insurmountable pity into the eyes of those suffering from starvation; I looked into the eyes of fragility and felt, as though with my own hand, the frail beat of fragile hearts.

Tears arose in my eyes and I motioned to the screen as though to feed the thirst of these unfortunates from eyes sorrowed spout. Even as I did this I could not help but to find some startling beauty in the rotundness of dysphoria ridden bellies, in fragile emancipated limbs and pleading brown eyes, as the lands around these desperate figures seemed to convey some great sense of continuous calamity, as though the land, like its people, had been cursed by profanity.

The forests were falling, in the Amazon great trees trembled and tore down to the earth. I saw them fall in the temperate forests, the great towering limbs of tenacity prostrate on forest floors and though I wept and felt anger towards those who would harm my green brothers I could not help but wonder at the genius machines of man that cleared a tree of branches as though it were harvesting tooth picks.

I seemed to be seeing the world through the eyes of eternity, as though everything had some small significant value that became just a small novelty upon the breath of time, I felt as though this music, this melody, was the only true absolute in the universe and that if it stopped, the universe would stop as well.

Then everything became apart from me, as though I could see through the eyes of an angel delivered to earth, though still with the resonance of heaven within his head, an angel made by God to tread through the filth, to breathe in the disease with the impunity of a God.

I became a distant observer, free from fleas and filth, an observer that had passed through the filament and merely walked in a world that’s law meant nothing.

The couch amidst the melody felt like a luxurious divine on which an emperor may have lounged, the gentle caress of toes upon toes and knees together seemed to create the sensation of another presence, as though my legs each belonged to separate beings that were now committing some great adulterous affair with each other.

The ants massing and dividing beside me seemed like beautiful, different, though distant kin, so that I wished to raise them up before me, to study their little carapaces beneath the light of a microscope, to delve within their behaviour so that I could give my identity to theirs.

The coldness of the room, formerly an uncomfortable stifling silence, seemed to awaken me with its sharpness, to make me proud and resolute within its crispness and within the music, as though sensing my changing mood, it became a Wagnerian waltz that seemed to be the musical mimicking of a free misanthropic figure upon the mountainside that seemed at once my own reality that I cloaked and adopted at once, the cold was now my friend.

My greasy hair, which until now had sat plastered across my forehead and lay slumped at the nape of my neck, seemed alive again with a clean animated freshness and strange electricity.

My eyes and head were a strange swoon that captured the attention of those small proprio receptors of the joints, eyes and inner ear and transformed the world into a strange swaying, soothing soliloquy that swam before my vision and lulled me deeper within myself.

The melody was around me and within me so that every cell danced with its rapture, I could feel the DNA molecule itself moving and reacting to this intrusion, trying to reassert order and make sense of the senseless. It striving for the rational, raving for its biological reality and it finally gave in, as the scientist did, as it looked deeper into the macrocosm and saw the microcosm staring back at him and then it simply danced as everything else did within the room.

As the mind is more flexible than the world

Make the world flexible with the mind

I rose from the couch with new grace, no longer did my head swing forward as though it were too heavy for my body, no longer did I have to swing my weight forward to compensate for the lack of strength in my legs, and no longer did my feet shuffle forward with the movement of maimed mice.

This time my body was one and I rose with an unknown agility, a forgotten fluidity, I was up and surveying the room with this new heightened perspective.

I gazed at the television momentarily and though I could discern some beauty in its pictures there was no such quality in its sound so I turned it off. The light above me seemed to be a blatant breach of the subtle soliloquy that was in my head so with a swing of my open hand I brought two of its three glowing globes into shards of glittering glass upon the floor and now the light leant more to the imagination.

I walked, or more truly, sauntered through the room, swinging my arms and keeping my centre low as though I was all but gliding. I went through the room removing this and arranging that so that it better suited the musical arrangements within my head. Soon amidst the broken remnants of my past, which I heaved out the window, and the new arrangements of my present, the room had become a little more to my liking.

Now that the clean out was done it was time to saunter outside to lend the melody in my head to the used-up lino floor, white washed walls and the cruel eyes of Haden in the common room.

I even warranted that within this melody their was perhaps even something that could be made of the sexual innuendoes of countless used up twenty something’s and with a hint of excitement and the melody crashing with some sombre yet electric crescendo within my head, I glided out the door and down the white washed corridors that were no so white any more.

This sauntering could not stop. I turned majestic pirouettes upon dusty stairs, I swept sleek legged manoeuvres over dirty balustrades, and I rolled rollie pollie ruin over mildewed floors and leapt with delicate delight over brimming waste paper baskets.

I could not stop, every miserable fixture upon this place was a stage for my four limbed antics, not even the fire hydrant within the lobby was spared a last tango across the carpet, and even the miserable counter with its laminated top and its arguable words ‘Please come again!’ was given the opportunity to fade into the background.

Where was that miserable clerk with his rude ways? How I wished to take him in my arms against all protest and wheel him across laminated floors and sticky stains and deposit him with arms and legs flaying upon a great dog shit on the path outside, how easily I could envision his nasally whine of protest as I did such a thing, so joyous it would make me feel as I made of him a fling.

I was suddenly through the lobby and across the common room, the clerk forgotten in my haste, there I was, taking great advantage of this space allowing my body to twist and turn with the melody as though I were on the strings of a puppet.

I rolled and plundered through tables, leapt across chairs and swung through the air upon light fixtures which showered me in plaster dust as though it were the applause of a crowd.

The music was not enough, I had to have voice too and that rose before me and out of me at first a hesitant whine and then a great crashing tremolo followed by a deep baritone as I stood with one leg planted upon the karaoke stage under the luminous lime-like light of an exit sign.

Then I was off again across the room, the bar was the next fixture to sample my moves, as I jumped lightly upon its surface and slid across it like a mug of ale in a western movie, taking out in my motion row upon row of glasses that crashed to the ground around me like tinny icicles broken free from the cold gates of heaven.

I would have been done with the bar there and then, but its silky smooth design   was such a potent incline for my slippery behind that I did a number of laps before I allowed myself to fall to the floor with a deep satisfied exhaustion.

While I was catching my breath I thought of all the places outside and with a merry look in my eyes I skipped back again to the lobby, lamenting the fact that the clerk still appeared to be missing I swung open the door.

I was once again upon the path of Canis Shiites, the path that had previously sent me into a mortal terror, the path that was so clogged with foul brown deposits that while you were removing one from your shoe you undoubtabley managed to tread in another.

I momentarily allowed my mind to sink back into distant days when I had let this happen time and time again.

Swiftly the music returned and those days fled from my memory. I gathered myself physically and emotionally for the next few steps and I took off, not at a run, but in my normal gait, as the first of the foul stains came into sight I allowed myself to approach it normally so that an observer might be thinking secret smug thoughts as they imagined me treading upon it.

Then I was around it, my foot curling deliciously against it, though with so little pressure that it could not leave a mark and then the next, with hops, skips, jumps and the occasional cartwheel and handstand for variety I had evaded all these foul traps and was nearly upon the street.

A street that spread left and right into two possible futures and I knew choosing one meant you had to forgo the other, a street that, in fear of dog shit desperation, I had never made it to before and as I envisioned the dark laugh of my jailor turning to a dissatisfied unbelievable gasp I was upon the street.

My identity was gone so quickly that I never had the chance to know who I was or who I had been, a great roar filled up my vision, hearing and head until I felt I had been immersed in a great dark river that flowed swiftly over my head.

At first there was no sound, only this strange sensation of stagnated motion and the haunting sensation that I was not alone within this soothing turmoil. All around me a great concourse was occurring, whispering secretly and tirelessly in an unknown tongue, a garbled gargantuan conversation between legion upon legion of unknowns and I in the middle, on the edge within and outside, the waters thick and rich, the currents dark and pure and the voices a soothing counterpace to my own lethargic oblivion.

Within the depths as though rising up like a singular unconsciousness I could feel a presence, a deep pure font like a cup of water from a deep well and this presence was all around, inside and out, malignant and benevolent all at the same.

Where had suburbia gone? Where was the safe haven of cobwebs, dust balls, blown light globes, insects and mud? Where were all the little things that made life unbearable, yet bearable because they were always there? The small worries that they caused were such an effective screen for hiding all those larger worries, those worries that included space that went on forever, death, time, the atom and the fragility of the human mind.

They were no longer here, in their place was the immaterial and the theoretical, I had returned back to the mind of creation, the mind of God and I was immediately unsure, undecided and I seemed unwelcome.

The din of conversation around me continued and then stopped. A deathly silence could be felt, a tangible hostility within the air could be discerned and I could feel a strange alien presence beside me. Fear and hate emanated towards me and this figure, and I knew that this world was balanced upon a hairs width, balanced upon stagnation and creation.

 I was suddenly thrown from this void, thrown back into myself and I fell back to the suburban pavement, back to the cold ground to graze my hands upon rough concrete. There above me was the familiar overcast sky and the smell of poo from all manner of speckled, striped, spectrum truanting pompous pounds.

I rose from my hands and there was suburbia before me as it had always been, cars were going by, obscure, obsolete faces staring into future destinations, passengers looking forward and not around.

I could see the buildings with their blinded windows so that no-one could see in and no one could see out, the rubbish bins brimming with used up happiness and I knew that I had returned and that the music had not returned with me, gone was my world of sauntering, sliding silliness, gone was my world of motion.

There was no place to go but back, back across the path of Canis Shiites, through the door of frosted glass and up the stairs that made you feel as if you were going down.

The door creaked open and there was the clerk with a smug look of insolence across his face. I glared at him and he gloated back at me and we both knew I would make nothing of it, gone was my music along with my lack of fear and I walked past him in defeat.

Just as I was about to pass through the door opposite him he spoke.

“There is someone to see you in the common room Sir.”

I turned to look at him for his voice had taken on a tone that I had never heard before and though his expression revealed nothing I felt a small stab of apprehension.

Walking into the room I noted that all the chaos that I had caused by my frenzied dance earlier had been put right and it felt like I had never had the freedom to do such a thing and if I attempted to do it again, and again and again it would just be put right, returned to normal, forgotten.

Everything was as it was of course except for my visitor who had taken the seat which had always been previously occupied by Haden or anyone else that I had spoken to in this room and I walked towards him for I could do nothing else.

As I moved closer his appearance began to distinguish itself from the vague darkness and dirt that surrounded him, but only barely so.

He was dressed in an old worn suit, the type commonly found on the backs of the destitute. His face was lined heavily with worry and premature age, his smile, when he did smile, did nothing to bring any life to his bloodshot eyes, his thin lips revealed green and gold teeth and made his nose look even thicker and blunter.

His hair was plastered with sweat and grease and sat flat upon his forehead and it was of a colour that could not be distinguished adequately due to its thin and dirty nature. His ears were extremely small as though they were in the process of curling up and crawling back into his head and his neck, which disappeared with a certain difficulty into his rumpled greasy coloured shirt, looked like an over cooked sausage. His Adams apple seemed to be bobbing continually as though in the process of swallowing an unsavoury thought and his shoulders sat slumped with speckled dandruff, like a dusting of icing sugar on an over cooked cake.

I could dimly see his hands as I approached and they seemed to be writhing together as though wringing out a dirty handkerchief, or suffocating a small helpless animal, his fingers were adorned with thick gold rings that by their shininess were the only part of his appearance that received any attention.

His whole aura issued some sort of used up malice, as though he had given everything to something and all that was left was this cruelty. 

As I positioned myself opposite, taking in the musky odour that wafted from his suit I noticed the small cream coloured badge that hung from the lapel of his suit pocket, it read ‘Hotel proprietor’ and with a deep hesitant breath I realised that we had met before.

He motioned for me to sit with one of his lumpy finger and with a slight inclination of his engorged head. His bloodshot eyes followed my every movement, it seemed as though they were judging whether there was any melody left within my limbs. They seemed to confirm the negative and finding this satisfactory some of the malice dissipated and was replaced with an undeniable smugness.

With a little negligent easy sloping of his shoulders and a further slumping of his whole bulk into his chair he judged that I was now no threat to him.

“Greetings Herove,” he said, and he used my name as though it implied that I had never roved and indeed I would never rove again, “I have been meaning to catch up with you young man, though of course as the proprietor of a busy and popular holiday destination my time has been of late sparingly divided between welcoming new guests and seeing that those long term stayers are still satisfied with all the current facilities.”

He looked at me now, studying me again, “Now the reason that I have made this little sacrifice of my time is that of late your behaviour has been a little puzzling, what I might call out of character with the ethos of this place.”

While he spoke these words, dripping as they were with sarcasm and self importance, his little black eyes continued to survey me as though he suspected that there might still be a little of that melody still within my limbs that he might be able to persuade it into submission with a simple shake of his dandruff ridden shoulders, or the rising of one sour smelling arm.

“You see Herove,” and he said again the two syllables of my name so that they sounded like one, “You can dance all you like, here and there, I really don’t care, but if you think that it will make a difference then you are wrong, you see even now, your room is back in order and as you can see the mess you made here was cleaned up long ago, anyone who may have seen your little ‘dance’ has forgotten it by now, or pretended that they did not see it all

“You can do anything here and the best you will get from it will be a momentary scorn, until even that is forgotten. Here little acts out of character, out of the wider character of this place, are just not on, and everyone here, including you will come to realise that any behaviour that can be termed as rash, impulsive, reckless, foolish, imprudent or just plain silly will only be viewed as, let us say immature, unless of course I must add you do it in large groups with the thorough consensus of society then it is called ‘wacky’ and wacky is quite alright. You understand?”

I didn’t answer so he continued.

“You see the people who live here want none of that, they purely want a nice little sheltered place where things are as they always are; they do not want surprises, or strangeness, when they go to sleep at night they don’t want strange dreams, nor anything else that might create conflict within their world.

“When they pass someone in the corridor, or on the street, they want to know thoroughly and convincingly that that person is thinking the same types of things, is going home to do the same types of things and their friends are also doing and thinking the same things.

“For example do you remember Darren? You know the overweight one with the long hair? Before he came here he was one unhappy chappy, he used to paint all night long and create all these poems by day, rubbish of course, he didn’t have any happiness, no job, no girlfriend, didn’t even have a car, and his art, well as art goes, well it was toss, I mean he didn’t publish or exhibit of course, but one could tell instantly that people wouldn’t have liked it, so who was he doing it for? He was a fool and believe me, the world is full of them, and most, I might add, end up here.

“They waste time, pure and simple, they’re time wasters; they have no regard or connection with anyone else. I mean if they are going to do something why not make it something that people like, something tried and true that has been done before, something that people can appreciate, something that they will pay money for. Instead they mope around, walking at night by themselves, appreciating things that are free and don’t need to be paid for, like cold days, rainy days and thunder storms.

“I mean truly what is the value of these things? Fifty dollars, thirty, twenty? Nothing of course, they have no value. Why do they persist on wasting peoples time with their silly ideas and pointless observations, people, and I mean real people, are too busy with their normal lives to pay attention to the silly, thoughtless, purely theoretical ramblings of these selfish creatures, so unless of course they are someone of note, say a sold out psychologist with a list of letters after his name, a retired pop star, or a variety show host they should shut up and keep it to themselves.”

With the last of this sentence he fell back into his chair raised his stinky arms to his chest and looked down his bulberous nose at me as though I might doubt it to be true, though before I could raise a protest he was off again.

“Remember Shelia? The pretty one though soon going to scrap? Well, you would never believe it but she was quite a looker a while ago, unfortunately she also possessed some quite strange notions, said some strange and inspired things and before she knew it she was an outcast.

“You know I feel really sorry for girls like her and there are many of them about. These girls they are born, probably more often than men, with this horrible creativity, or originality, you know the ones, they say things that sound profound, or sum up little things in the most naïve, or innocent way as though they were reading from the script of nature, they seem to have some link to another place, and every gesture, every word they speak seems new and fresh. I’ve heard them time and time again give totally improbable and totally ludicrous explanations for what is, and what always will be, the cold hard facts.

“Well Herove, these poor girls, as I said, they become outcasts, no-one wants to hear these things, their fathers do not, their boyfriends do not and certainly not their husbands who spend their days putting food on their plate and then have to come home to hear this dribble, and their girlfriends, well they least of all want to hear such things, they so insecure in their looks, so shy in their actions, they don’t want more problems on their plate.

“These girls, the lucky ones, they quickly learn the place for them is in mans shadow, intellectually, spiritually and creatively. Herove for god sake a girls only act of creation should be the creation act itself, flat on their back with a male between their legs and every act leading up to then, every act leading on from then should be designed to put that motion in place.

“These poor girls who think any different, well these girls have no chance, the sooner they learn, the better, and if they don’t, well there is always a place for them here.”

Then his voice grew faster, his expression more pinched as he read off thousands of thousands, faster and faster until with a certain finality his breath died with the name Herove upon his lips and all my actions resounding in my ears and I knew he had at last finished.

How could I argue with these evil little eyes, that great gloating grin with that enemy like chin? How could I explain to him that all these qualities were what made mankind more than blood and bone, more than the animation of the inanimate, more than purely the materials of the stars, more than even the fire within the stars?

How could I let him know these things when his whole demure reeked of stagnation and decay, where his eyes were like two screens that only acknowledged what had been tried and proven before? How could I tell him that the universe was not a concrete object viewed through the single eye of humanity, but an evolving individual phenomenon seen through billions of eyes, each of them completely different, each universe completely contradictory?

His ideas, his vision might be capable of making every tea towel in the world a specified shape and colour, sold for a particular price, but through the eyes of every individual that tea towel would be something different, something unique owing to their personal identity.

I could not explain and I cared not to and perhaps he was right. Who was I to argue with societies consensus, perhaps my dance, perhaps my life had been a similar mistake, perhaps I would find some type of resolved happiness within this place, perhaps if I just gave in and let it all be, all would be alright.

As I rose I saw the victory within his eyes and I didn’t care.

“I am glad our little talk has been of some use to you Herove, you see I don’t often have to personally talk to the patrons here, though when I do, during these special circumstances, I like to think in my own way that I have made a small difference.”  

I sat up from the damp and sweaty pillow and pulled the blankets from my body….

I heard through someone that the hotel had a new guest, you see in the suburbs you never really experience anything first hand you have to wait, you have to sit through that little pause, that little moment in time where something goes from the present to become something that is a fragment of the recorded past.

Then, in this slightly used up dishevelled form that the information comes to you as, you can view it as though it were the slightly damp crumpled pages of yesterdays tabloids, or a synthesized, dramatized portion of the truth on the six thirty news, or if you are luckier still, the exaggerated, verging on a lie, grossly distorted words come from the second hand portion of some ones else’s mouth.

This bit of news came to me slipped neatly between the topic of third world genocide and the results of Friday night’s football match, a little fragment of what could pass as mediocrity in a world that was so remotely removed from the world’s reality. A little gem of old knowledge that’s reality had probably already changed.

So we had a new guest here. So what? They were always blowing in from God knows where, dishevelled used up nobodies that nobody knew, ones that rallied for a while against suburban asphyxiation like a fish contorting itself on the cold unwelcome deck of a boat and then welcoming the bloody knife of freedom when it fell like fate towards their throats.

So there was another, perhaps soon I would be granted the small privilege of sharing the common room with them, perhaps sometime soon we could ask empty questions and receive empty answers and then walk away as though we had remained silent.

Normally I would look forward to this with some kind of familiar certainty, nothing, of course, to do with excitement. For not even the slight unease of a foreign situation, the mild discomfort of a stranger’s strange presence seemed to affect you here.

Along with finding out that we had a new guest I had also learnt some startling news, perhaps only a little snippet of common fabrication, or a small whiff of human translation, but it seemed that this girl, this new one, had been causing quite a stir within the building. Rumour had it (and all is rumour in this place) people had witnessed her doing the strangest of things.

In this land of peeping toms, nitter nattering nannies and harbinger housewives, and no matter what the hotel proprietor said about people frowning and forgetting, gossip is and always will be the first place of contact for fast moving facts heading towards fiction.

Normally I would be one to frown upon such silliness as something that was not becoming to urban stabilisation, not an activity that was prosperous towards urban generalisation, except that this small snippet of used up gossip contained within its centre like the broken bruised blemished fruit surrounding an otherwise pure and prosperous seed, the observation that she was looking for some one called Herove.

Herove was now not the daring, undeniably dangerous devise that he had once been, he now preferred to lay low, to walk neither fast nor slow, but do everything like his kin, neither to walk with God, nor to walk in sin. Herove was now your average Joe, neither aiming to high nor to low.

He still of course had a small part of what one might call identity, for instance he often (when he was feeling just a little reckless) turned his collar up and sometimes when the mood took him he would brush his hair into a messy model of what it might have looked like if he had just got up in the morning, but aside from these undeniably reckless activities, he was your regular Herove (said of course altogether so that their was no implication of movement).

So why was this wild one, this undeniable outsider, looking for him?

Generally in the suburbs, this was not a good thing, because generally if someone was looking for you it probably had something to do with your old life, the life you had left behind long ago, the life that was no longer relevant to your present stability, security or continuity.

It might be an old friend from long gone days, a dredged up forgotten memory from when life had space and when food had taste. It could be some low life creature of leisure and pleasure who never made it into the suburbs and decided on a whim to forsake the noble pursuit of sitcoms and door to door cons, some otherworldly stranger, with old world taste and no haste, some one who you could talk to for days, but still be left in some kind of uncomfortable, disconcerting mildly pissed off haze.

Whoever it was, there was now no doubt that it was Herove she wanted.

Being the typical Herove of today, the best thing to do was simply wait for her, of course it would only be a matter of time and chances might have it that management might get to her first, drill into her uncouth ways a hint of suburban sensibility and serious sanity and then perhaps we might be able to ‘enjoy’ a number of worn out words together and call it a day before there was a silence in which each of us had nothing to say.

I thanked the some one who I had been talking to and walked back to my room.

The Visitor

She awakens me a majestic sight

Her soul knows nothing of the suburban shite

 With her soft womanly arms

She bestows upon me sensual charms

She takes me away to another day

No longer a place of suburban decay

For her I will always pray

With her I will always stay

The door creaked open with the sound of the clearing of a critic with a constricted throat, it made its familiar despairing arc and reached its azimuth somewhere in between a mottled stain of tomato sauce and a scuff mark made by feet that would rather drag than walk.

To herald the opening of the door the muffled cascade of another room’s lavatory spilled its concealed contents like a woeful waterfall into what presumably was another urine revelled basin.

The light in the room was of course its usual despairing grey, but somewhere somehow a small glimmer of light like a golden gateway had managed to peek its way beneath one dirt encrusted blind and it lay upon the carpet as though languishing in silent laughter.

The room was of course in its familiar order, everything arranged in its purposeful place, everything a small portion of a prosaic stupor and yet something was different and it took me the time that it took to walk into the centre of the room, just before I would usually plop my ungraceful grateful ass into its gargantuan posy positioned near the television to realise exactly what that difference was.

Upon the floor in front of me was a leaf, it was as though this leaf was dancing in the rays of the suns laughter, as though every touch of this golden light was something familiar and cherished by it and they formed together at once some sacred marriage of Sylvian seduction.

This leaf, so small and marvellous in its minuscule detail and yet so foreign in its position immediately captured my attention, to the extent that I was leaning forward and down, my knees bending, my back falling and my head coming forward and then back.

I picked up this little green thing from the secret embrace of shaggy shagpile saturnine, cupping it so gently in my palms, gazing with wonder at its little creases, marvelling at the play of light upon its crenulated edges. Its colour seemed to be captured between seasons, a mottled division between evergreen evanescence and fiery autumn redness.

I could feel its frail lightness yet could also sense the strength within its crispy dryness, the strength that would see this small green appendage through the bitter sweet blizzards of billowing blackness that cloaked the year in crag cry darkness.

I could see it somewhere above and beyond the suburban sanctuary, undulating in southerly breezes, breeching the westerly wearies and weepy south westerlies. But where had this come from?

It seemed to me as though it might have fallen, silently and secretly from the folds of garments that had known these expanses of wilderness, garments that had pushed through blizzard bitten snow banks and majestic myrtle maudlin, clothing that had slept beneath star laden skies and slumbered within sacred sylvian sanctuaries.

Perhaps when these journeys had come to their close, this leaf like the minds memories had remained and had fallen between worlds, fallen between words and now it sat a link to a place that could only be the past.

The television was forgotten, this leaf, this link, with its minuscule detail told me more about the world and when I raised it to my nose and let it brush against the silence of my lips I knew its fragrance of leafling being, I could smell it like a dim echo, a smell of earth and the crispness of sky and soon my tears fell wet, warm and welcoming against its breath.

That night like a lover I took it to bed with me and I held it long into the darkness, we fell together amidst our own evergreen dream as the seam of our dreams became an emerald sheen.

The next morning I rose anxious in case I may have crushed my treasure in the night, but there it lay in the groove that formed my figures safe, secure and winking at me as though it knew all the time that it would be alright.

That morning I went through the normal rigmarole of resignation, showering this and eating that, though this time I did it with a new haste for I knew that I must find the owner of the clothes from which place this leaf had fallen.

I was out the door in the time that it would have taken me to wait for the advertisements between shows and I was stooped, wary, scrying shadows and surfaces for further clues.

I moved slowly warily down the passage and at last I had in my sight again another lustrous lithe leaf and then another, a virtual trail of tree tears leading me on and down the corridors and as I stooped and straightened, stooped and straightened, I had almost a virtual forest cupped in the palm of my hand.

Downstairs I went, along corridors and the trail still did not end and then I was in the foyer and before me was my trail, petering out into the restricted cold confines of a dust box sweeper as my old friend the clerk swept his sanitary sight over the floor and welcomed into his little cold sweeper box my trail of trees tears.

He smiled as though he knew too well where my trail was to take me; he smiled as though he knew all too well what this trail meant to me. He smiled like the dim reflection on his shirt buttons and his smile was like the many creases that creased his shirt, tired, persistent and vengeful.

How I hated this cold server of society and his dust box sweeper, how I hated the way his black greasy hair plastered itself so neatly upon his even scalp, how I hated that gleam of hidden intelligence that seemed to sparkle within the depths of his not all together dead eyes, how I hated and hated and then resigned, denied and then waited.

“Sir, its seems that a person of untidy origin has been within the building, bringing some of the outside in and taking some of the inside out, luckily for me however I have managed to clean the outside in and I will now put the outside out.”

With these words and a flourish of his lank skinny wrists and a sneer of his lecherous lips the door was thrown wide and from the dust bins inside the leaves flied.

I saw them momentarily, as they cascaded like leaves in spring, the fiery light of autumn within their weave, the dim light of winter soon to be and then they were gone, picked up by a freak breeze and blown free, far, far, far from me.

Well what could I do? If I raised the clerk’s wastepaper remover from his weak wrists and deposit countless dents upon his even scalp, would that make me feel any better? Could I perhaps knock some irregularity into his regular brain, turn a little that was sane into the insane? Could I make of his head such a dented juxtaposition of flesh and pain that he could no longer sustain that look?

I could do all these things but why, somehow I knew that even amidst all the blood and rage my life could not be saved and he knew too.

For an instant though, for a second that became an hour as I contemplated that look again and again into the night and over the next day, I knew that I had seen a moment of fear upon those otherwise tidy features.

Then I was gone from his sight like day before night, curling my back into its familiar curve of defeat, shuffling my legs without walking, stooping my neck until my chin reached my chest.

“Defeated again, defeated again,” my mind cried, but my heart was not listening, “gone again, gone again,” my heart cried, but my brain was not listening.

I soon came back to my room though I knew at once that my visitor had not been here in my absence, the golden rays of the suns laughter that had languished upon shag pile shagginess had retreated into grey indifference and the room was no longer the cordial conundrum of gold and grey.

What was I to do now? It seemed that the leaves that I had followed, the remnants that now sat with shameful embarrassed neglect within the confines of one billowing pocket, their trail like identity reduced at once to meaningless obscurity were next to useless in their present untidy configuration and though I still marvelled at their beauty, I marvelled more at the possible destination of their dicotyledon divination.

Firstly I presumed the door to outside and the great path of Canis Shiites, it seemed the most likely path, and when considering the clerks elusive use of the words , bringing some of the outside in and taking some of the inside out it seemed ever the more so, yet without my trail of leaf tears my courage was lost on the pale path of Canis Shiites, my courage was squelched under foot like the welcoming  reception of foot into shit, like the sudden impact of pavement upon peri carpels, like the tread of shite into soles and the sweet shocking sour smell of squashed stool.

So here I was again defeated, destroyed, darkly, divinising my dilapidated future. Here I was again head in hands; soul suffering within suburban lands, here was I again, sane and in pain, trapped within my brain, trapped within the urban mundane.

Later I gave my mind to the languishing of the night’s incestuous laughter, to loll listlessly and restlessly within the timeless transition between sleep and wakefulness, to watch like a burden laden wind the vexation, the cognitive subjugation, the minds abbreviation and the sub consciousnesses instigation as it folded and moulded the dreams romanticisation from realities realisation.

I let my mind wander and ponder this strange place of shades and shapes, I watched distantly, hesitantly like a kaleidoscope, like a huge jigsaw puzzle that’s pieces were all wrong, but that still seemed to fit. I watched as the images perambulated across my closed eyes, as memories took upon themselves their own uniqueness, as memories took upon themselves their own distinctiveness and like a great amassing of thought and fiction they found some new identity in each others company.

I watched the hotel proprietor at a typewriter, the clerk as the co writer; I watched them together with secret eyes as they poured over a manuscript thick with lies.

I saw his eyes twitch and burn as the pages were turned, then torn from the machine with so little grace to fall to the ground upon a space and all around upon the ground were pages true, written and edited by the devil and his crew and all were filled with lies and Herove sighs, loves defeat and sad goodbyes, bake beans and burnt fries.

I saw his fingers stick and stab at the type writer’s pad and words like mundane, ill fame, shame and pain appear upon the page as his grin became the gauge of his merciless ways and his devilish days.

I saw them grin together; a friendly and fiendly endeavour and I knew too that they were forever. I saw the path of Canis Shiites in the sun and a benches edge thick with chewing gum. I saw Shelia in the shower and upon her breast a red flower, I saw her as though she had turned to say….her face was sadness and great dismay and around her the world was grey.

I saw Darren, his eyes empty and sad, walking towards a highway, as though mad, though at last he made a piece of art, as the blood was torn from his heart, by the merciless caress of a chrome car part. I saw people drive away into traffics fray, I saw people turn to passengers as though to say and not one of them stop in dismay or went home to pray.

I walked through the walls of houses as though they were not there, as though they were merrily air, I rose up like smoke through chimney holes as the people below tried to catch my soles, I became the property of a thousand baying hounds, as they leapt and bound and tried to bring me down.

I then became merely me looking out to sea, the dogs around and nearly upon me, then me falling, jumping down, the sea my funeral crown. I saw twin girls dressed in bells holding onto a tree branch in the depths of hell and I saw a white dog upon a log the air thick with sea fog and in its mouth a golden cog. I saw a girl in a crowd moving free, moving from me.

I tried to find her first, for deep was my thirst, though then she was gone into the throng and all that was left was a sad song. Then I was but a ghost sitting upon a fence post, a host to regret and a prisoner to what I loved most.

The images cascaded all around me and I knew that if I dared to acknowledge them, if I let them know that I was watching gone would they be and I would be back into intolerable ignorable wakefulness, back into clammy sheet, sweaty back joylessness and while I knew distantly that these things were not truly there.

I also knew that they would stay if I didn’t let them know I cared and all the time like a silent observer in the shadowy alcove of a theatre, like a silent nefarious observer viewing lovers on a balmy summer night I let the images come, I let them dance with free restraint upon the crest of my brow, to contort and cohort in the shadowy recesses of my mind to become divine in the place where dreams are made and nightmares are mined.

The images then took on a strange twist, as though interrupted by a flick of a conductor’s wrist, from the familiar, the mundane and the sour, came an image that made all others cower, and heralding its approach like leaves before a storm, came a dark majestic form, it gathered all around the things that resembled it most, skulls, cockroaches and the devils host, it had no joy and anxiety it was most, the torn tormented soul of a suffering ghost.

It came at me like a mildewed cloak, billowing and blowing like a fire freshly stoked, it was all darkness and red glittering light and eyes as black and dark as night, it grabbed me and I surrounded to its might and beneath its cloak I saw quenched starlight and oh what fright, oh what wicked delight, oh what a night to taste deaths blight.

Then I wanted to be awake, I could not witness this unfair turn of events I cried aloud it seemed for the return of intolerable ignorable wakefulness clammy sheet, sweaty back joylessness, but the dream would not release me and of my mind it made a toy.

I smelt its breath of exhaust air, carbon monoxide and abattoir fare, I looked into its callous eyes, the butchers smile sigh before the animal dies, I felt close its sweaty brow and how I imagined this I don’t know how, but from its musky sickly delight I could imagine this sight, a big fat man upon a bed and upon his head a wife well fed and them going to and fro, him and his fat hoe, all the sweat trickling down, that was now the moisture upon his crown.

I could smell too, an unflushed loo and of course the smell of dogs poo. We were as close as lovers could be this devilish creature and me. I could feel his arms thin as sticks, trying to pull their devilish tricks, they snared and entangled my weakened limbs and made upon my skin the sound of evil hymns and the screech of out of tune violins.

I rose to try and shake the dream off, to try and rest from the unconsciousness, conscious control, but the dream had me thick and full within it and the bed and its sweaty sheets and the intolerable heat were nothing to it as it dragged my eyes closed and my mind into sleep.

We danced to and fro, and an eviler step my feet did not know, I could feel myself within its cloak and the life of me it tried to choke. It was then that I heard a sound, like a sweet merry-go-round, it was about me upon my soul and in a new strength I did loll.

The sound it was all grace, it took me to a happier place and then there was a swirl of leaves and from me a shadow heaved. Then I saw the face of hates disgrace, a pretty sight within this barren place, it was the face framed in black lace, a face I had lost within my haste, it had come and gone amidst a crowd, it was then that my dream had soured, but now it had returned, I she had not spurned, she took at once my weakening hand and pulled me from dream land.

“Oh God,” I cried to the white washed room around me, “Oh God,” I cried to intolerable ignorable wakefulness and clammy sheet, sweaty back joylessness.

“Oh God,” I cried for the girl that I had left behind.

Her hand was there within mine, indescribably, undeniably her hand was within mine and I was being pulled up through layer upon layer of consciousness, up through misty mundane monotonousness, up through depth defying darkness and then we were together within this realm of reality, side by side, hide by hide, together forever within this bed of tolerable, ignorable, wakefulness and clammy sheet, sweaty back joyful coyness.

How I marvelled at this merciful miraculousness, how I let myself dip just momentarily back into sleep so as I could relive this grateful gracefulness.

Then she was there and my eyes were at last open. Then she was there and my soul was at last open. Then she was there and all became forgotten.

I gazed, searching, reaching to know this nocturnal intruder of slim soft hand and becoming bright eyes and yet the darkness could tell me no more and I could see nought but my own hesitant bemused reflection sparkling within the mirror of her eyes unconsciousness, could see nought but the outline of feline femininity and yet her hand was still there and it was, at least for now, enough to know that.

Then she gave light to night with a flick of her fingers, she made all right. It sparkled hesitantly within her hand, what was this magic! Another miracle produced by her hand, oh grand, and from this light, what was the night, as it was banished from sight.

Her eyes, first widening expanding, became giving in the lights caress and then light, yes, just enough to glide upon graceful arches and to swirl within hidden eddies of mystery and magic, to flutter with mysterious mysteriousness against mystical miraculousness and to cup and caress and conjure hairs curtained cheekiness, and our eyes searched and our souls searched, then reaping, groping as though amidst a dark stream I pulled from her tresses the glittering, glinting of life, of leaf green

I knew at once who she was and also where she had been and now what we would become and how from the darkness of that dream we had one. For her part she remained strangely silent, coy yet certain, unperturbed yet strangely broken, her expression changed not, yet amusement, perhaps confusion stirred somewhere deep within her unconsciousness depths and as I surveyed all that was good, all that was because I could, I saw something else stir within her and for this I grew silent and withdrawn and strangely forlorn and she nodded as though to herself and then yawned.

I was then forced to turn to lower my gaze to this sparkle of life within her hand, strangely this warm brightness was not new to me, from somewhere, some place I knew this thing, this thing of laughter and light, this thing of red and gold delight and I leant forward as though to see it, I leant forward as though to feel it and there it was dancing upon my own cheeks, between us, freeing us from worrisome weeks.

“What now?” my soul cried in its own secret darkness, “What now?” my fingers cried in her warm soft rapine ripeness?

I tried to speak but then she was falling towards me, as I tried to communicate supreme gratefulness her weight was over me, as I tried to shape some sexy flippancy her eyes and mind were closed to me and then all I could smell was clothing that had slept beneath star laden skies and slumbered within sacred sylvian sanctuaries and I could see stars laden skies over sylvian sanctuaries and upon the floor of flowers and rock towers two figures sleeping anew in the light of a fulfilled full moon and the ceiling that had become stars and the winds breath that used to be the sound of cars.

What can one dream when his dreams have come true? What can one dream when she that was the world was now beside you? Sleep was for once not its normal monotonous twist, its tedious turns and wrathful rolls, its cold nose and colder toes; instead it was the caress of completeness, the consolation of contentment the adoration of the ardent and the machinations of a midnight minstrel.

We lay together beneath passionate skies, the cry of the wind was our passionate sighs, the rising moon was loves guise and the darkness was the perfect disguise.

The night rose and fell around us, a lulling soliloquy that met us between sleep and wakefulness, small movements became smaller ecstasies and small dreams became lost within the night larger ecstasies.

We lulled together within the starlit realm, the night upon and around us as though the world beyond touch no longer existed, as though the world had been compressed into the space between lips, the space inside a kiss.

Gone were the room and its mediocre décor, its frigid filthy flatulence and infinite flabbiness, the little that could be seen was like the surroundings of a bad unwelcome and largely forgotten dream.

The night continued like this until the morning light revealed secrets that were better left hidden. Beauty also sparkled in the morning light and my conscious rose as though bidden, oh, how was I smitten.

She was like a smooth expanse of chocolate and caramel, cradled and caressed by blankets and the rising warmth of the sun, sliding like liquid amidst white silken sheets as though a half concealed half revealed treat that was crying out eat.

She moved with the movements of her dreams, slow feline languishes and soft feminine flourishes, becoming heart stopping heart wrenching pauses and then ever so slowly soft whimpering princeling like poses.

She languished in morning mystery, in midnight’s history, a marriage between God’s majesty and nature’s mystery.

Her hands caressed and clenched the sheets, as her body slinked and slid beneath, she was to my sight all that was right, all that was to day as light was to night, the world made whole in my sight.

She was the nights maiden married to the dawn, her body was what the dusk now mourned, the light upon her head adorned. She was the marriage wreath, the earth beneath, from God flowers bequeath and upon her body a golden leaf.

Her hair fell like the sweep of midnight on a moonlit shore, her shoulders became hedonistic hills and on her back was written loves law.

The small lines of muscle and bone made me moan, small precise mysteries from God loaned, and innocent pleasures that he would soon take home.

Her legs lay hidden beneath white sheets, where form and shadow secretly meets, with what the imagination reaps when the eyes secretly peep.

She twisted and turned in the earths embrace, as though fetid sheets were the caress of lace, and how I wished she would turn with grace, for me to taste the mornings embrace upon her innocent face.

I watched her thus for a while and could not help but smile, for if pleasure was to be an innocent thing, then this above all was purities kin.

As I smiled at her embrace, she twisted and turned and there was her face, upon the pillow framed in lace.

But before she could turn upon her shoulder my sight was spurned, from her love my soul was turned, for upon her was a black burn.

Oh, what was this scar, this sweep of black tar? Then I guessed what it could be and thought then of a dark tree and a world beyond the sea, and a pool of mountain snow and a place that we could go, then the sight was taken away and again her beauty held sway.

Her expression was still of deep sleep, sleep to make an angel weep and beauty that the sun would reap, and beauty into my mind it seeped.

Her lips were parted in sleeps sigh, her eyelids fluttered upon her eye and from them I could not shy, before them I would never lie, under them I would happily die.

Her shoulders descended into womanly grace, her fingers parted above the secret place, it was all darkness and gentle curves, loves place undisturbed, naked to mans sight yet unperturbed.

Her breasts rose rapturous and round and upon them dark nipples crowned, a sight my eyes soon found, my mind and soul gently bound.

Her arms they moved as though to clasp a dream, to bring to her lips a stray sunbeam, to roll over dark dale and to fall like icy hail, into a silver pail, a light breeze within a sail.

Then they fell as though beat, her breasts quivering in defeat and then she stretched shivered and turned, and my gaze she unknowingly spurned, though then she pulled me close, as though I were but a ghost, as though I were host to what she loved most.

I fell into her hair, into a world without a care, out of the present and from the past; my future was hers at last to clasp.

I awoke later my head cradled within soft hands, my face thrust forward amidst mammary glands. I could feel her hair its tendrils of lace, tickling deliciously the side of my face, oh what a place, what a place of grace.

The sun then rose with its usual desperation, a distant undeniable illumination, it peered through the clouds orchestration and denied the night’s majestic ministrations and forgot at once the night’s feeble desperation and made of the world its own miserable laminations.

 It sent at once its grey delegation to plead with the night’s syncretisation, to coax into deliberation, the world into mortification, so what became of creation and elation, was swept into the day’s luteinisation.

Later that night in each others embrace our bodies leant each other warmth that was in neither room nor world we talked of who and what we would become. As we lay there amidst filigree and shadow, as memory leant its condolence and credence to our corporal covalence we discussed the dawn, divinity and divination, elation and creation and what would become of our incarceration.

A Supermodel with the Soul of a Poet

She was the branch that broke under its own bloom

She said her name was Holly

She grew up under a neon sun and beneath a burnt sky, her past was wreathed in waste and the wanton and the red light illumination of back alley rendered rebels.  From a young age she innocently sniffed the silent drifts of exhaust expulsions from the bedraggled dying derelict like motor car dumps that ambled past her inner city dump.

Her opened eyes remained forever clouded by the great gushing grey plumes of pollutants that permeated her skin and made every object around her dirt and din. Her first smells were of hell, the drugged and doped and the purely unwell, the unsanitary reek of humanity, the intoxicating asphyxiating lure of calamity.

Sometimes though these smells did combine incense and sweet wine, pot smoke and the sublime and on these tastes her pallet would dine and on these her mind would be fine.

The cities noise was to her ears, the sound of the last years, the eternal clutter upon a spotless mind, the humming neon of a trailer park sign.

At an early age the thought came, that the wispy wafts from the subterrane were the escaping ghosts of the cities humane, dissolving through grilled lanes, though often she thought she was insane.

She believed then and still now, that the sound of the city was a row, between Gods cry and the devils howl, forever at war in the here and now, until the world burned or the devil bowed.

She was bounced at an early age upon the knee of the disgraced, cuddled and muddled by the hands of the misplaced, her nappy changed by the befit and berated, her first toys stolen and jaded, smashed upon the floor when the police raided.

Her first touch occurred in a waste land, her first caress was from a hookers hand and her first kiss from a hit man, his dark stubble cupped in innocents hands, his soul a moment in Gods lands.

She was born into a world that did not accept shame, she fell at a young age into the arms of disdain and forever was pandemonium her name. She found some kind of sanity, in the fall of hubris and the decency of humanity and the dark days that were to her tranquillity a warm beguiling fantasy.

From her mothers breast she cultivated a taste for nicotine, benzine and everything that is amphetamine. Her first thirsts were quenched with alcohol and something that her mother rolled and forever within her these drugs lulled.

Her father was the father of lies, unsettling thoughts and settling flies, a father who had died as she sighed, for him she had never cried. Forever he was to her blood soaked skies and pitiful goodbyes in the morning rise and as demons laughed and angels cried, arise she did in his demise.  

She was a child of distinct accordance captured and enraptured by the world’s dissonance, the disturbance is a pools resonance, she was the world’s remembrance. She was a fallen angel in mans assembly, a potent charm against calamity, a symbol of the beauty of anarchy, amidst the kingdom of sanity.

At an early age she saw strange things, fractured shadows and Godly things, angels captured in glass and demons in underground shafts. She saw spirits vainly convey their bodies through the streets mêlée, she saw them in the fray and begged for them to stay and play, to be her friend for the day.

 She dwelt amidst Coca Cola signs and Kentucky fries, Pizza Huts huts and Mc Donald’s lies, the stars that were a neon sky, the heaven that was now a commercial lie.  She travelled upon trains just to hear their wheels, the clank of the carriages the silent fills; she liked to peer into strange eyes and to see in them other lives. To watch strangers from her seat and to see in there eyes dim defeat, the choices that they had made in the world, the small decisions that fate now held, the dreams that security had felled, the sadness that from the world they held.

Sometimes as she rose she would show them black panty hose, other times she would bend to dip and show them her naked hip, other times she would crush her breasts upon their withered chests she saw in there eyes distress, as in there eyes she was undressed.

When they looked into her eyes as though envisioning her lustful sighs, partaking in her passionate cries, she would make them realise that the game was hers and only lies, the only sound their poor cries.

She loved to see them cower and turn, loved to watch their faces burn, she loved to watch them learn, that they were hers to spurn. They had not the courage to prevail, they were to her pathetic and pale, small weak pitiful things that hope had faded in, who could not do to her an inkling, not make of her a thing of fling, nor a thing of sin.

In a black Porsche she would often cruise, owned by her mums boyfriend and hers to abuse, powerful it throbbed under her toes, to the cities sea she would often go, a streak of night against neon light, the road a playground for the engines might, the night alight with head light and her passionate delight.

She would peer through black tinted glass as the world sped past, as drunk as a skunk if only it would last, techno beats did the stereo blast. Other times she would find a seedy club, with artists and musicians would her shoulders rub, these places societies creative hub and she amidst them a pampered cub.

She found her company amidst the devilish din and thrived and rived upon the perception of sin, she threw back shots of straight gin and gave to those around her a sumptuous grin.

She would some times take handsome lovers or make from men foster brothers, or take a girl in to her arms just to know her womanly charms and the soft touch of female palms and to give to the destitute sensuous alms, other times she would just languish and laze, upon a couch in a daze, letting all around her praise, her pretty head and feminine ways, as they stayed to gaze, to pay her way amidst alcohols fray, to be the fey amidst the gay she would often lay.            

She was since her birth a capricious creature of creativity and consciousness, a marginal marriage of mystery and mayhem living in the grip of the ghettos name that gave vent to its anger with knife gun and flame.

She kept company with the cities ghosts, the silent stalkers of the common host; the masterless misanthropes that loved the dark most, the librated debilitated hungry ghosts.

She was at home with the intellectual scum, within their provincial slum, to them when all was wrong she would run.  She saw within their dark eyes the seething anger of stormy skies, though she also saw the sadness they bore, the sadness washed upon a barren shore, the sadness of an unloved whore.

She saw amongst them a creative light though more often it was turned to plight, to be wielded against the innocent and right who were forced to feel the criminal insight. Though at other times she saw and heard such things, clear insights into the nature of things, other times pictures and poetry, woven and alive in the land of adultery, then other times pitiful lies, desperate cries and silent sighs from cold hearts would angels rise.

These individuals of long hair, shaved head and cold stare, were to her, her only relations, the cities under dark and its clandestine deliberations, the failed attempt of metropolis deliberations and corrupt police investigations.

These to her were like heretical poets, romantic men who did not even know it, torn between crime and fine art and the drugs that they could not part. They were to her the last of the male, the purest marriage of rain and hail and only these would she avail, as for all other men they were stale.

These men of evil stare, she let them lead her to their lair, she allowed them to stare, to brush her cheek and to stroke her hair, though nothing more would she forbear. Though as a gift to them true, she gave to them her virtue, she cradled them in a dance and gave to them sweet romance.

She would give to them her moist lips; sweet innocence upon their tips, her hair caressed them as their heads dipped, their hands upon her welcoming hips.

She soon cultivated a taste for arcane delights, the sweep of a leather coat within the cloying night.  She dressed in black and sometimes white and in khaki when it felt right. Her hair she did forbear to fall long thick and rare, other times she plaited it into a dark stream, that fell between her shoulders clean, a dark serpent redeemed, strangling her neck unseen.

Her clothes had a classical touch, silk shirts and collared cuffs; she liked a tailored cut that brought to life her sweet butt, she wore shirts that hugged her form and gave to her feminine form and the rest she chose to augment her breasts, to give to them a caress to rest and yet gave them the freedom that men’s eyes liked best.

She adorned her hands with rings and things, silver cold glittering things, she had a stud through her nose and rings upon her little toes, a tattoo she had but one, it was a storm quenched rising sun that rose and fell above her bum. She preferred to wander and to live in sin than become a member of society and a server of kin; she was above all a free thing to sing amidst the cities din.

 She often walked the corridors of night under pale street light; she would often stop to light delight, her own light within the night, the smoke blown from her sight to dissolve upon street light.

She listened to dark beats; she read the poetry of Keats, she loved art especially Chagall, Caravaggio, Bosch and Blake hail. She loved music of the dark, distorted guitars with violins hark, heavy drums like thunder and piano keys torn asunder, female vocals, angels sigh and electro sounds deep and high, sounds to make a cherub cry, sounds to make the seraphim ask why?

 She went to music shows and contorted herself with the crowds throws, she loved the feel of strangers near, the slight intoxicant of fear, she was the beauty amidst these beasts, driving the crowd around her with her heat, as her eyes the crowd reaped, as the drug into her brain it seeped.  

She made art in midnights light and candles sight, dappling a canvas with abandoned delight, creating a world of arcane delights, sexual tones and holy sights, an amalgamation of serenity and fright, a marriage of day and night.

She often wrote poetry as she sat high in a tree listening to the night’s majesty her worlds and thoughts free to be, to be alone with her own creativity, within the cities depravity.

Then one day she fell asleep, amidst her paintings in the summers heat, on her floor her paints sprawled and upon her canvas colours scrawled, her worn brushes spread around, blued, greened and browned, like this she was found, with her art she was bound.

On her hands green and gold and between her fingers autumns hold, across her palm summers balm, upon her thumb winters charm and in her grip the dark trees harm. Around her the air to forbear, the malign ravens stare, come forth from the dark trees lair, riding the metaphysical air, the flutter of its dark wings as it perched on things, its mocking voice as it darkly sings, as hells bell rings gold bold tinkerlings.

On her hand a spot of blood, across her back a splash of mud, in her mind a shrivelling bud, upon her mind happiness’s dud.

She had caught the sun upon a page, drawn it in a autumn haze, hues of gold and garnishes of green, all transposed by a stray sunbeam, the forest around was thick and sound, golden leaves upon fertile ground, aged mottled trunks and spindly trees and thick dark evergreen leaves.

She did not know this strange place, though magic it seemed upon the canvases face, she near wept in delight for its colours, hues and might, for the magic of its pure light.

It was not her city true, yet to her it did coo; it was something that became a part of you, for this is why she loved it too. The forests corridors spread out, ancient cathedrals all about, age upon age the forests law, Gods creation poised amidst the raven’s claw, trapped by Lucifers awe and the end that God forswore.

Upon the horizon mountains reined, upon them clouds thick with rain and in the valleys a tranquil sound, of running water with its silver sound, though deep in the forest where there was no light, she could not help but draw a nasty sight.

It was a tree thick with night, a blight to the earth beyond Gods sight, a tree of demons and devilish delight, the end to creations feeble plight, a fault that God could not put right.

With charcoal and black ink she made the branches link, she drew the trunk with a despairing sound, the sound of a chalk board running fingers down, the branches crooked made her frown and the roots below made her drown, as her tears ran down.

They smeared the page and drowned her rage, it was then she felt around her the cage and no matter how she tried to hide, she knew she could not confide that what she had drawn was real indeed and from it now she could not be freed.

No matter how she tried to turn away, her eyes refused to sway, instead they peered into endless ways, her eyes restless within the relentless fray, until she shied from the day and all about her that was gay.

Though with the last of her might, with the last of her delight, she made of the corner the ocean blue and upon a ship a motley crew and from its centre she drew a silver tree, that spread its branches into the future to be and as she fell she smelt the sea and she felt for a moment free.

Then she heard a whispered name, Herove the name joyfully came and elation was its game, it was to her the sound of fame, the sound of heroes and darks disdain the cry of evils bane in the cloister moister halls of the profane.

It gathered and shattered for a time, the dark that was upon her mind, it took from her a little pain and made new some of what was lame, some of what was before the dark tree came.

Upon the tree she sat her eyes, upon the tree she hung her sighs and to the tree she gave her cries and in return the tree told lies. Yet still she peered deeper, as though into the cowl of deaths reaper, transfixed she could not turn, until all she had was spurned, until the reality she had burned, before the truth she learned.

Into the dark it took her soul, into the tree it did lull, taken baked and perturbed, to another dimension her soul served, she awoke again that night, not within her bedrooms sight, amidst paint and candle light, but with a different sight, within the suburban shite.

She fell within suburbia’s curse, in her hand an empty purse and upon her mouth a foul mouthed curse, upon her lip a coldsore burst. Her pockets were filled with dockets; her eyes empty within their sockets, her hair before her greasy lockets, anxiety gripping her before she could stop it.

Before her spread suburban law, before her spread the suburban bore, upon the wind she heard the crow caw and felt for a moment its taloned claw, on her mind she could not ignore.

Oh God she had heard of this place, heard of its distinguished disgrace, heard of its anxiety, its lack of variety, a place where the television was a deity to the monotonous mass of society.

She had seen the road, out of the city it trode, people stowed to another abode, their minds full of the day’s load, this was where the weary of life rode. This was perhaps were they went, all those people tired and spent, those that looked only forward and look so terribly bored, those she had tried to awaken, those that were mistaken, those that the dark tree had taken.

Now she was here, a prisoner to its leer, but could she return she thought with fear, her first words were, oh dear.

As I let the sun awaken my eye I became aware of her warmth as she languished beside me, her sweat caramel filled limbs curled up in warm compliance and her breath light and alive against my chest. I could feel also the slight tickling tendrils of her midnight hair gently folded and moulded to the curve of my neck and the tiny almost unidentifiable flutter of one eyelid as it flickered with the flight of sleep.

Her arms were thrown seemingly possessively across me. Her slim fingers curled as though to grasp air and occasionally they would flex and clench perhaps in some connected parody with her hidden dreamscape, perhaps with some unconscious connection with her dreams fate.

I could still smell the fragrance of leaf and stone upon her hair, a mystical reunion with a lost world, gathered and secured on the palate of my senses, so potent that it was able to dispense with the rooms larger aromas.

I could feel the length of her beneath the blankets, the warmth of her breast and the slim reassuring firmness of her legs and at some point the delightful conjuncture of her middle as it rose and fell with her breaths silent riddle.

I wanted to wake her and tell her of my delight, of the mystery that had been the night, yet my breath and its words could not rouse this sleeping soft statue and perhaps the lunar like activities to which I would speak had died in the absence of night that the morning had reaped.

She awoke only when my musings had reached their maximums and I was all but lost upon the dreadful dreary passage of my minds perambulations; when I felt all but alone save for her sleeping body upon this absent earth and I was caught up in some dire need to shake her violently from her secret unconsciousness and to confess unto her my own lowly loneliness.

She awoke then as though to tepid my fiery feebleness, to console me again with my night’s forgetfulness and to bring home to me my own worthiness.

She did not say a word at first yet her eyes and body moved close and through the filigree fray of her midnight tresses I saw her eyes, sleepy though still warm with care and understanding. Her warm chocolate limbs seemed to sprawl gently against me, to bring to me the blessings of a thousand prayers and to dispel the cruelty of a thousand cold merciless stares.

From her I heard a voice that before had only issued whimpering sighs, small bashful cries and loves sweet lies.

“Good to see you are still with me,” she said.

Then she rose and amidst the slight soft settle of her hair upon the billowing bulge of her breasts she moved close so I could feel her breath upon my own, I inhaled her vital virginal vesper and let it fill the voluminous void that was my craving credence. Upon this pale vesper of warmed nothingness I seemed to taste something that was pure undisclosed restlessness

What was this fantastic fragrance issuing from clean white teeth and smooth brown cheeks, from a mind that refrained and disdained the suburban reek, from the one that I had long tried to seek?

It was indeed the West Wind and these two words, that had never lived together within a sentence, had neither been uttered, muttered, nor remembered but had always been dismembered were again my tool and the property again of the fool.

How had the wind come via this voice, had God made this choice?

Whatever, I rejoiced.

She seemed to know the secret of her breath and what it meant, and she breathed some more just so I could not forget and then I was dipping down so my lips brushed her crown and within her lips I soon drowned. The West Wind was like a ghost moving between its human host buffering and binding them to the ones it loved most.

We went like this for an age and the wind like a mage freed us from the suburban cage.

When we were at last free from its boom we sat as though in excitement that was more than sexual, more than sensual, a slap in the face of the conventional, we sat like this and the excitement rose and within it we froze and then we rose like a filed up fire hose.

In a mad haste we dressed amidst this dishevelled place, I watched passionately weakly as she rose and donned her lace until I was all but naked in her sight and modestly silly within her delight. We were gone from the room in an instant and I knew at once our destination it was to be our imagination.

We went on through this hallway of droning doors, wailing walls and stifling stairs and while the walls mournfully wailed around us and the doors droned upon us and the stairs impaired and impounded us we flew with the fragile tactile flow of the West Wind around us.

She moved ahead of me, the dancing flowing epitome of an old mans wheeze, the silent sauterne like sorrow of a breeze within winter trees and of course the gentle guide of autumn leaves.

I moved hesitantly behind, still trying to find my own rhyme and then she took my arm and grasped my palm and took me from suburban harm. We flew down the stairs, flight upon flight, like a kite we escaped the pull of the suburban night.

Though I knew this could not last, something in this place always tried to destroy or grind down the creative mark and I was right because we were now within the clerk’s sight.     

Ahh, there again was this creature of conventional creativity, of hygienic sweaty armed humidity, how I owed him a good poke, oh how now I would make of him a fine joke.

We came at him before the door, great bounding leaps that he could not ignore, with a hop, skip, a leap and a bound he was below us and upon him our soles crowned. The weak spindly thing tried to fight, tried to put against us his puny might, but then he was down upon the ground, squealing and squawking with his impish sound, but around him did our boots resound, grinding him into the ground.

We made a mighty stampede upon his frame until he was almost lost lame and then we did again the same. We gave him a stampede that he dearly did need and his small precise brain was forced to take heed.

While this activity did seem mean I behold the reader to deem that this creature despite his hygiene was quite unclean and above all rather mean and given the chance he would sweep into darkness a stray sunbeam.

So up we went and down with speed, until we had stamped from him all his malignant greed and broken the shell of evils seed.

He lay then like a shadow upon the floor, a horrible stain that he could not ignore and if indeed he still had motion, he would have applied to himself a cleaning lotion and then swept himself away with a limped wristed motion, but alas he could not do this thing, could not make of himself a trifling and he certainly could not ring or sing for his sweeping thing.

So there he lay in decrepit disarray, his face turning a mottled grey, his eyes such dismay, yet still beneath them evils way and then he moved as though turning to say…but then the door was a sway and a breeze was on its silent way, it took him slowly at first, no matter how much he criticised and cursed, it took him like a hearse and gone was he upon its thirst.

Gone was he, stamped and seized, freezed by the winter breeze, gone where he sent autumn leaves, gone where he heaved people’s dreams. He flew like a stain out the door, gone from us was the bore, gone was the festering black sore, gone was a small part of suburban law, yippee yippee who could ask for more!

Then his voice came through the din, it seemed a rather pitiful thing, though through the mail slit it did sing.

“Master, Master, I implore, put to death these West Wind flaws, teach them what night is to light and give them a devilish fright, give them to deaths delight, show them my Master your terrible might!”

In some horrible anticipation we waited and waited, our eyes darting towards shaded alcoves and into empty doors but it seemed that the hotel proprietor whom his message of mercy and vengeance was addressed to was either none to fond of his clerk or was upon other business of a more pressing and important nature, so it seemed that for the time being we would be spared his foul breath and brown teeth.

Our eyes found each others across the receptionist’s desk, deciding and confiding what we should do next. She of course seemed eager to go and I was with her on that, yet there was still something, a small inkling or perhaps nothing and yet I hesitated because of something.

Perhaps I need remind the reader that with the return of the West Wind there had also returned to me a whole bunch of old memories, much like the way in which summer breeze brings with it summer memories and these small vestiges of another life and another world were in some dishevelled disarray upon my minds miseriae and I could make little sense of this new liberty.

I remembered a great tree growing strangely from the decks of a white boat, I remembered somehow the cold sensation of old steel between my fingers and the sound of a melody upon my mind and yet all these things seemed further than a dream away, more than a lifetime away and yet somehow they held me sway.

Holly was against my side pulling and pushing me away and I knew that I had only to let the frosty white glass of the receptions door swing open, I only had to rush down the path of Canis Shiites and we would be free and yet something still held me.

I stood there caught between worlds, caught between words, the world’s vulgarity and memories strange clarity, co existing within my minds reality. I stood there like a great super conductor between worlds finding in myself the beneficial bereavement of the divine, the strange alien mind of the sublime and yet I could not deny the hand that clutched mine.

I quested distantly yonder over grown paths, the tangled cluttered garden corridors of my past, trying to find amidst the grass, a key to a door that would unlock the past, I then tripped and distantly fell and rolled down a deep well and upon an edge I smelt the sea and it seemed then that all my memories came back to me.

I awoke my head cradled within her lap, it seemed that I had fallen physically as I had fallen mentally and I now sat disarmingly with in the yoke of memories stupor my head ringing with the resignation that had freed the reminiscence of nostalgia.

I looked in as I peered out, so much indeed had I lost and it was as though I was given the grace that I have now to idly let the pages turn with their own weight, to let my eyes settle upon paragraph without presumptuousness, to browse headings without hedonism and to look back into the past without fear of persecution.

My memories filled up again those shadowy alcoves and cobbled cobwebbed cul-de-sacs, my memories filled again the nostalgic nitty gritty neural nodes and like a gardener cleansing the languishing lawns and weeding the worrisome weeds the network of neat railways and winding roads transgressing my mind were free and I could at last truly see.

What I saw was discouraging to say the least, from my vantage point the world stretched out and back into the stifling stench of suburbia, a place that had and had always been in my memory, the be all and end all of who and what I was.

Then with these memories, this point in space and time that was called suburbia was given suddenly an absolute obsolete location and a world that I believed did not exist had suddenly opened up around it like the clearing of overcast skies, or the lifting of ceaseless smog over constricted concrete windowless cubicles.

This world of memories and seemingly of magic lifted my mind above and beyond the sulking silent margins of the motel and the mundane monotonous municipality and I was again climbing amongst the cliffs of crag cry darkness and bellowing and bowling myself down bovine like banks and singing besides swift flowing streams.

No longer was the outside world comprised of the ephemeral evangelical teleological transmissions from televisions, or the nasally nonsense of the radio racket, nor indeed the glossy costly convenience of popular prolific perishable periodicals, but instead a three dimensional place of space and grace.

In the distance, on the other side of a separating sea, I saw a city, a place where I knew I would soon be.

Oh, the magic of these recollections and such were they that if they had not been returned to me, if I had not been given other clues as to a hint of their existence I would have denied to God himself their subsistence.

As my mind swept back over the past, unlike a lousy editor might flip this manuscript before his callus critical eyes, I went with my minds eye back to memories beginning and then forward again to a place that was almost free of memories monologue and this treasured place that sat precipitously, precariously between the past and the future, a place that was even now being eaten up by memory and being consumed by the past was where I wished to be and here I was at long last.

It took me some time to consolidate these memories and by the time I had realised the significance of what had been taken from me I was a wrathful whirlwind of rage that had picked himself up from the floor and was even now making my slow and steady way back into the motel, I knew that somewhere within this building I would find what I had originally come here to look for, those small children that on a faithful day, with my eyes full of salt and tears I had grasped the hilt of a crusaders sword and sworn to find them.

I also knew that again I had found the dark tree and it had been true to its promises and delivered me into a world that I feared most. Despite his words that my parents were here I knew at once that they were not for he had not again tormented me with their presence and I knew that they were somewhere far from his hold and there they would remain until I found them.

I would pit myself again against this building of abomination, with my righteous anger I would plunder again its hallowed hallways and hideous hollows. I would throw open the privileged privacy of its doors and one by one I would sweep their internals with the cleansing eyes of the liberated with the unwavering stare of the emancipated.

To those cowardly converted suburbanites, ruminating in their rooms, I would show not a hint of mercy, to these gross extensions of suburban asphyxiation I would show not a hint of pity.

Righteous and victorious I would emerge with a twin under each arm and be it the will of the world a white dog barking and laughing between. Together, the dog, the twins, she and me, we would escape into the lands to be, the future that is free.

Then I hesitated, I waited, for not with all my puffed up pretentiousness and out of proportion pride could I easily return to this world of weariness and worry, not could I easily tear my eyes from greasy grimed lino, slimed underfoot caput capitalist designs and neither could I deny the cowardly heart that beat within my mind and yet still my body wished to quest on, to stamp upon dog shit pong and I knew that for every moment I waited, for every moment debated, the Manager could be making his way into the fray to all the worlds dismay.

That’s when I felt her close and looked into her eyes and saw what I had hoped to see most, she was with me, free to scour the hallways of depravity, to search the floors and to ignore the bores, to deny for one more time suburban laws.

We were off up the stairs that felt like you were going down and as the walls wailed around we were within the hideous hallways going around and around, trespassing upon motel maze haze, trespassing on the inhabitant’s lazy days.

We took the first door and tore it open with resounding delight and into the internals we went, the West Wind around us like light, at last I was here the depravity of sanity, the wilder of calamity, the coming of humanity to the land of profanity.

The first room was occupied by none other than Sheridan, though before she could allude to sexual innuendoes or move out of the way her toes, we had gone past her searching her rabid room for the twins, though they were not here.

Further on down the hallways and up the stairs familiar faces and unfamiliar places went by with our intrusive abusive instigations, our fleeting leaping deliberations our reaping eyed investigations.

Though as we tore through the place at a furious pace we could not find any sign of them and defeated, dilapidated we crouched down upon the floor winded, wounded and waiting, this is not how it was when we had deliberated.

Where could those pretty things be? We had searched for them to make them free; we had plundered but had not found the key to set the little ones free, to let the little ones be.

It was at this time that I sensed a strange change in the air, the West Wind that had before been our companion through out our wild escapade had gone from a wild turmoil of creation and imagination to a distant drivel, tending to a piddle and then had become a siddle that seemed to have crept out a window and disappeared like a riddle.

Where it went we could not know and why it had gone we did not know though to say that it didn’t spell ill for us was a mild understatement to say the least for with its departure it carried with it some of the wild hopeful elation that had accompanied our desperate search and without its touch we felt alone and naked within this suburban kingdom.

There we crouched alone in the sort of expectancy that creeps its way up ones legs and into ones shirt cuffs, the sort of expectancy that finds its home in a mild coldness of limbs and an unsettling, unrelenting coldness at the base of ones neck and within this amorphous intermission we sat down in exhausted submission.

For a time we debated together a suitable course of action, it seemed that the twins were not to be found here and so must reside somewhere else within this place, perhaps outside the hotel itself within the wider expanse of suburbia and while we were confident that we would find them, the very thought of moving deeper within this suburban world sent us deeper within dismay.  

Oh what would we do when this world was against us when our creator was not with us?

Oh marvellous memory, the depriver of bleak reality, how you were there as we sat slumped upon the stair, how well I recall your presence intruding upon my mind with your delicate touch, how I remember the way that you brought forth to me memories dear that were a boon to me in this time of fear.

How with your touch my mind deliciously succumbed to the past and its proposition of deliverance and its denial of damnation and like a librarian in the shadowy alcove of my brain you brought forth from the library of the mind the condensed chronicle of happiness.

I remember how you blew the dust from every page, the dust that was the cloaking anathema of boredom. How you swept each page as though ridding it of the crystal transparency of apathy and with the flick of your wrist you flicked the residue of regret and the angst of anxiety into a place that no longer existed.

How your little librarian glasses brought to life the details that had eluded me during memories formation, the details that had bemused me during realities categorisation, those little bits of magic interwoven with memory that make the remake of reality such a marvellous remedy.

How you spurned these blemishes upon memories mind and gave them again to me in kind, free again of those unwelcome ingredients that were there when they were chronicled and compiled so many moments ago.

Then when I had used them, when I had renewed them, I was able to repackage them in this new form, to chronicle them away and to view them again at a later day.

I saw my memories those recent like glossy, flossy reflections upon magazine stands looking good now though with the tendency to fade and degrade, I saw others the sound and profound being committed to great reference books with clear concise headings and I saw those memories of the far past condemned to great heavy unwieldy volumes that were seldom brought out because of their fragile decisively unagile nature and yet one always knew that if one had the patience to wield them then great fulfilment would be theirs again.

I wondered then at all these little memories, like little packages of pictures, like little sprees of sound that were joined so intrinsically with the feelings that they had prospered and how my mind could now recreate these little scenarios for my detriment or amusement.

It was in this new light that I was able to view these memories as you flicked them faster and faster before my eyes so that they resembled blurred moving pictures that had been captured and enraptured by my senses so many years ago.

It was in this form that I was able to digest my past, to see its trials and tribulations, its calamities and gratifications and through this window into memories world I was now able to wield them into words.

On a page flipped at random, or bookmarked with use, or dog eared with abuse, I saw Sea Breeze staring back at me from a storm rendered sea, then the pages turned involuntarily with the weight of the memories behind them and my eyes were allowed again to look within Holly’s eyes as she had first come to me that night and then, as though a fresh gust of wind had come from an open window, they had flittered back and back to a time long ago when the charcoal remains of a house stood for a second in the eerie depths of the night before crushing down like the sound of a book closing.

Though I knew you, the little librarian that your are, knew that at this time you had granted me small mercies, you, as you handed me these memories without their little blemishes of stale sheets, ocean sleet and eyes that refuse to fully meet could equally do to me no small detriment, you, who could have given me all these anxious details and more and though I knew there would come a day when I would again ask again of you to search out those hidden recesses of my mind, to take out your little neuron ladder and reach up to high shelves or spin back the catalogue draw to day one and on this day whether it be gay or full of dismay you might return these details true to the malpractice of these memories you might rue, though perhaps again I might have second thoughts to call again for you.

I could imagine these memories thick with dust, buried amidst other memories, strewn upon the library floor as you tread upon them to reach other recollections. I could imagine them dying and denying me the opportunity to ever view them again as they became faded, jaded and degraded and I thought that it might be better if they were to go, if I were never again to know and then I was brought forth again to reality by the crying of a crow.

We both reacted to this intrusion at once for it had been such a long time since we had heard this despairing sound and deep down each in our own way we knew that this sound heralded something that would not be a good thing for either of us.

The sound echoed around the corridors and if it had not been for the feelings that this sounded heralded we would surely have been grateful for this small intrusion of nature into the realm of artifice, though as it was we all but fell into a frozen daze that would either herald a mad flight back the way we had come or a continuation of this despairing immobility until at last our doom was allowed to descend down upon us.

We crouched there as again the crow gave its caw and then accompanying this a dull beating of distant drums or perhaps simply the sounds of footfalls muffled upon carpet and amplified within the confinement of corridors and amplified and dramatized by our worried ears we felt someone or something approach.

To whom these footfalls owed their identity to I could only guess, though I knew this guess to be a good one and though Holly had said not a word of the sound or her own fears or feelings by the expression that surmounted her fair countenance I knew that she perhaps expected the same.

As we sat there we gave over to impossibility, the last possibility of escape and as the footfalls grew large upon our mind as though they were the reverberating notes sung by the doomsday clock, ever so patient, ever so sure as they were, we crouched lower, deeper within each other and within ourselves and even as with the last of our resolution we cried once more for the release of the West Wind we secretly gave into our private dreads and hid our private fears from each others eyes.

It was then that the first of them made it to us and it was like a small piece of darkness or perhaps a small part of fairy tale fable fleeing from filigree pages, it broke the silence of the air with its crying carriage as it descended upon our cowering forms.

Oh God they were again those evil transgressions, those evil black perambulations, those terrible black talons and eyes like obsidian marbles cradled in such a cold cruel cranium and its caw resonating with evils harrowing hunger and it was at once scrawling and cawing over our heads, so close that our eyes were forced to hide behind hands, so that our poor ears were the only sense that was allowed to know such fear.

Then, just as we thought that there would be no end to this unkind harrowing, when we thought that it could get no worse, we felt another join the first and then another join the other and the first, and then another other join the other and the first, until the only sensation our minds could perceive was the tangled fray of darkness that tore and cawed above our heads.

How they seemed to want our eyes, how they took such joy in trying to tear our fingers from our faces, to make our hands rise as though to bat the darkness away just so they could dart suddenly unrepentantly under our defences.

Then behind the terrible turmoil of their tenacious transgressions we heard the footfalls and how they had grown thick and loud within the narrow confines of the corridors so that our hands knew not which to protect, our aching ears or our eatable eyes.

We both looked like perturbed puppets, flapping our hands from one to the other and from the other back to one in a feeble hope that could not last and then, when these sounds had reached their clawing cawing cleaving climax all went silent, a silence that suburbia never knows, a silence of subjugated static, a silence of turned off traffic, a silence devoid of electro static and grouse parody of musical slapstick.

Our eyes remained hidden behind eyelids for we each feared that this was a ploy or dark coy of the crows that were hanging silently in the air around us, waiting for such a drop in our defences.

Our ears, well they found this silence even more perturbing than the chaos trophy of the barrage of moments before and even after they had recovered from the previous turmoil they seemed to remain quaking in some expected turmoil.

From the silence a voice sounded as though it were stretching itself from great astrological distance through time and space to be with us now, a voice of ancient and unknown origin that spoke with the belligerence of black holes and the destitution of dying stars, a voice that might have heralded the end of mankind or been the blissless barrage of blunt blows delivered and distributed upon someone’s helpless brain.

There and then I could hear a sound that if scientists had been given the inclination to search for it, they might have found it when synthesising the sound of a single ant being crushed by a single soul, or the last signal of suffering radio static emanating from an exploding star or the last dying drawn out decay of a radioactive atom.

To you my faithful reader, truly I could not adequately convey the destitution, the dissolution that this sound brought to our already suffering souls, truly with all the faithful words torn from all the faithful dictionaries in all the world, I could not put forth a sentence to encompass the desecration that was brought forth through our tunnelling auditory canals and made to beat upon those little shimmering pools of tranquil waters within our ossicles, nor to convey the way that our poor synapses were made to pour such a rancid concoction of neural transmitters into our consciousnesses that it seemed our eyes might bleed with the excess.

Truly I could not, though let it be understood reader that I tried.

So then as our ears quaked with the sounds of abandon, as we cowered under such cruelness we caught the smell of musky sweaty armed dampness and we knew then who was above us and when we raised our eyes just a little there indeed was the stump of his dishevelled shoes, his dilapidated dying sand shoes tragically tucked under the shadowed slump of his trousers rump.

I can hear you asking dear reader, I can hear your voices passing through time and space to demand of me the admittance of whether it was courage, curiosity or cowardness that made our eyes remain lowered, or was it courage, curiosity or cowardness that made our eyes rise and to tell you the truth I do not know, though I know that in that time our eyes darted between these poles, our thoughts were not truly our own and we were made to bow either to this creature, this antithesis of creation, this beast of revelation or to some deep seated belligerent bane of the unconscious mind and raise our eyes into the eyes of abandon.

We met our fate like two lanced lovers in the eyes of an unjust law, we looked again, each in our own way re living the suffering suffocating suburbia that we were to flee only moments earlier and we met again the fate that is dealt upon fragile suburban fugitives.

Of all the expressions that we expected to see within the eyes of our jailor we least of all expected to see pity, though there it was ingrained and ground into every wrinkled fissure, shining like the suns forgiveness from each eyes and tucked turned and telecasted from the slim bloodless set of his silent sinewy jaw.

How our hearts quaked twofold within our breasts for here was retribution turned to forgiveness and we each wished to take to each of us one of his round legs and to hug it to our breast in forgiveness like young children are want to do and then as though sensing our remorse, as though sensing the twin anguish that dealt such a heavy blow against the suffering confines of our chests his arms rose up before us and it were as though those eyes shining with the suns forgiveness were as the head waters of twin forents that would at any moment pour forth such a delude of tears from the misty eyes sorrowful skies of heaven.

As we swallowed back our own pitiful cries and gave into a few well meaning sighs he bent his awkward bulk before us as though to take each of us under his arms and the sweaty musky warmth that had before so revolted us seemed such a comfort as though there was never such a comfort before and we moved forward eager to greet his great embrace.

Before us and around us he whispered such well meaning coo’s that the last of our fears and anguishes were made to ride far, far from our minds and he was at once the trust of grandfathers and the empathy of grandmothers.

With the silent bowing of his great aged head we felt such remorse for his poor servant whom we had torn and rorned asunder that we could almost imagine that we had never committed such a foul and despicable deed to one who was so trusting and defenceless.

Then as he nearly had us from the darkness that had become the hallway around us, even as he became the only light within our world, we heard from the darkness the baying of a distant hound and we thought at once that this sound was such an unreasonable disturbance of the peace that we trusted it most and at once we moved further forward to stifle the last of our doubts within his great arm pits.

As we moved closer, shuffling below and around his great form the baying and barking seemed to reach a great crescendo and we were both at once ready to gag and berate this unruly hound.

The embrace seemed to become all and as one with our fate when mere moments separated us from our unity we felt our great benefactor, our great God of mercy stiffen, we saw his eyes harden at once, the ever ready fonts that were to deliver their pure cargo like the baptismal waters of the Christ upon our heads dry up in an instant and the arms that had lain gentle and protective upon our bent backs become hard and harrowing and the gentle pressure of lanky limbed hands became  the clawing scrawling talons of tenacious terror as they pulled and ruled us in closer and closer together.

It was then that the hound, which was until now a distant bark, came into the hallway. He was a streaming flash of white beyond and in front of us so that his form was at once hidden by the great mass of him before us.

The hotel proprietor who was so unaware and so unwavering in his need to bring us closer amidst his arms could not turn his great bulk to meet this intruder and this excited intruder, with had not stopped to measure for a moment the solemn sanctum solemnity of the occasion, took a great pounce and attached his sharp biting end with the billowing bulging end of the hotels proprietor.

At once everything changed, the darkness around us consolidated into hundreds upon hundreds of motionless crows, posed and poised around us until there was no space for light and each of their beady eyes looked like the eyes of their Master’s, black and opaque with apathy.

As the dog bit deeper into the proprietors great arse the great mass of suburbia went dark around us and the crows became the distant darkness of space opening up around us as though the world had disintegrated, we saw above and below a great expanse of stars, the swirling effigy of galactic gargantuan and closer to us the silent rotation of galaxies on silent axis and amidst this silent mêlée of space and time we remained the only substance of life within this great dark universe.

As the proprietors eyes became as black as the darkness around us and we saw this creature again for whom he really was and fought to free ourselves from his hands and as the dog took one more harrowing bite of his bovine behind he looked down upon us and his arms that had previously held us, which had compelled us towards him, seemed to relax into defeat and as though he were wilting within the darkness he let us go and then we were falling slowly away from him slowly at first and then faster as we vainly made to lock hands before the vastness of space was able to separate us and faster as the distant stars and planets rushed up towards us and as the proprietor and the dog seemed to be battling in the sky above us.

We seemed to be picking up speed, as the universe flashed before and around us, so that it seemed that this acceleration was never to end. I looked up as the last of the light from these two beings fighting in the midnight of space above us reached us and I realised who this dog was, though no matter how I tried to reach and to aid our saviour the space around us would bear no weight and we were in its vacuum falling further and further away from the one had given us such a boon.

We fell like this for an age in a place that had no bearing and though we moved seemingly faster and faster so that we feared that we were going faster than light not a single sign of motion could we feel around us and as we looked across at each other through the kaleidoscope of motion we saw within each others eyes the same panic for no reason could imagine what was to happen.

We persist and prosper within the universal sight

Free before the creators light

And amidst the birth of universal law

She becomes lover, mother and whore

From her I could not ask for more

Yet all is not as I foresaw

Our children are formed in stellar flame

From wormhole to womb they became

 Delivered with magic and insight

The twins are alive and all is alright

We swim then amidst the dark river

Knowledge like a filled quiver

That we are to deliver

 To the others across the dark river

After an undisclosed amount of time it seemed as though our bodies were slowing within the vacuum of space, it also appeared as though the fixed bodies of planet and star did not rise past us so feverishly but instead had begun to take on more serene forms as they lulled like great glossy lollypops in the darkness before us and we were able to gaze out towards them with great delight though not yet without a little fright.

These spherical bodies appeared to us so gargantuan that they eclipsed all previous recollections of size, yet they also appeared so small when compared to the great darkness of space that surrounded them. The sheer strangeness of having these bodies not only as the crowning jewels in the heavens above us, as they were on earth, but also below and around us, made us feel as though we were bathing in stars and space so that within this we made our place.

How we were able to survive in this darkness we could not know, though it seemed that our bodies seemed to be sustained by something for we could breath as normal and we felt no cold nor did it seem that the extreme temperatures of nearby suns were able to scorch us with their presence and of these small things and the panorama that was owing to us, we were very much grateful.

Of the proprietor and the dog we could see naught and we were forced to presume that they either still fought together somewhere high in the heavens behind us, or they had annihilated each other during their battle and were no more.

For each of these conclusions we could not feel but a small amount of anxiety for though we wished the proprietor dead we felt no small mercy for the poor dog that had saved us from our dark fate.

All traces of our suburban prison were of course gone and our minds were at last free upon the darkness of space and where or what this prison had been we would never know for its existence it seemed lay only within our memories and upon our minds and there it would remain for all time or at least until these earthly bodies of ours gave up their ghosts.

It was then that I was forced to ponder that perhaps everything is like this and that without observation and recollection and memory to make these exist, nothing would exist.

I was forced then to look out into the dark recesses of space and wonder if our presence was being observed by some far off observer through the technological marvel of the telescope and to wonder if my existence was made to exist not just in my own eyes or of my love beside me, but in another mind, in another conscious far far from here and perhaps here we would be given the remembrance of life long after our lives had returned to star dust.  

The universe before us seemed such a wonderful thing, such a silent maelstrom of creation and destruction, that it made the affairs of humans and the fate of the earth seem somewhat petty as from our vantage point we were able to watch the death of a distant star as it burst across the dark heavens in a kaleidoscope of breathtaking beauty, consolidating and parting in strange auroras and we thought together that perhaps this would one day be the fate of our own sun as it consumed the earth and the dreams of humans.

We watched a sun similar to our own burn away at some immeasurable distance from us, we realised that this orb, this light amidst the darkness of the heavens was indeed our creator, for long ago a sun like it had built up the building blocks of matter within its nuclear furnace and within its core, where temperatures were to reach impossible amounts, the building blocks that were to later house our souls were made, we realised then that we were indeed the children of the stars.

We floated together side by side amidst the dark glory of creation, amidst planets that seas must have washed elemental anomalies upon lands that had never felt life, amidst the pale remnants of space rock that owed their motion to the far flung insistent pull of gravity and the stars like vast radio beacons sending their music into the heavens burned up the gasses of the universe building them into more complex forms that would go onto form planets and would once again be consumed by exploding suns and sent forth into the coldness of space until all the universe became dark, we thought upon our own future and what it would bring.

Were we to be the objective observers of the universe, the twin poles of the human species made to float for all eternity within the cloak of creation?

Were we to be the last conscious creatures to witness the death of the universe as it either consolidated and pressed together upon itself into a singularity and knew again that singular sensation of the big bang as we outside of time and space observed it swell and burst before us like a rotten fruit?

Or would we observe the universe running down like a machine running out of fuel, as everything went dark except for the last light in our own eyes and then the everlasting light in our minds and here we would remain in darkness forever?

Were we even now the archetypical symbol for the angels, those that watch and observe creation, and those that had been given life in myths and dreams and made to bear testimony to the seemingly finite bodies of men?

We knew not and for this decision it seemed that we had no choice and that here we must bear out the whim of our creator, or wait patiently for the turnings of nature and to thank both for the company of each other. 

As is so often the case with the caprice mind of mankind which when allowed to ponder the breath of creation soon turns his mind from it to the minor trivialities, the small superficial pleasures that encompass his tiny microcosm but which give him some sort of identity within the greater mass of the macrocosm and within this world he can make his own rules and then thrust them undeservingly upon the universe.

For though man hopes for understanding, he hopes for deliverance from ignorance, he hopes to gain the understanding of life and death, at the end of the day he will turn his minds from the marvel of the heavens, turn his sight from the marvel of creation and all that offers him answers and instead he will cloud creation with the hue of blue skies, he will hide from creation under the refuge of roofs and turn from the universal consciousness with his own shut eye unconsciousness.  

We were like this, our eyes being caught and then discarded by the light of far off heavens to rest and caress instead the heavens that lay before us and gone were the feeble thoughts of metaphysical ruminating and the minds philosophical perambulating, they had their time to live now something more important would find life and we instead searched for the beauty within us that was owing to the stars around us and found again the solace of warm arms and soft sweet lips, as we caressed and clung to each other in this womb of creation and it was here that we created our own earth with our bodies divinations.

And it went like this.

With a soft desperate chuckle I had her in my arms, the flicker of becomingness and coyness within her eyes burned for a moment in my mind brighter that the closest sun and it was as though nothing could deny me the novelty of having her here, she herself seemed to be full of the suns warmth and her limbs neither feted by floors nor walls seemed to gain a very unearthly freedom within the freedom of space.

It was as though I held the many handed Shiva in my hands and her limbs like Shivas were allowed to dance and glance against me so.

Our clothes had seemed all this time a barrier to the full knowing of the universe and to shed them, to watch them drift from us into the orbits of planets and the singularities of distant stars seemed the nature of nature and we accompanied their journeys with sweet farewells and happy goodbyes as they drifted away from us like the remnants of our earthly humanity.

She herself was like the last vestiges of the earth and it seemed that this planet was woven all about her, trapped within her hair and made a prisoner to her lips so that I felt like the moon orbiting her body, languishing in her life.

Her shirt was the first to go, the buttons in my haste tearing free and for a second orbiting us until they were sent from us to spiral like little galaxies accompanied by our love and laughter, where they were there own little galaxy within the darkness of space.

To see her breasts revealed in the starry skylight to bend and to taste them was indeed delight, to hold her core in my hand and not to feel upon me the hardness of land for all this was indeed grand.

To see her in the light of space so thoroughly removed from any vestige of her earthly heritage was like having an angel in my arms, something so unique that every movement of her was heavenly. As our clothes fell from us and drifted away into space it was as though we became as divine as the stars, as pure and unfretted as unborn babies, purer even than freshly fallen snow and with these visions we became one.

To know her body as though it were the only life in the universe, to know her as the great inanimate mass of planets stared on, to know her as this, was bliss.

Soon though we were all but naked amidst the darkness of space, we had peeled back the earthly nature of our planet and now were at one with ourselves and the stars, two bodies circling, spiralling with the imputes of their own gravity in a space that had neither up nor down and within in each other and in space we soon drowned.

Perhaps then we floated as the eons floated by, softly conjured into slumberness by the singing of the spheres around us, perhaps our consciousness then floated as free as our bodies in the weightless world of warps and wormholes, perhaps within this twilight world of stars and the becoming darkness that filled in every space that was not lit by suns we were given the grace of Gods and the patience of angels and we were allowed to slumber in such a slumber that millennium passed us by and the earth as we had known it had dyed an age ago, as it was consumed by its sun.

Perhaps in this far off corner of space we had become in an instant the primordial blueprint of mankind, asleep in the silent place of stars. Perhaps in an instant the memory of the earth and its peoples were made to reside for all time in the eternal shells of our sleeping bodies, to be woken again at a later date when another intelligence was to rove over our corner of the celestial sky and to wake our sleepy intellects with artificial probings and half of wonder, half of disgust loathing’s and perhaps all this had passed, or was soon to be and perhaps something even more strange and glorious was to happen.

We were awoken sometime later by a sound upon the edge of consciousness, a sound that woke but left no impression upon our intellects save for the impression that it had been and it had awoken.

We looked around dazed and confused and much to our wonder we had not drifted into the orbit of a planet, nor died in our sleep in the fiery centre of a sun, nor been wiped into oblivion whilst leaving a bloody smear upon the side of a speeding astroid and though we were slightly disappointed at the thought that these exciting endings had passed us by (space in the long run is indeed an exciting and eventful place), not surprisingly we were also some what relieved.

By looking around us we were able to gauge nothing, for of course owing to the astrological distances that separated space we might have drifted light years and not known the difference and yet as we looked out from our position we were able to see some unknown article of clothing that had been caught by the fiery touch of our nearest sun and needing not newtons calculations we were able to ascertain that by the simple motion that it would have left either of our hands and even in the haste that this motion might have been privy to, for us to be able to see it meant that we had been asleep for merely moments.

Though it seemed that we had slept an eternity and at least for a time eternity had been asleep within us and we felt such a renewing of spirits that we were eager not to tarry for much longer within the cradle of space, but to expectantly, probably ungratefully and without a doubt rashly move onto the next stage of our journey.

Anyone who has been in the depths of space will know that no matter how one flaps their arms and kicks their legs you go nowhere (not that we had anywhere near at hand to go) the more astute however may hamper upon the decision that if one were to push the other then we might then go somewhere, but no, alas Newton also had that figured and we would both merrily go the same distance in equal and opposite directions.

If same fool had been there to suggest such a simple act of folly, a folly that might have placed each of our suffering souls at opposite ends of the universe within the smallest space of ten billion light years then he would have felt rather guilty.

So motion owing to the movement of our own luckless bodies was out of the question and though the novelty of moving through space as space probes do, that is by bouncing off the gravitational field of stellular bodies in order to accelerate them onto the next, seemed as though it might be fun, our mathematical abilities, even when combined and our lack of a super computer to compute such figures, it would seem that even if we were able to get close enough to a planet to “bounce” off its gravitational field it were more likely that we would be sucked in and fall foul to some noxious poisonous atmosphere, or the extremes of temperature that are unsuited to the human body.

Even after the sheer lucidity that had brought us to this moment, think suburbia inside a tree, a hotel proprietor that seemed like the devil and a dog who could survive in space (not to mention us) I could not in the least imagine us bouncing around the universe like a ball in a pinball machine. Bounce of Jupiter, next stop Venus, oops into the sun we missed Earth.

So if we put movement aside, except for the ones that can be done between two people (arguably the best ones) we were stuck as they say ‘until help arrives’.

Luckily for me and I trust (hope) (doubt) her, we were both excitingly naked and while I knew that the novelty of this may well rub off rather soon given the boring extent of astrological time and our present position of no motion it was for a time something that could easily fill in the movent of immiscible miserable motion and I was at least content to take in her visage for the next millennia (she was quite beautiful) framed as she was by the rotating mass of a large red planet and a far off sun and yet by the troubling look within her eye I could tell that the same view may very well not keep her content for more than the next few minutes.

So what were we to do? I suggested another round of ‘you know what’ and then back to sleep, but that ‘you are so stupid’ look she gave me convinced me that perhaps this wasn’t the right tact and when I went to pursue the idea further her expression revealed something else and her eyes of the clearest space filled at once with earthly liquids and she looked as though she would spurn me as she would spurn no other within this world so I remained silent and she remained silent and we glowered at each other each from our metaphysical sides of the universe from Mars to Venus so to speak and hoped perhaps for divine intervention to make everything alright.

Well we waited, and waited, and waited.

Now here dear reader comes the time when the writer must reveal to you the gist of the story, in light of new eventrations (exaggerations) so that you might know the writers new deliberations (debilitations) and the writer might know again his own dramatizations so that he can better confuse and abuse the readers revelations so that he can side step and type set all his imaginations concerning the stories perambulations and its misplaced ministrations. 

So here it is.

I had set off from my humble homestead in search of the West Wind, a phenomenon that had seemed then a mere myth, whispered upon the winds of winter and uttered now and again by the ramblings of used up old men, something that was indeed more a figment of imagination that a thing of cold hard reality.

I had left then that hapless world with the hope that the West Wind existed. I had journeyed into the wilderness, my shadow wreathed as it was in the amber hue of burning roof and falling walls, my tears plenty though not plenty enough to ever qualm that unfortunate reckless fire that had been lit by my own callous hand, though to the fires credit or my own remorse, the woodsmoke of the houses destruction I can smell even now upon my hair and between the knit of my clothes, I also know it will forever burn buried somewhere in my memory where I imagine it will always stay.

I had journeyed then through forest and fen in the lands where snow and cloud met, I had found a library that had reaped no great reward save for the pleasant few days where I had known some sort of contemplative peace amidst its fire blackened walls and the small amount of West Wind lore that was buried in the libraries time blackened books.

I had then met a sneaky stranger who had become a friend, he you must remember the porcelain person, of pale cheek and pale hand and when I had fallen beneath a dark tree he was of course there to raise me up from the mud and deliver me back into life and what a life that had been.

I had then been raised and made to live anew in the light of Lovelorn, washed clean by her gentle hand and made to bathe in the tears of the mountains brought forth from their eyes by the melting of summer snow and not until now had I thought that a more beautiful soul could be found upon this world.

She had of course left me, made to depart by the light and heat of this world so that I could go on she had turned to a swift flowing firth that had gone back to the sea, a place where I was to find myself in my own private sorrow.

Then upon the sea I had come across the sneaky stranger and in my time of grief he had become the target of my unjust rage and in thanks for his valour I had of course taken him down into destruction and then cast his broken body into the sea, though no matter the strengths in my arms, nor the force by which I threw him, I still feel the pangs of his unjust end upon my consciousness and within my heart and though I know him to be trapped with in an old worn trunk, I would not be surprised if even now he were to appear.

Then it was as though all that was left of me had been washed away with Lovelorn or made to sink into the oceans depths with the sneaky stranger, I had wandered like a stray, sundered and sorrowful wind amidst the wind blown sands of the southern ocean until I had grown so thin that the gulls thought not to gulp me and then I had been swept up like a saddened treasure into Sea Breezes sack and in the weeks that followed not a greater friend could I have known.

Then had come the night when the sky was alit with colour and the wash of seething stars and I had left upon a peddle boat shaped like a swan to board the vessel Hope that was to sail to the land of the West Wind.

Upon this vessel where grief has no mortal reason yet still raised its saddened head, I met a bevy of fine creatures who for a time I had loved and loathed until I despaired and finally departed from them. I had seen marvellous inventions of horrendous might and found solace by starlight and within the twins delight.

On that vessel I had come to know The Tree of Good and Evil, both its blackened bowels and its heavenly heights and finally what dwelt within it, or what dwelt within my own head, or what was perhaps only the holding of the combined conscious of mankind grown ripe and sour with his bad deeds and evil thoughts, for on the day that I had plundered its hidden realm with the sweep of my crusaders sword and then gripped that same hilt, I had been transported to that world and for an unknown time I had known the harrowing hallways of suburbia that I hope dear reader were brought to life as they near brought me to spiritual death within those days and do so now during the retelling of this work.

Then of course had come Holly, my beauty, my love and our escape from those hallowed hallways and at last the fight in the heavens between the white dog and the hotels proprietor and finally our stationary orbit within the cradle of creation, or Gods consciousness, or our own and these events I would hope are still fresh in your mind for hopefully it has not been so long since you put this book down and even if it has been so long then I hope these events were not apart from your thoughts as they are not far from mine as I retell them.

So my reader I imagine that this appraisal of the past has been of some use to you (as it has been for me) and though I bid you to forgive me for the absence of the small things that might be big things to you and the things that I have made big when they are small to you, you must or I must understand that I shape the story as much as your reading shapes it for you and though none is the lessor I hope that yours is more interesting and more rewarding than my retelling.

So now my friend my companion who has born with me thus far and I hope it does not seem so long ago that I have called you thus and thanked you thus and that you are wishing that I would only stop so that the story, my story, your story can go on.                  

Part 4 – City

Well, we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.

The sound that had woken us came again, it seemed to shimmer through the very fabric of space so that the spheres within the heavens around us seemed to become momentarily distorted by the resonance of its passage and we ourselves felt it tremble such a timber within us that it was though we to tolled within the non existence and existence of its tone, that we blinked into and out of existence with each mournful heralding of its reverberation.

What a delicious feeling it was to toll with the universe, to ring with the unity of the spheres and to languish between pulse and pleasure as time and space did likewise.

As the tolling rang around us and as we watched those many spheres shimmer momentarily as though with pleasure or unease, as the very space around us seemed to be caught up and made to adhere to a reason above and beyond the properties of gross matter and as we felt this feeling deep within ourselves so deep that it were as though this reverberation acted upon that small part of us that made us spirit, we languished within space and each others arms, the universe with us and without us as each lonely toll went a tolling.

Was this sound? I could not know, we did not know. What was this feeling? I could not know, we did not know, for it seemed to act upon all our senses simultaneously, or perhaps it merely mitigated all our fine senses in order to effect upon a deeper more primitive sense, a sense that had been cloaked and camouflaged by a billion years of senseless sense evolution and now we were again to know this heartbeat again as though a great drumbeat upon the membrane of the universe, or as though every subatomic particle within creation was made to resonate at the same glorious pitch as us.

For a while this pitch rang true, through and around us, at a rhythm that seemed equally the rhythm of stars as it did the rhythm of hummingbird hearts, a rhythm that was the rhythm of creation mimicked and mimed by dancers and musicians the world around, a rhythm that was in tune to twin hearts within twin breasts.

Then, ever so slowly, each resonation resonated for longer and longer. Each note seemed to draw out to an inscrutable breath of time so that we were held as though within the suffocating tip of a giant wave that broke just before panic and purgatory were broken upon us and we were back into real space ready to receive this sound again.

Each time it came like a giant heartbeat that our breasts could not contain and pumped a flux of elixirs, a potion of quintessence and a parody of poisons around our bodies so that we were comatose, each of us in our own private world of pleasure and pain.

For an age it seemed this had occurred as our bodies died and were reborn in an endless cycle of incarnation and reincarnation as the universe around did the same and if I were to describe this sound to you the best example I might contrive would be the sound of a single fog horn resonating above a misty sea.

For each space of time when the space and the spheres resonated and became hazy upon our sight and they seemed as though they would never come back together again a new reality would flash momentarily before our vision, on and off and off and on until we felt like the soft bodies of sea stars being crushed upon by wave crests, on and off and off and on until there was nothing more within our consciousness save this glorious rhythm and then the tolling seemed to hold for a time without end and the universe around us and our minds were rent.

My identity was gone so quickly that I never had the chance to know who I was or who I had been, a great roar filled up my vision, hearing and head until I felt I had been immersed in a great dark river that flowed swiftly over my head, at first their was no sound only this strange sensation of stagnated motion and the haunting sensation that I was not alone within this soothing turmoil and that all around me a great concourse was occurring, whispered secretly and tirelessly in a unknown tongue, a garbled gargantuan conversation between legion upon legion of unknowns and I in the middle, on the edge within and outside, the waters thick and rich, the currents dark and pure and the voices a soothing counterpace to my own lethargic oblivion and then within the depths, as though rising up like a singular unconsciousness, I could feel a presence, a deep pure font like a cup of water from a deep well and this presence was all around, inside and out, malignant and benevolent all the same.

I was back! I had escaped again into this maelstrom and perhaps I was one step closer to returning to the world. Oh the joy of being here again within this soothing turmoil of creation, how I cried out in joy to those spirits that I knew would be here Chagall, Caravaggio, Bosch and Blake hail and I seemed to feel within this strange turmoil the sense that they had heard me and were even now welcoming me into their world.

Before me a great canvas appeared and upon it paints emerged in a whirlwind of creation and I saw a glittering landscape as though woven from my minds eye, a great amalgamation of episodes and events given to me by the genius of these artists.

As I stared upon it and took in every sensuous scene, every rabbled rendering and every painted portrait it seemed to flame suddenly before my eyes turn to ash and then join once again with the maelstrom.

I floated momentarily within the current feeling somewhat anxious though not in fear for Holly for I somehow knew that she was here somewhere and that she was safe.

Through this great discourse I soon came to sense something deeper, the mind of God, and like slippery rock within the stream as I had described him before, he still seemed the same, though he also seemed more concrete, more solid and perhaps more conscious.

The rock did not seem so slippery beneath my feet this time and though I may have rejoiced at this, for some reason I felt a pale foreboding of a future though I knew not why this feeling should be.

When I searched myself for the cause of this feeling I felt another presence close by, a presence that I knew and remembered, but for a moment refused to believe could be true and then within the great dark river I felt her conscious against me, languishing against me like she had done when I had been pulled from the bowels of the dark tree and in fear I opened my eyes and there was Lovelorn her eyes nigh against mine and we appeared into each others consciousness as we had never peered into each others consciousness before.

I knew her for what she was and she knew me for what I would become. For a while we languished like this against each other, our consciousnesses combined in the flow of the river and though we were close as close as two can be I felt not even a small whim of betrayal for Holly for this connection as perhaps it had been in life transcended earthly love and earthly loss and it was as though I had connected again with my other half. And then I heard her words.

“Greetings my Herove, glad am I that you were returned to this place and glad am I to see you again, fear not my brother for your loved one is safe and she will be returned to you as soon as deemed possible. Herove we have watched from our place amidst the dark river as you took charge of your tribulations and made of your fears realisations, from the river of God we have seen you persevere and prosper and deny the tests that time has taught, we have seen you battle yourself and other foes whose name, even here I shall not speak and we are proud of you.

“My loved one, much have you gone through, though still more is to come and I do not say this to discourage you or to make light of all that you have been through, but to let you know that there are more answers for you to seek, for I tell you now the world is in peril, for as you know The Tree of Good and Evil is dying and the mind of God is awakening and if the tree is not remade he will come again and only you have it in you to make this not come to pass.”

“But why Lovelorn should this be such a bad thing if the tree dies and god comes again?” and as I whispered this question it seemed the river grew even thicker and darker around me as though it were filled to the brim with anger and spite and the rock that was the mind of god below me became obscure again within the darkness of this vengeance.

“Herove you know not what you say, if God came again then the world would again be remade in his image and all that was mans freedom would be taken from him and he would be made again to serve and though the garden may come again its blooms and blossoms would bear the fruit of ignorance and from the ground man could only rent slavery and from the heavens he would not see the beauty of the universe but the face of God staring back at him, forever in judgement and forever in mercy until God again was to die down into the unconscious mind of man, or man is allowed again the mercy of destroying himself and the consciousness of God within him or the world in his freedom. This is the natural course of nature, God is an abomination in his own garden and man must be allowed the trials of his own tribulations if he is ever to understand anything and to gain the enlightenment that he alone deserves.

“Do you not understand that the thorns and spines and stings that abounded in the garden of Eden after mans fall are purely the embodiment of mans ability to merge the light and dark? To be the sum of the whole and not simply to bask in the suffocating white light of heaven which only addresses half of mans nature within this world.

“For a world of flowers as pretty as this world might be, for a world where the wolf may lie down with the lamb as idealistic as it may seem, it is not the nature of man nor the nature of the universe and a world that is harnessed so within the eyes of God to yield to his vision is a world that will never attain its own evolution and without this evolution, without the freedom that might allow mankind to rise to his own aspirations, the world will become imprisoned by a God where all are forced to bow to a common law, where the individuals identity will become lost within moralistic ideals and the universe will stagnate within time and space.”

“But Lovelorn, I see the rock below me,” I said, “I see it swamped as it is by anger and resentment and the pride of man, I see it as the motionless within motion, I see it as the calm within catastrophe, I see it my love, as salvation and redemption and nature within nature.“

“Friend, do you not feel the consciousness expanding, condensing? God wants to breathe again, to walk his earth and to hear his own footfalls in his own fields; he wishes to be the star in the heavens that we all bow down before, to be the light within mankind’s eyes and the doubt within mans hearts.

“No longer is this one satisfied to be a half formed idea suffering in the mind of man, brought forth only in times of war, plague, loss and death, to be banished to dim recesses when all in the world is right and there is no longer need for his salvation.

“No longer will God have his house only in the church and the minds of men for if he comes again he will make the whole earth a holy shrine to his greatness and he will walk forever amidst his congregation who will never be able to bare their doors to him, even if they be the doors of their own private unconsciousness.

“God will not allow the free thinker, the philosophers, the artists grace to make novelty of his creation, no, this one seeks to come forth, to bring the absolution of his light to every mind, to banish for all time the places of darkness in mans mind, to banish for all time that place of darkness that is the only thing in all the universe that man can call rightly his own, the one place that all his dreams and nightmares are made, all those unique to him and to him alone.

“If God has his way that piece of darkness, that region of doubt where mans imagination is allowed to thrive the most, to burn the brightest even if it be contrary to the rest of creation, the place where man is able to unite the spark of God with the dimness of matter and to see where no one has seen before will be gone and the only dream will be Gods and it will be salvation and the only nightmares will be Gods for it will be damnation and man will be imprisoned within these poles and will never know again the ability to unite them within his own unconsciousness.

“This God wants not a single atom to move unless it is an atom moving under his will, not a single branch will be allowed to sway within the wind unless that wind is formed from the motion of Gods hands and not a single aroma will man know unless it has been tried and tested within the nose of God and never will man know his own private glory for his own accomplishments, for all trials and all tribulations, forevermore will God the Father be responsible for all things.

“God will make of the earth his kingdom and not a word will be spoken unless it is in praise of his being, for God will not tolerate mans distortion of his earth, he will not tolerate the free will of man to make metaphor parable and allegory.

“God will not allow man to make of his earth the vagueness that lies within mans head, he will not allow mans mind so full of contradictions to bear testimony to his creation for there can be only one interpretation, it is literal and it is Gods.

“God for all time will silence all other meanings other than his, no longer will the language of man be permitted for within these languages lies ambiguity and with ambiguity there lies interpretation and within interpretation there lies contradiction and within contradiction nihilism and in nihilism the death of God.

“God will sit upon his throne in heaven and be the judge of man on earth, he wishes to reunite these two spheres and to make his hand the only link reaching between the worlds to join mans nature to the nature of his own.

“He wishes to take from man his own impetuous for salvation, to swamp that small part of himself that he gave to every creature, that small bit of dormant spirit that lies within all forms of matter and has the potential to rival God himself if only it were given the freedom to do so and he will unite all parts of this matter so that they form a single link between him and all creatures upon this earth so that none are able to be truly free within their own thoughts, so that none are able to become truly free within their own mind and God will be always there, knowing, living, listening, watching and to be all things for all people at all times forever and ever.

“You see for eons now God’s place has made its home in the hearts of mankind. These men spread through time and space have through the will of their own free thinking consciousness invited him in and he will reside with them through life and death and indeed beyond, for them he will be their creator, redeemer and the answer to age old queries and in their dark days of need it will be his arms that spread out of their souls and enwrap their quivering flesh in the continuum of the spirit until they greet death in his hands united and never will they be alone.

“For these faithful ones the world is a clear cut place divided conveniently between virtue and vice and each day of their lives they will make the decision as Eve did to eat or not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and accorded to this decision they will know the grace or disgrace of God and also be it the disgrace or grace of themselves.

“Yet for every man that walks this earth who invites God into their hearts there will be yet another and another and another who forsake God as he is the incarnate creator and redeemer of this world, their long suffering biological and spiritual father who cast into them that small part of his essence like a hook that he will drag back to himself during some unforeseeable day in the near or far future.

“In some cases these souls will break free from his touch and sail free on a sea of apathy and spiritual neglect, blindly stumbling through the darkness of spiritual understanding slipping precariously upon the wet pavements of reality and never for a moment deciphering nor discriminating the light of god that shines beneath and perhaps it is these people who are given up to the worst fate, those that through the free will ministrations of the world became apartheid from God, though of course many of these as spiritually barren as they may seem, many will still find some type of meaningful solace within this material world though many of these I fear will still know only a small amount of suffering and perhaps an undisclosed discordance with the universe which even they in their ignorance will never become fully privy to.

“Yet we must not forget those of man who flee first at the first sign of the tenacious tendrils of God, those that rally against him for their life times and then hug him back to them like a worn teddy in their times of grief and their times of death and for once in their finality know again the touch of God. Now these creatures that I have described bear little testimony to my case, these are, if you will, those that will clearly know salvation or damnation, no it is not these that are important for this story.

“And yes, you guessed it, I can see it by the expression in your face as you stare around at the multitudes that surround us, the essence as it were of the dark river where all souls not given to the grace of God dwell, the ones that swim amidst its swift current like the souls lost to the river Styx, doomed as it were to a fate of ceaseless life, to never know an eternal sleep, nor the feel of their corporal feet upon the shores of redemption, nor the shores of life.

“Yet you see it don’t you, you see how they prosper here, how the impetus of their former lives still drives them forever on as they refuse to accept the mortality of their own ideas and the workings of their own minds, how within this maelstrom they still deny that the universe that they created as they looked through their own eyes, as they lived, could cease to be, that their ideas should be swallowed up by the passage of time and the neglect of ages and that they should be here on the other side, lifeless and soulless within the company of a God who will never accept their ideas as equal to his own.

“You see how their ideas have gone above and beyond the world of matter, you see this place, free as it is, free from form and function yet still mirroring the physics of their old world. You see how their ideas have gained a new life and have transcended the barriers of the flesh that encased them for their mortal lives, how the loss of time has emancipated themselves from the haste of the real word and without the cares of bodily nutrition and the continual depriving upkeep of the flesh, they have gone beyond all ideas that mortal man know.

“You see as they see, filled still with the gest of their former lives in the company of the like minded with none of the despairingly deplorable bores to hamper and to stifle their ideas with unfair thoughtless apathy. You see them argue and agree in this mighty discourse and you see understanding spreading out from them uniting the universe to a state similar to what it was before God in his perceived wisdom halved the heavens into night and day, dark and light and made of the indistinguishable the distinguished and set man forever upon the search to redefine his own holistic nature.

“Yet here the unimaginable is occurring, occasionally as though by some phenomenon that transcends everything that is understood, one of these spirits adrift in the dark river will depart and I do not mean that they will go elsewhere, I mean that they are gone, one moment they are here and the next never to be seen again, and no one knows where these souls go, no one has a clue, many of those that are here presumed that they had returned to God though it was soon very apparent that this was never the case for when one of these go, the rock that we know as God seems to pulsate in what only can be called helpless displeasure and it is often only through this phenomenon that we know that someone has gone.”

“But where do they go?” I whispered, perhaps in an awe that was the greatest it had been in this entire tale.

“We do not know, though we think that they cease to be entirely, not a part of them lies within the universe at all, and it as though they have been unmade. Many also whisper that there is something beyond the infinite nature of God, perhaps something greater, or purer than he, though many do not even use these terms to describe this being and refuse to place anything of either a qualative or quantative nature to its existence and just presume that it is, or isn’t, for neither one is purely right nor purely wrong.”

“And God? He does not like this?”

“No. God as he stands deplores it, for we know that he seeks human enlightenment upon his own grounds, and sees the universe as he made it as the only access to this enlightenment, though it appears now and continually so that he is wrong and perhaps for a few, a deeper enlightenment can be sought purely and solely through some exercise or non exercise of their consciousness and for these few they will know an independent grace.”

“So what Lovelorn is your part within the play of events? Where do you stand within this place and the tree that is the knowledge of good and evil and the ever alluring ever hidden breath of the West Wind?”

“Ahhh, so now Herove we come to the crux of our matter, for as I explained earlier the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is dying and God will break free, for in his impatience he will not allow the grace of man to find enlightenment upon earth, or within this place, but will descend onto earth or ascend into heaven to deal out his judgement as he sees fit.

“The world will be divided yet again into day and night, black and white, good and evil and all the strivings of man to reunite these elements since the fall of man when Adam ate of the apple will be lost.

“Now God at the moment is inexplicitly tied up within nature, locked within every rock, tree and knoll, so to speak, spread forth sparingly through every piece of matter within the universe, though condensed a little more within the mind of man. When the tree falls he will then come into himself and make of the earth his kingdom.”

“How then can we stop this Lovelorn?”

“The tree, as all trees are, is a link between heaven as their branches stretch up, and earth as their trunks head down and the underworld, as their roots go under the ground, this tree is also as others in that it will bear a fruit and this fruit will contain a seed and when it is picked it will carry the genesis of a new tree within it and when that seed is planted The Tree of Good and Evil will again know life and man shall know again the time in which he may again find the path for his own salvation and be for a while disclosed from God and free with in his mind and spirit.

“As for me I am perhaps the least important within this tale, of course you knew me as a youth as I awakened you first to the desires of a man.”

Herove blushed at the recollection of this tale, “Then I was again with you to save you from the dark tree.”

“Oh please, what is this dark tree?” I had almost forgotten it, for it seems so foreign to this place.

“Herove no one knows what the dark tree is and what its purpose is save that for every part there is of light there must also be one of dark and perhaps the dark tree is akin to the tree of life, its dark counterpart, though as I said for its purpose none can say.

“Perhaps its purpose can be divined by the way it trespassed against you when it had you imprisoned within suburbia, for is not this the place that you fear the most because you see it as a force that seeks to stifle all your dreams and aspirations, a place that seeks to cloud your imagination.

“Is not this place a place where the materialistic nature of man is so well demonstrated, is this not the place where man most closely resembles the animal that he is, is suburbia not a stifling place where people cease to think and to be a part from the rest of humanity.

“I believe that this tree is striving for a goal similar to Gods, it wishes to drown the creative nature of man and to make it much like Gods wishes it to be, it wishes to drag the nature of God back into matter, though for everything which is light in Gods eyes is darkness in the dark trees bowels and perhaps these trees are in a race to the end for as you have witnessed upon the vessel Hope, the dark tree goes strong as The Tree of Good and Evil grows weaker and I feel that the fate of this world is equally in danger if this tree were to win.”

Lovelorn turned to me, “Now back to myself if I can be so bold, I am a messenger upon the earth I can travel between the world of matter and the world of spirit for waters have always been the passage between worlds and for me the waters of this world are the same as the waters of the other and it has been my job through the ages to guide mankind to his destiny and also is the case of you Herove, to have some fun with mankind and his unscrupulous ways and to appease perhaps some of my own less than spiritual cravings and to douse myself for a time within the trials of the flesh.

“For long have we been known as those that lead men astray, water sprites, nereids, naiads and the like and perhaps we deserve some of our less than perfect attributes that have been levelled at our kind, though in our defence if it were not for our beauty and our charm man would take notice of us not and never would we achieve our end.

“In many ways we are also like the God that we seek to stop coming into this world, we are like older archaic forms of himself, left over remnants of older religions that live on long after our congregation has died.”

“And the West Wind?” I breathed the words as though with my last breath, “My parents?” I breathed again as though a rude after thought.

“The West Wind Herove is, and I fear always will, be a mystery. I can tell you nothing that you don’t already know, though I can tell you that God knows nothing of it, though perhaps if you find the place from where it blows you might be given your own answers and perhaps not, though I hope truly that it is so and grateful would I also be if you were to return here to tell me of it.

“Now Herove, I have little time for more questions, time goes long and the dark tree grows strong, I will tell you that it is as you thought, Holly is here and safe with us and you will be united with her when you leave this place, now to answer your question concerning the twins which I guess you were about to add for they were the reason you came here, you have not failed them, they will return also with you to the world.”

I could not help but smile in the glee of seeing again their faces.

“Though let it be known now that they will not be as they were when they left, I cannot say anymore about that as it is not my right, as for the dog I do not know who or what it is or its purpose, and while I harbour a strange suspicion about it, neither of us can doubt the justice of its actions, so for this wherever it dwells in your world or my own I must wish it well.

“Now Herove come to me once this last time and say goodbye to this place and go also with the wishes of all who dwell here.”

Around me arose a tremendous tumult as though all the voices sang at once in unison and it was my name written, painted, sung, strummed and thought, all at once. There was the soft caress of my Lovelorn as I fell again against her lithe form and knew for a moment again the grace of her past embrace, though before I could pull together the lost question of my parents, of the West Wind, of how to get the damn ship going again the dark river rose to a crescendo around us and I heard distantly a cry of pain and then the far off sound of the sea and a violin crying with all the passion of my lost world.

Meet again the anima of thy need

Will you wont you take heed?

Will you invite her close?

Will love raise its glass to toast?

The two that love each other most

Or perhaps there is another design

Perhaps these two will not live in kind

For maybe love is a disguise

 And kisses are merely a guise

For loves little lies

My world returned in an instant so that for a moment the blueness of the sky seemed to be burnt within my eyes as they rose heavenward, as though in thanks to those that had delivered us here and far off I could also hear the cry of a gull.

All around me I could feel a breeze as though someone had opened a great door and let upon a silent room a great draft that ripped and roared around and then, even as it roamed around silent without a sound, it was gone as though a great door had slammed it shut.

In my nose I could now smell salt and this aroma seemed to be such a sure symbol of life that my mind swooned under its boon and with the sea dazzling upon my renewed retinas, this sea and that salt seemed a reminder of life and its luxuries and the properties that man and ocean share that I was momentarily overcome.

My body seemed trepidant for a moment as it slowly adjusted to the consciousness that had reborn itself inside it and that was even now wriggling and squirming as though to gain some sort of perch within the bodies elusive net of nerves and neurons, for a moment it seemed that neither of them would find a secure hold upon this world, but must instead lax in some dire diminutive disengagement always not together and never enough apart.

Gradually though my soul seemed to find purchase again within its flesh and of course the first sensation that I was allowed was the hilt of my great crusaders sword gripped so tight within my hand that I had to consciously tell those admirable muscles of mine to relax.

It was only then that I felt another consciousness nearby as I felt upon my crusaders sword another hand, softer smaller and imminently more appealing than my own and looking up and around as though to trace the transcendence of these carpels to their termination I saw at once behind me, around me, Holly who had returned with me and I let go of the hilt that had brought us together through time and space in order to take her more completely to me.

Just as my fingers caressed the steel for the last time I heard a voice, “My son do not do this thing.”

This invocation, this incantation was whispered to me with such an ardent love and such unconditional devotion that my heart near wept and strangely woven within the majesty of these worlds I could here a distant baying of a dog.

While the phrase still languished in a half life of fallacy and fantasy and lay prostrate upon the edge of my understanding, when my body was once again beginning to know its true fleshly encasing and my mind was alive and eager for the pleasures of this new world Holly took me in her arms and as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rose up behind us and around us the words at one became lost in the press of her body against mine and those words were at once forgotten.

Though I knew who had addressed me, still those words became lost within her and the smell of her hair and the press of her body and then when I finally cried, my tears were for her and her only.

Gradually our preoccupation with ourselves and our senses died to a degree that the world again appeared around us and whether we were done for the time being with each other and were just lolling listlessly and blissfully with each other to the exclusion of all else or whether our audience had grown restless with worry and weariness and I suspect not a little wrath, we were rudely  interrupted by, you guessed it, a belly full of mire and mirth that could not help but give birth to those that were new again upon this earth.

“Herove you who have hung luckless and listless upon this tree for nine days and nine long nights as we hung about you thankless with frankness, might you give us the benefit of your bequest and let us know that all is well with you and you have not, as I suspect, spent these nine days and nine long nights with your lady and her delights?”

I looked around and then down to find the source of the voice that I verbosed most and looked into the eyes that I had loathed.

I saw at once that he did not quite mean the jest of all he said and that not a small amount of concern wandered with no small weariness upon his features and also that the hint of a smile also tugged and trembled as though it knew not whether to go up or to fall down and accompanied by eyes that looked as though they might pour a deluge of tears either way I was convinced that he held no malice in his heart against either us, or our situation and I left for a moment my former embrace to enjoy for a while the leathery hairy one of another race.

We came together, man and Dwarf and I could feel his love in the insistence of his embrace and I returned it such as I could from my elevated position and all the time Holly’s laughter rang all around.

Then it was time to make again our re-acquaintance and for a time turn aside all the questions that could not be answered, yes we are well and how are you all and yes they were all well, though from their expressions I could see that this was perhaps not quite so, though at this stage I cared not to enquire whether it was due to the darkness below or their suffering wait around my unconscious body and instead embraced them all in turn muttering such words that people are inclined to hear in such situations.

We made our way from under the branches of the tree so that we could see the ocean and there we stood perhaps in a rude silence, though none seemed to berate our behaviour, not even the Dwarf who remained silent, he even went to some lengths to lead the others away where I imagined they stood in the same uncomfortable amity at our backs, perhaps turning their heads to give us the resemblance of silence and muttering amongst themselves in order to give us a resemblance of privacy.

Here I and Holly stood against the expanse of the motionless ocean each in our own thoughts and neither of us ready to bring into this world our experiences of the other. So here we sat silent within ourselves, each perhaps feeling that the union that we had known in the desperate world of the other might not know it’s like in this world and so we remained silent within the clasp of the unconditional ocean.

How long we remained so I dare not say, though it was surely until I felt her eyes upon my features and though fearing to look and fearing not to I turned my eyes also to hers and saw within them all her fears and desperations and the tears that were the product of both.

Then her hands were raising and then falling to my own and she had her hands over mine sighing, guiding them to her and the mystery that was below her breast and there they sat above the warm latent caress of her skin. Through this contact I could feel the ebb of her life within, joined with the ebb of my own without and then as the silence drew out like the time between songs her face fell forward as though to touch my own and she said even as her eyes spilled, “They are here.”

At first I did not know of what she spoke and then feeling the rise and fall of her tummy beneath my clasped and clammy hands and hearing again the last words of Lovelorn I suddenly knew.

All the pain, all the triumph of the other world seemed to coalesce into the feel of her warmth and I too fell forward into her embrace as the life of the twins grew between us.

So this was how it would be. Thinking back to Lovelorn’s departing words and the mystery that they were wrapped in I might have perhaps known that something like this might be on its way, yet never in all the hesitant anxious musings, never in any of the half thought half imagined foretelling’s could I have foreseen this and how I did shake my head in the days to come, half in wonder and half in shock and then later with a bemused smile at how these elusive seemingly abusive words had found again their life within the present to mirror and to prophesies a message from the past, how when I had heard them I had dismissed them and yet here they were encased and secure in a certain reality that had seemed so elusive and uncertain in the age that I had first heard them.

Yet if I could have turned the tide of fate, if I could have wrestled those hours back from God, or turned with struggling arms the great cosmic clock so that I could have had this time again would I have made things different?

Perhaps not and perhaps it was never up to me. Perhaps Holly and I were merrily the tools of those beings that dwelt within the world of the dark river and stretched their genius now and again into the world of man to dapple with and to dip their minds into the diluted convoluted psyche of human kind.

No I could hate them not, not even it seemed if I pooled together my entire wrath into one great conglomerate of bitterness and made them the target of my rage, no, for all of it would disperse like the snow being blown from a winter tree and I would be left alone cloaked within a winter like serenity and a touch of the coming spring that made me look despairingly around just to see if Holly was still there.

Holly. How did she feel about this you ask as you skip through the utterly predictable psyche of the human male and its self obsessed misery and seek the intuitive confines of the sensuous sympathetic female who bears all ills with receptive benevolent grace, and you ask of me to ask of this creature how she came to bear such an un- merciless act of carnal treason and yet you know, yes reader you know too well, you just wish me to fill in your pertinent presumptuousness, to make of this little story your own so that you can say to yourself I told you so, and yes dear reader you are probably right, for only a fool could be wrong.

Holly did indeed take it as her duty and yet this word within the female world does not even convey I believe a fraction of what she felt when she was given the option and made privy to an act that would see her bear two mortal children of unknown origin and an unsure fate into the world and yet even as I question her choice and I ask myself how it could be that one could make it I see that I like those that gave the choice to her realised that there was indeed no choice and she would have boar these two innocent souls be it to the end of the world.

When in that instance, when we had languished within the laughter of stars and in those stars and within space and ourselves we drowned, when the universe had come together for us, she had given her final consent for it to occur and in that instant she had been made privy to her fate and I, as her tears of loss, happiness, or grief spilled from her soul, had not known this, had not comprehended this and perhaps if I had known I could have made that moment right though alas not, though she tells me that she bears me no ill will, can I believe her so?

So reader you know some of the circumstances of our return, though still there is much more and for what I have told there is still equally more.

Now, of the silence and the tears we could disguise little and though neither of us wished to tell this news at such a time we realised that something must be said for ourselves and our journey and because this news item was perhaps of the most importance and as something needed to be done to break the silence that was growing between us all, a silence that had reached such a point that it seemed that if we did not speak soon it would never be filled, so I, in my infinite wisdom blurted out with not a little pride (though  why I should feel such pride I don’t know) that Holly was pregnant with the twins, which strange enough had been reincarnated within her belly and were expected within approximately nine months to the day.

Now of course a new reign of silence was surely insured as our listeners expressions went through the usual smorgasbord of human manifestation to at last settle on a mixture of them all that left everyone on all sides even more confused than they were in our silence and I must thank God now and forever again for the absence of the West Wind which at that crucial moment might have trapped those expressions where they lay and to spend the rest of a voyage with those ridiculous visages might have been the last thing of all the things that had transpired that I could have taken.

So here we all stood funny faces all around as though it were a competition and still that same damnable silence. Now luckily we had the Dwarf to thank for his improper though gross intrusion and at last a bow in thanks to his great belly of mirth.

Throughout the proceedings it had been growing to such a state that his nose was a twitch and his eyes were all but crying out to let the mirth be released and even through the stiffness of his great overcoat it was all but bulging beyond bovines and I was all but about to start chanting burst, burst, burst until finally it did and I tell you the West Wind itself would have been shamed by this great burst of bad air and if we might have harnessed it (the goggled eyed man would have surely known how) we might have had enough of it to get to our destination.

I, being such the brunt of bad jokes and mirthless mirth, may have had enough material from our little trip into the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to supply the dwarf’s mirth for a good month and with a little bit of poetic licence of course we may have produced enough bad air between us to get us back again, though unfortunately as it was all this bad air could only produce its well earned chuckle. It was still welcome though to all our ears and of course now there was no more silence between us and in an instant we were all together the broken bridges repaired and our thoughts and feelings again aired.

Soon, after all the congratulation, configurations had been exhausted and each person had tried to put their own spin on this one simple word until all the minor variants had been used up and it was the fate of the last person to reiterate albeit copy the words of another and to make the occasion seem somewhat more droll and boring than it had first been.

We were able to tell our little story and we did it here beneath the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and as its fading branches spread around we told them our story of the woeful winter of suburbia and all that had passed and after sparing them most of the monotonous details for as you know dear reader you can only reiterate them for a few chapters before the reader is either bored or suicidal, our story was left somewhere within the realms of Casanova meets the Hunch back of Notre Dame though you dear reader at least know that it was not all like this, you who sat or skipped through those monotonous pages.

Now during this time I was given my first opportunity to view the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the outside so to speak and as Holly reiterated the story of her past which I described to you in more elegant words within the chapter, a supermodel with the soul of a poet (flattery I know) I gave myself over to its image.

Well the tree had certainly faded, it now resembled a pale projection of its former self and my great crusaders sword looked more real than real as its hilt emerged from its diaphanous trunk, the goggled mans flying ship was gone from its branches and I was told by the others that one night it had dropped out to be swallowed up by the sea and now the branches were bare of this impurity it resembled more the biblical tree that it was.

The sails which hung from the branches seemed more diaphanous, their edges torn and worn with age and I feared that if they were ever to know a breeze again it would be the end of them such did they hang.

So here the tree stood and still no breeze and still no motion and still the land of the West Wind a world away, so here we were again, the twins returned to us albeit in a strange and novel way and our vessel still suffering from lack of motion.

Now all this time I was listening to Holly, not her words so to speak but the tone and modulation of her voice which was really quite nice, enough so that I could happily ignore her words, which perhaps explains that common female saying ‘Weren’t you listening?’ when of course we were, just not to your words.

During this complacent daydreaming I was meditating upon my next action, which you guessed it, was to pull that sword free, well Gaultherias and Holly both seemed to sense my move for from each I received a look of dire reproach, such that even I was left feeling shamed and as they continued with their dialogue they kept their eyes trained upon me, so I not being able to take such actions joined in with the conversation.

At this stage the woman with the long hair was speaking of how she had tried to rouse me back to consciousness with her violin and I hearing this jumped up at once explaining to her how I, in my suburban prison, had indeed heard it and that for a moment I had known my former freedom and would have cast aside my jail walls if I had not been thrown back into the prison by the company of the dark river and I thanked her once politely and profusely for what she had done and she seemed both glad and embarrassed the same.

The topic then moved on and then on again and while I was both interested and pleased to hear the voices of my friends an unimaginable tiredness, as though the sea had been saving it up for all those days that I was gone, overtook me. Looking towards Holly I saw her in the same state her head thrown back and her eyes so beautiful, even when closed. I suggested to all that we retire inside to eat and then sleep.

As we entered again into the indoors I felt the presence of Gaultherias next to me and looking down I found him looking up and in his eyes I saw the birth of the question which he now spoke.

“Herove it seems that you have achieved more than any of us could have hoped by bringing the twins back to us through the silver door and yet I can not fail to question you about the success of finding your parents, for was not this the great impetuous that set you upon this great journey and yet you speak nothing of it. So I must fear that for all your efforts you still no nothing.”

For a moment I was startled, everything Gaultherias said was true, if it had not been for my parent’s disappearance I would not be here and the West Wind for which all this seemed owing would have not been here. Though I knew that we must still make it to the land for my revelations to be complete I also knew that my reservations, my revelations had become complete a very long time ago.

Perhaps they had had their birth near a year ago when I had set out, perhaps I had seen them as the house fell and I knew in an instant that my parents, like this house, had also fallen, though like the smoke rising from that falling home I had drifted after them sure that there would be something else and selfishly I asked myself for the first time when had this journey become my own and not my parents.

As I looked back over the months and days and smelt again within the dense weave of my hair the smoke that still hung about it I knew it had occurred then, from the first day I had been searching for myself and not my parents.

Gaultherias seemed to understand, perhaps too well, though this seemed to do nothing for the tide of emotion that this dark revelation had brought and I was at once a sombre fool before him and he was embarrassed though surprisingly at ease as though this is what he had expected me to say.

“Herove,” he spoke at once, “you are not the only one to harbour such guilt, you are not the first to find doubt in the reason before your journey has come to its end, the lady with the long hair and even the goggled eyed man, yes even he, have come to me in the last few days with similar concerns and I have appeased them as hopefully I will now appease you.

“You see there is and will always be people within this world who seek strange answers for normal things, and once one normal thing has been appeased by a stranger answer another and another will soon follow and it will seem normal for normal things to be answered with strange answers, and then if that person is like you and like the others upon this ship, the West Wind will come to them and lead them away and once this occurs, well you are indeed at the mercy of yourself and the wind and there is nowhere where each may take you.

“Now it is up to you Herove to rectify your guilt, to come to terms with your parents loss, to use all that you have learnt to achieve your own goals upon this journey for ahead of all of us lies a land that is so strange that none shall speak and it is up to you my son to help us get there.”

With this he gripped my shoulder briefly and was gone into the darkness beyond the door.

I sat there dumbfounded yet strangely serene, what Gaultherias said was perhaps true and though I still felt some stifling sadness for my parents I knew that through this journey as I brought my mind towards other things and new futures much of that sadness had gone and I believed that by the time I stood upon the land that is so strange that none shall speak the rest would have followed.

What then, I asked myself in his departure, was the point of finding this long lost land? What did it mean to me now, if it did not mean the place where I would at last find my parents? And why would I go on to find this place?

Even as I put the question to myself though I knew that I would. I did not know why though, was it the secret behind the West Wind, was it the secret that dwelt behind the silver door, was it the secret behind God?

I felt that I was done with these mysteries and that now I only wished to spend the rest of my days with Holly and our life, that seemed as though it were only beginning, to blossom and to open up like a whole field of happiness and yet for all these wishes an undefinable curiosity seemed to grip me and as I looked westward before following Gaultherias indoors I felt again the touch of the West Wind upon my face.

Inside it seemed all was at it should have been though none would say what had occurred below in the days that I had been gone and if it had not been for that strange mixture of gruesome and glee that lit up the goggled eyed man at my words I would have believed that no one had been down below since that day.

So we made a feast, as I suggested that we use the last of my supplies as I could not stomach again the thought of those machines below and the evil transmutations that they may have gone through in order to produce the food that was available to us above.

It was neither a banquet nor a ball yet it all tasted good the same and of course it did something to rid my pallet of the food of suburbia which had been our fair for so long.

Soon night came to our island and the thought that soon I would have the excuse to take Holly into the hold below made me extenuate my all ready mammoth yawns and dry droning explanations of tiredness until it seemed everyone had more than got my point and were making their own polite yet punctual passage from the room until it was only she and me that were left.

“Well Herove are you not going to invite me to your bed or do you expect me to do as I have always done and invite myself?” She stared at me with her sensuous sultry eyes that contained just a hint of deadly earnest defiance from her position on the other side of the table.

I felt both anxious and afraid, how dare she, does she think that I have not the courage to ask such a thing, does she think that I, who had cleaved the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in twain could not do this little thing she asked?

 I shrugged, smiled and walked as though this were a sufficient answer only to look back to see her anxious, angry and afraid and still where she sat and I was forced to stop. It seemed that she really expected an answer from me and shuffling, stumbling, stammering I gave it as such.

“Will you come to my bed Holly?”

She was up at once all lithe of limb and full of sin and we ran to our place and made of it a sensual disgrace.

Malady

For a fling or for a ring

In truth lies a lie and in lies lies the truth

I awoke before she and was given the grace to smile upon her sleeping form and to caress her in her rest those places that I liked best.

We were free it seemed from that tree and how I would have taken an axe to its trunk if it ever sought to take us back again, though to tell you the truth in the dim morning light the tree seemed such a far off thing, barely something that existed at all and with Holly’s arms around me I was quite happy to let this be.

Now reader at this stage there are many unanswered question and believe me I sympathise with you that this is so, even for me whilst I lived this narrative everything seemed a chaotic unknowable collage of chaos, a place where everything seemed as though it was about to pull itself together only for something new to arise and for it all to fall apart.

I certainly had some queries and many of those were from the girl that was at my side and though I was eager to awaken her to wring those answers from her so to speak I was equally captivated by her sleepy silence and from this decided to quench my own anxiety and to live the morning instead in her sovereignty.

We spent the next couple of hours awaking when the other was sleeping until finally we synchronised our wakefulness and meekness and were able to talk together again and for this I must reiterate just how much she astounded me.

I mean as I looked at her and saw this beautiful form that seemed to be filled with coy cute cuddliness, where every motion and movement seemed designed to please and to put me at a sensual ease and then to realise that this thing is alive. That within this body dwells a unique living, breathing, feeling human spirit with all its own fears, hopes, failures and secrets, a being that was born and that will die and will soon give birth to more delightful creatures of the same! What could be more amazing!

As I stared at her, mouth agape perhaps as though she were just a little too amazing for her own liking, she batted me with her fist in fun loving playfulness and it was then that our discussion was able to begin.

First though dear reader you must excuse the clumsy recollection of this dialogue for while at this time I may have been given the inspiration to ode a thousand boons of love and adoration that may have revealed cupids own, I of course spent this time listening only to her sighs, her eyes, the sweep of her hair and her lies, the rise of her breast at a sentences rest and the fall of it again at a sentences crest, let the poetry please for a time, let the poetry rest.

After she had woken for a time I allowed her to bathe in the anxiety of my hidden expectation, to lay silent and serene within the confusion of a dream and to be the seam that separates the seen from the unseen.

She lay there as though she sensed the words that I might utter; she gave to me the silence that became the comfort of a mother. And what would I say to her within this morning light; how I would I shape the words so that they neither seemed inquisition nor accusation but purely the icing upon my minds perambulations? How could I give to these words the flavour to curb and not to perturb? For I knew that the secrets she had might never be mine.

Could I live with her in kind knowing that this was her design and yet to her I must be true, even if the words were steered by a spiteful crew.

“Well Holly,” I began and then paused as though this was all I was to say before catching my thoughts and continuing on my way, “I hope you slept well and though I would very much like to save this matter for another time, this is all and all only upon my mind. You seemed to have been made privy to a lot that I don’t know and the mystery of these things I would like to know, will you tell me not what happened when you came within the dark river and how it was with you.”

She rolled from her side to her back her arms spreading back as though reaching for memories and then swinging forward again to rest above her stomach as though from this place she would instead reap her reminiscence and on her face an expression as though measuring those memories against my need to know them, to whittle away the time as she held me sway before at last she would have her say.

“Herove,” she began, “I remember much of this as though it were but a faint dream, for you see I had not the experience you had with this place and it seemed such a place of nightmares and dreams and for all my time there I saw no great beauty I only saw great horror and this force seemed to be so intimately interwoven with myself that I could not tell either of them apart.

            “I do however remember being immersed within the great river, but it was not as you so adeptly described it, as a soothing turmoil of creation, but alas for me a terrible turmoil of destruction. I remember feeling like I was drowning as though it were all too much and I saw the visions that you described, but alas these visions showed to me the transience of ideas and I watched them as they were disgraced, dismembered and discarded to drift forever down and down.

“I watched them as they became heresy and history, spiralling down into purgatory and I cried out to these poor things that seemed as though they had their own little lives within this world, but alas they could not hear me and were soon gone.

“I drifted like this with the horror of their deaths all around then Lovelorn came to me and wrapped herself around me and bore me to a place that seemed quiet and serene, though here too there was also darkness and she told me such words to comfort me, that you were well and soon to the earth I would be returned and that be it my will it could be with you and all this made me happy, yet still the darkness was around, a darkness that I could not ignore and yet Lovelorn with her words tried and I was grateful enough to listen.

“She told me that the twins were dead, torn and twisted below by the darkness within the black tree and that now as I had decided they were within me, to me was given the chance to make them be and if I said yes I would carry them within me as though they were my own and bear them as though they were my own.

“I knew these twins in the words that you had used to describe them and I had seen the love you held for them in the way that you strived to find them and could I not have done anything else, and then they seemed to be inside me instantly, as though they had always been.”

With this she rolled again towards me, twisting to face me, imploring and adoring me and I could not give to her anything else but my kiss of courage and consolidation and my eyes that were filled with her and gratification and then she rolled as though what she had to say next was not for my eyes but my ears only. I agreed yes with in that horrible turmoil of the dark river, I agreed yes as Lovelorn had me do.

Oh Lovelorn, for the choice you made I will thank you many times as I have done already, yet still there is much that confounds me about the dark river and the intentions of the geniuses who dwell there. I do not understand the way that we have unwittingly become the tool of their desires to be wielded against the mind of God and for this I can only feel some kind of acute and cruel unease that seems to strive irrationally against their actions and all they say.

Though I must say while part of me riles with them against this despotic dogmatic ruler that they seek to suffocate and overthrow I cannot help but feel within me some kinship with this being that seemed so gentle and loving and so full of a gentle acceptance of all and everything around it, a being that seemed to be crying out with all the pain of this mad world. A being that spoke to me with the soul of this world that if I accepted him into my heart all that was contradictory would be made constant, all that was contrary would be made comparable and I would no longer look out into a world of opposites, but a world that was united in his presence, my mind and spirit nurtured and made naive under His care.

“Holly if you could enlighten me to your revelations upon this conundrum and give thought and voice to what you yourself saw and witnessed within the dark river, if we could bring together our experiences and our intuitions perhaps we might make together a feasible explanation and put together a foreseeable plan so that we can bring to this ship, to this world, to ourselves no more harm, then I think that this is what we should do.”

“Herove, I agree with you most heartily for I sense your confusion and your frustration in the same sense that I know my own. We have been made a tool of and whether knowingly or unknowingly those within this dark river gave us choices based upon there own wishes and then placed us within the tangled web of their own contrary views to deceive us I know not, but I do feel that the repercussions of our decisions will affect us and all those around us, so for this we must be specially wary.

“I myself feel no great desire to express my views as they are now in their infancy and yet I cannot deny speaking of that part of me that senses within this conundrum as you put it an intuitional truth. While I was in this dark river I told you that I saw these ideas not as you did, as great works of human art and understanding, but instead as transient, trembling translations that were doomed to be swept aside in the wake of history and progress and yet while I could not grasp the beauty of these ideas as they were I could find it in myself the ability to grasp and to respond to their source which seems to be the immortal striving for understanding and the betterment of the human spirit.

“I could and can still love a human spirit that strives even if it is vainly for understanding, for the nurturing of ambiguous beauty and creative life within this universe and I believe that this above all deserves and has the right to its own ending and no despotic, dogmatic dictator has the right to take from man his imagination and his freedom. No being has the right to stop man from finding within the universe and himself the pathway to his own understanding and to block the bridge to his own free will.

“As for our role within this turmoil I do not know, I took the responsibility of the twins lives to myself irrespective of everything else for I cannot look at this action as anything less than good and even if the devil had offered up their souls to my care to be reborn again within this world I would have made the same decision I made then and yet I still fear for their future as I fear for our own.

“The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is indeed dying and if it is still as you say that the darkness within this ship and this world is growing then something must be done and the way I see it one of three things can occur, either the tree of evil grows and grows until human kind is consumed by its hunger, or God is allowed to come again to reassert his dominance over the human spirit, or man is allowed the grace to continue his own personal quest for his own enlightenment in whichever way he feels the need and for this my heroic one, this will be the option for which I will strive.

“Now Herove, you know my past of wanton, waste and ruin, you know from where I came and you perhaps will have a hand in where I go and I would hope that this would be so. Though Herove you must know that there are still things, many things that I have kept from you, things that are perhaps no more nor no less than those small secrets that any woman would keep from her man, though still they are things, small things that might forever live upon the borders of conscious thought.

“Things that are always afraid and hesitant to enter upon the world of word and reality though which through their presence, or more correctly lack of presence influence all that brush past them and contaminate all thoughts that light upon them and like a small rise in an otherwise flat expanse of forest the cold wind will always find its way to them and one day like all small secrets and hidden truths they may well come to be more than what they are now much like a small grave covered by snow is lain bare in the spring.

“Though it might be Herove that one day when the world is ready you to might know these small truths, one day I might give to you the last of myself, the last of my lies, and on that day I will hang my head in shame between us and perhaps on that day you might lift it up to your eye and look at me as you look at me now.”

She said this with a small smile, as she raised her hand to silence my lips and she continued as though she had never meant to pause.

“Though I must let you know that these secrets are not the worst of what could be,” she paused as though she meant to pause to look again at me, “and even as you quake in fear before me I must let you know, for the worst that could be would be for these secrets to become lost pale and insignificant things that are merrily the foundations for more of their kind to be built upon, until they become the soul of all that we have been and this would be the worst of all.

“Now I see you implore me with your eyes, eyes that would have adored me not so long ago, as full of sorrow and hurt as they are now. I see you as though you might rent these secrets from me, even if the barbs of their stings might rent from you all the love that you know for me and yet you would still do this to yourself and to us. I also see by your expression your need, for you think foolishly like I that without a foundation a mountain of lies can never be made and perhaps you are right, yet it cannot be, for these secrets are not for you now, and you must ignore their presence and trust me with their care, for you see for now these secrets are not for me to give, they are within my care and I will guard them perhaps as I have never guarded any other facet of my virtue in all my life.

“Herove I shall do this until it is time and whether that time is in the hey day of love and life, or during the merciful mastery of eternal sleep those secrets will be mine.

“Herove I do not wish to bring you pain, not today nor within the future, but…”

The heart of a girl, while not altogether a fickle thing, knows the passage of time more so than any creature within this universe for she dies a little more each day in the eyes of man, for each day she gives to others, to the world, her children, to her man the one thing that she would wish to keep unto herself that is her youth and her eyes as they abound in the spring time of her youth. So that at the end of her days, all that she has kept to herself is her secrets.

Now this eulogy was quite a spill and for its young listener who had been transformed from a creature of excitement, eagerness and anticipation into a state of tepid, terror filled trepidation it was so much more and as I wove together the threads of her conversation into a tapestry that would better suit and cloak my own understanding, as I draped this tapestry around my shoulders, searching all the time its dense weave for a hole that would allow me to send it back to her so that she might be forced to concede and admit to its poor workmanship and its unfair attempt at getting an honest answer from a poor man, she instead, of course came at me and pulled the dense weave of my tapestries understanding over both our shoulders.

She stretched its finely woven fabric to accommodate us both as though it would be torn and then as her lips descended towards my own it at last gave way with the resounding resonation of a kiss and we fell down together between its wearied weave and its dark sleeves and no more would there be any truth that I would believe or not believe.

I awoke later, Holly still slept at my side and as I rolled closer to her, as I looked upon her I could see again as I had done that first night the dark scar upon her back. Well it was not so very large a scar, yet dark it seemed and it sat perhaps like a shallow dark puddle, or a relic of remnant rain that had fallen during the night and that for whatever reason had refused to dissipate with the day and here it sat within the curvature of her spine, dark and knowing, staring at me as though with a secret promise.

The flesh of it and around it still seemingly smooth and healthy and yet it still had this dark light and even though I had guessed what it was the first time that I had seen it I still could not quite believe that it could be so and I found my self unknowingly moving one of my hands towards this place as I believed I had never done before.

I knew that I must have surely brushed this spot in our love making perhaps many times as my hands caressed that silky smooth expanse of her back and yet I could not believe that this had been so, for even now I felt a great misgiving about this place, a misgiving that I knew that my frigid fingers must have known before.  I also believed that occasionally my hands had been moved, relocated, returned with her own to another perhaps more enticing, more obvious treat when I in my passion had forgotten to be wary of its touch. So it was certainly strange that now that my hands found their way to it.

I moved hesitantly at first and then with more confidence up from her narrow waist following her spine as it bisected her flesh in a way that is so human and as my hands moved she gave only the softest of sighs and moaned just a little bit deep within her pillow and as my hands moved like lace upon her back they gradually came closer and closer.

For a moment they tested the perimeter of the stain, moving over that part of her flesh that was still fresh, though that would over an infinite space blend into the darkness and as I moved my fingers around her flesh, her flesh seemed to raise within itself as though in protest to halt my hand with small frail goose bumps that seemed to herald some type of mild unease.

Though my hand moved over these easily captured by this new texture and as they spiralled around and around the seemed to be trapped within a whirlpool of their own making until it seemed all my will and the eyes directing them closed now with the familiarity of the flesh beneath were being led into the centre of it. Her arms as well seemed to be moving against me, as they tried to rise up and out of the grip of sleep to stop me and all this time she seemed to be trying to vocalise her protest with whimpering lonely cries that fell against me like some dark music that seemed to rise from my finger bow upon a discordant violin.

Then as though from a far off distance I could hear a voice rising in protest and I could not tell whether it was hers, my own, or a voice from the past that had made the same sound to stop another touching what should not be touched, and then my hands were within the centre tasting with their tips the darkness beneath and it was as though from her bones the flesh had gone and instead within her a molten ice core came so that my fingers were taken into, firstly to the wrist and then to my arm until the icy cold consciousness of this stain took my own and I fell into its aged old world.

I awoke amidst a darkness that was as absolute as that which must persist deep within the earth, in the crowded stalagmite and stalactite hallways of subterranean covens, in place where the air smells of the deep old earth and the stagnation of prehistoric times.

It was also as though I sat within a dim theatre where the crowd is ushered in by the primordial darkness of cupped candle moments before the curtain is raised to reveal the synthetic light of suns and the crowd is at last allowed the breath that it had been holding. 

Though a small light did appear as though to herald the metaphorical expectancy of my own imagination it was not a fraction of the light that a sunlit day would have provided, even when viewed from the seatings of the most destitute theatre, or the most overcast of twilight eves, or through the rank rain of rhyme ruined mornings and yet this light was still enough for me to see by and  amidst its dim illumination a diminutive scene opened before me and I let my breath go like the expectancy of an audience before the advent of the opening scene.

By the grey light of this night I could make out a landscape of ruined relief, a place of ugliness and disbelief, oh I knew this place, until the end of my days I would always recall this disgrace, forever I would deplore it and here it was and no longer could I ignore it. Oh why should I be back here at the time when this place seemed so far away?

As I gazed away into the silence of my own laminations, as I searched the silent solitude of this places horizons, I witnessed movement whether upon or within my mind and from a deep gross grotto its sides dripping with mud and sorrow I saw a figure move upon the silence of the landscape, to fall upon the dishevelment of lands rape and to tremble and to crawl against the fractured skyscraper, to raise its head as though to implore and then to fall as though to ignore and then to crawl and to crawl and crawl.

Oh I knew long before this dishevelled creature came into sight who it would be, I could see in the same way that the head seemed to throw itself back as though under the impetuous of its own weight, as though to throw from itself the weight of its own ideas, to expose the passion of its own throat.

Had I not seen those same arms writhing as they did now against the merciless silkiness of white sheets, as they did now against the foul grip of sunken stinky mud and wind flung sleet, had I not heard that same cry tear itself from all sensible vocalisation as much in delight as it was now in disdain and pain and had I not seen those eyes so stark white and rolled within their olive skin fold, had I not stared into them as she moved around me as we lulled.

Here she was, it seemed though as she was before or as she now was in a dream I could not tell, she moved with disarranging unease she moved upon her elbows and knees and of course I knew her course, where else but before the dark tree and its curse?

There it was, darker than the sky and the dark that lived within the whites of her eyes. It rose stunted yet proud and not a smooth conjuncture, or symmetric appose could be found, it was of course jagged like blunt blight knives, its branches crooked and clawing at the sky and then she was before it as I had once been, though I could not know whether this was reality, a vision, or a dream.

She lay there for a while bleached and broken by the dark sky and the mud and then as though hearing a voice that I could not hear, as though hearing the voice that I will always fear she went first to her knees her head hanging down, her hair falling long dark and free, she hung her head like this for a while before the dark tree and it was then that I saw her smile.

She raised her head and there indeed was her smile, sad and bitter it made me feel vile, it transformed the beauty of her face, took from it all its grace, oh God this was how it had been, this was not, was not a dream.

It was then that I heard words, words of weariness worry and woe from her flaccid face did they go, soon to be returned from the tree that God had spurned and the revelations oh to God how I wish I had not heard.

Here she was between words between worlds

Her body cradled and felled

Her soul trapped and held

Her eyes blind and veiled

Her thoughts withheld

Her thoughts withheld

Embraced by stagnation, lamination and mire

The death of passion and the loss of desire

Her heart strings strummed upon deaths lyre

Cold dark embers were once a red warm pyre

Will her heart again sire?

The wanton promise of fire?

 She sat splayed upon the grass

Draped in white and everlast

The sky above her blue and vast

Not a shadow upon her cast

She is the future present and past

To a silver tree she holds fast

Her body swayed upon profanities bed

To the gallows her purity led

A hessian sack about her head

Blow flies bonfires and the unsaid

Ashen skies the sun bled

Lies from forked tongues her mind fed

Is she alive or is she dead?

To the dark tree wed

Has the dark tree fed?

Her body draped upon purities shore

Her heart awash with loves lore

Her body seraphims adore

Femininity freed from the whore

She now dwells beyond the silver door

Her body nurtured by the earth below

Fertilised by blood and rime washed snow

Her heart the soil from which doubt will grow

 Is she the hoe, is she the hoe?

That all men know, that all men know

Her body emancipated in angels sighs

Her breasts firm and high

Between her legs the lie

Of Gods rage and natures guise 

Her eyes reflect heavens sky

With her arms she can fly

Natures jewel the angels cry

The daughter of man the angels sigh

From this sundered garden bed

Which grows the blackened stalks of the dead

Her soul awash and nurtured by dread

Upon the last of her hope were they fed

Upon her flowers and flesh were wed

From her body did blood flowers thread

The soil of heaven a nurturing place

The light of heaven upon her face

Within her breast the seeds place

Born of life love and grace

Woven flowers like lace

Sprouting surmounting her bodies taste

Around and crowned the secret place

Forget me nots they wove and race

Strangle and entangled they encase

Her naked body in petalled perfumed lace

These flowers they wove and writhed

From them thorns did thrive

And into her heart did their roots dive

And from her mouth her heart strived

From her soul came a cry

And from her lips came a lie

And from mine a sigh

Goodbye my love

Goodbye

How does one believe with out belief?

I saw her fall for the last time, her body could not sustain its statutory posture any longer and as pitiful as this posture seemed propped up on the mud, reaching in support for the tree she detested most, her fall was more pitiful still, such a sad yet final thing this unconscious action, there seemed so much in this insentient movement, as though the last of something hugely important was now gone forever and yet it was as though what had been lost was lost at such a cost that it was made final in its triumph.

I was forced then to rejoice with her bodies fall, for no longer was she at its helm and I followed its motion with the jumping fugitive twitches of my own body like the way a sleeping body follows the movements of its dreaming counterpart.

I was forced to respond to the mud as hers did as it finally found its rest, as though her and I were some how connected across this length of indefinite space and here as her body lay silent and dead I at last was able to reflect with the dispassion of the observer that at the heart of this movement there dwelt the last resemblance of gratification though to the remembrance of satisfaction and deep for some unknown reason some kind of indefinite elation.

Now you ask me of the words that caused her lapse, the words that sent her body falling, and the words that had my mind stalling. I try to recall them now though I know them as though they were scrawled with fire upon my mind as I can still feel the ashes of them within my weeping eyes and upon my twisted terrified tongue as they dry the moisture from lips throat and gum and I realise that it is only the hesitancy of my unconscious mind that tries to hold them aloft from me, perhaps so I can be free, yet I wrestle with this other mind, for your sake I tear them free hoping maybe that it will not submit this time, that it might reduce these syllables at least to a stuttering mumbling cry of woe that even I cannot understand and after a while it will drown and go, this memory and the syllables that hold them with new worries and greater woes, though I know that this will never be so, so here it goes, here it goes.

Before Holly fell, after she had given all her strength in defiant defence of what we all know, after she had crawled to her end with her sweet soft knees and her rapturous round arms, as her breasts and belly had become sullied with the slippery sludge of slime and rime, after her eyes had become filled with slime, when at last she had come as far as she could come, when she at last raised her head to the black one, this is what she said, from this page it can be read, “Herove you say is his name and I to be his bane.”

Words committed to memory can be made obsolete in an instant, they can be torn and transformed into twisted tongues and from them the last of what memory is can be rung, yet for me to commit these words to a page, forever will they hold my gaze, forever unto the grave.

Now as I stare down upon her fallen body smitten by fear, disillusion and perhaps regret, as I searched that body for something that I knew, something that I could still cherish and give its due, as I made to myself a long list of just justifications and logical deliberations could I find still between us some kind of elation? She was of course as she had always been and despite the mud of this lonely strange world and the strangled light that was constricted by the trees darkest shadow that seemed to fall upon her as it did upon everything here, I believed regrettably yet gratefully that yes, I could still find something within her to love.

 I adored her limbs languishing against the mud all the impetuous of movement lost from their care, the eyes closed and silent their stare, yes for this I would still care and then as the moment stretched out into an eternity that was coming to an end, as I felt my mind grow more aware, as I felt everything speed up as though it were trying to reach its predetermined conclusion before I woke I saw the dark tree reach down from trunk to crown and touch her back and everything was then blurring deterring and I was turning and the touch of the dark tree upon her back I was spurring.

We chased each other back towards consciousness and yet as my mind ran on and on faster and faster it was she who returned first. While my mind was still languishing between worlds and their twin spells, while my head was raising and my eyes slowly opening she was already conscious and composed before me, astute and alone as though this is how she would always be.

The spell of this other place was upon me and as I watched her dimly taking in all that she had now become and sadly perhaps all that she would always be I felt the old fear and trepidation of that other place upon me and for a moment it seemed to grip all that I was with such an astute sense of bereavement and loss that I cowered from the world and from her and myself and then it was gone and only she remained.

She knelt not far from me and if I were to speak to her as I soon would she may very well have been close enough to feel the first intonation of my spoken syllables upon her face, to feel the intimate breath first perhaps upon her skin even before she could grasp the breaths meaning upon her mind and perhaps in those small moments when she might have involuntary gasped and taken in those syllables she might have sensed intuitively, chemically the words that were soon to come, the words that would break upon her mind like wind blown waves upon sandcastle fortifications and send her minds sands back into the cool calamity of my sea.

For the moment however I remained silent, perhaps only to languish within this voluntary silence of our making, perhaps to gather the words that I would send like involuntary arrows towards her heart as I watched the wounds bleed with small satisfaction from her eyes, and perhaps I waited only because I knew not what else to do and to dwell within this silence that would only be voluntary for so long seemed something and I knew that that something would soon come to an end.

I also believe that I wanted to savour this moment to perhaps discern within this silence and the silence of her expression her own feelings and thoughts before I swamped all that she was with my ocean of omnipotence, my sea of silent suffering.

From her expression I could discern at least something, her eyes it seemed had lost all hint of their mischievousness and looked out from her soul with only a dim remembrance of life and around them sparkling like so many jewels in the congenial cup of her eyes a harrowed hint of silent sorrow, or impending indignation that seemed to be brimming with an unfair feminine satisfaction, all this was cast low in the inevitable shadow of her brow, that was again shadowed by the fall of midnight that was her hair.

I knew at once that she had known that I was there as she had made her pledge before the dark tree, I knew that through that strange connection that we had shared at that moment my presence had been made known to her and through the look in her eyes I could here even now that pledge sound itself again as though from the silence of her lips.

Her mouth had lost its invitation to be kissed and seemed to be silently wrathful that it had ever given such an impression and by the lines that I had never noticed before at the corners of her cheeks some sort of tension was present, though as my eyes found hers this was gone and her expression became merrily sad and rudely bored as though she had sat through all this many times before.

Her body was enwrapped within its own possession as though the only one that had sovereignty to it was her and her alone and with her arms she made of her breasts and the heart that beat beneath them precious presents that she held to herself. Her elbows fell like slim points to her belly as though what was here she would possess for herself too and I at once thought her greedy and spiteful and cursed silently to myself this show. 

Her legs were so curled up beneath her that I could never imagine them softly unfurling and it was as though spring would never again come to these limbs and for this I felt the most lost and my first words as I witnessed all that I loved retreat from me dwindled and dried up upon my tongue.

The silence grew between us for neither of us would speak and then after a while when the apprehension had reached such a piquet climax that I could no longer bare it I realised that she was about to go and as the first of her intentions moved through her coiled limbs and flashed within the clarity of her eyes and her hair began the first of its whiplash motions that would follow the movement of her head I reached instinctively to grab her arm.

I felt for a moment the soft warmth of her wrath warmed skin and the benevolence of the bones beneath and the thin ligaments that held her all together and that fragility of femininity that always shocks me and makes me relax the passion of my embrace as I relaxed my embrace then.

She then turned again back the other way, her hair scolding my face as though it held all its owners indignation within it and her features turned to me were all rage and unholy fire. Her body in an instant possessed its own rude form of masculinity, becoming as hard and as proud as any warriors and her arm following the arc of her hair fell upon my face and in the clap of its resonation my mind fled back to another time such and as the warmth spread out from its epicentre I gazed into her eyes and saw within their depths a darkness that had been ignited by fire and then she was falling, softening as though this action had bled her of all effort and like she did under the dark tree she fell down reaching out in an instant to the one she had so detested, the one in whose arms she had rested.

I then with my masculine arrogance, with my masculine acceptance caught her up and went to hold her close yet she would not have this either and she fell away from me, her body seemingly all loose and uncoordinated as it toppled into and unto itself before it fell from the bed as though she would escape this communal place, this place of her disgrace and with one last look that was filled with a maniacal madness half of grief, half of wrath and some unknowable truth that cannot be named she fell and fled from the room gathering up her clothes in a last act of modesty or a last act of defiance and she was gone, her shadow hesitating and then chasing slowly after her as mine retreated and depleted fell upon my fallen form and hugged it tight.

It seemed that I was not to be allowed the sweet to suffer sanctuary of my own company for as her shadow departed another shadow seemed to have instantly taken its place and while my mind was making its first anxious steps in the wake of her momentum which had not corresponded as you might have hoped to an epic chase that ended in  passionate embraces that broke all narrative proportion, but had became instead an anxious disturbed rejection of all that had occurred and a great need to never again be disturbed.

So it was with little wonder as I raised my eyes to this untimely intruder I was able to look into her expression as though it were a reflection of my own and read in her eyes the sorrow and anger that was in my own my and then to see hers soften in regard to my own and feel mine do the same just so that she would know and she turned her head the way she had gone to let me know that she knew and thought no wrong and that it was up to me to be strong and that this could not go on for long.

Within her gaze as it suffered forth like the departing shadow of my beloved I was able to read an uncertain anguish that seemed more than it should have been, it manifested itself as though poring from her eyes into all her limbs,  it gathered itself and then diluted itself through every porus part of her that was receptacle to its touch and as I watched her being sag and become strangely silent as though something in my beloveds wake had also torn something from her, I was at a loss to know why this could be.

Before I could take in all that she had become she seemed to gather herself with a monumental effort and resume the pose that was more akin to her, a pose of a relaxed passiveness that’s core was sombre though with edges that gleamed like wind warmed coals that danced with the fire of frivolity and before I knew it her eyes became clear of their torment and were turned to me and within their silent depths I at once caught an inkling of the words that were soon to come, words that suppressed though that did not fully obscure her sombre core, yet seemed to ignite those fiery edges that I had thought that only the sound of her violin could truly do.

Hear amidst the winds raw

A silver sword, a lustful whore

Music’s compatriot and a bore

A lone dwarf

A raven’s caw 

A gull on the wind forbore

A revelation of hidden law

 An end that the genius dead foresaw

 The tree that was made by ignorance and woe

So that from it the universe’s understanding would grow

To be built and let wilt in knowledge’s twilight

And within the mind of Gods might

Within the garden of earthly delight

Against the door to night

The olden unconscious plight

To be burnt up in the dawns blessed light

“Herove you must come, the tree has changed,” she uttered in one excited running together of words and the breath that she expended in their wake that was then sucked back into herself, my silence did more to exemplify the situation than the situation itself did and I found myself forgetting my previous predicament as I never thought I would and before I knew it this tree that I had tried to ignore and had done so with so much ease in the arms of my beloved, once again became the pillar that my existence seemed to hang from, the pillar of undeniable truth and all so tempting uncertainty that my mind was hung upon and I was up and out of the room pushing past her and out the door.

Such was my motion that I gained the deck in an instant, all my known and unknown anxieties battling feverishly and wantonly for the possession of my soul gave me the strength that I had never known before and I flew with the fortitude of God towards my destination.

I now had some concrete outlet for all my fears and indecisions and with this I would lay to rest all my fears, hopes and misgivings concerning Hope.

Within a heart beat I was in front of the tree, the rest of the crew silent around me as I fell into a gap as though it were left for me like the last piece of a puzzle sliding into its place.

At first I did not see what it was that the lady had spoken of and then as I followed all other eyes towards their destination I came to know what all the others knew and then when I had, I wondered how I could have missed it before. The tree was of course its  luminous transparent self as though it dwelt between dimensions, between worlds and it seemed as though it would take only a small shift in the light from one for it to finally disappear from the other, though of course this was not all, this of course was as it had been since I had returned, this character was merely a transmutation within its substance that we had all been anticipating, a change in its form that our conversation was constantly acknowledging yet negating, but for this other change, this was something more.

Upon one of these translucent branches as it dipped down as though under the heavy weight of its new burden sat something that I had not believed possible. The branches burden sat as though it had chosen to dip to the height that eyes and hands could easily follow but could not easily reach towards so that in its position it made of itself the greatest of temptations a sumptuous jewel that dwelt  to tempt the receiver, a jewel that required only the slight stretch of the achillis, that shift of weight upon precipitous toes, that desperate craning of cranium, that reaching of arm into the heavens and that desperate creaking and straining of limb accompanied by that not altogether unpleasant loss of balance to be gained and in its position it became to us all a symbol which is the unquenchable unquestionable provocation of everything that humans strive towards with lust filled eyes and reach for with our lust filled limbs, all the things that we reach towards be it the unbalancing of the world.

The prize, and had I not seen it I would never have guessed that it could be, though after I had seen it I could see that it could not have been anything else and the way it had appeared could not have happened in any other way. I fell to my knees upon the bone white deck in worship of the neat simplicity of this being that stood before me for upon this ghastly apparition that wavered and flickered like a desperate projection of another reality so ready to lose itself within the trembling permutations of the invisible ether, hung the glossy red spherical shape of an apple and not after nor before have I ever witnessed the condensation of nature into such a perfect form that’s unblemished yet uneven surface seemed to carry within its structure the unquestionable superiority of nature over the intellect of man.

As the last of the sun made its wearisome yet resolved way to its house beneath the sea the last of its rays danced upon the soft ever so edible skin of that apple and before the light from this apple could disappear amidst the myriad of light that was the ocean all around it gave some of its reflective satisfaction to the three sets of eyes that worshipped it and within those eyes there began to grow a certain longing for the skin of the fruit that surrounded it and the juices that dwelt within it and for all the other characters that make an apple an apple.

Gaultherias perhaps being the most hedonistic of them all, especially in his thorough appraisal of all culinary delights, thought and quite rightly so that this apple could well be the best one he had seen and even now he could envision its taste to such a degree that he began to pick at the imaginary bits of apple that might have strung between his teeth after he had finished it. He did this with such an absent minded and thoughtful expression that anyone around him might have presumed he had indeed eaten an apple.

The lady with the long hair, typically with her ears tuned to all forms of sensation that can be accurately attributed to sound and being the case she could only imagine the delicate crisp sound of its flesh rendering under a bite and such was her intimate and rewarding marriage to sound that she would have been just as satisfied to hear the sound coming from some one else’s great greedy gob!

The goggled eyed man of course could only view this apple as he had viewed everything else and by the current perambulations of his erratic clockwork mind he thought first that within this apple he might be able to taste the juice of a fruit as it was before the fall and the next thought that perhaps if he were to consume this fruit he might find immortality locked inside and then the next thought arguably the most predictable that if he were to plant those tiny black seeds arranged in the form of the pentagram he could grow his very own orchid of good and evil and commit these trees to such wondrous empirical studies that by the second generation he would certainly resole this dilemma of good and evil firstly for mankind and then for himself and gain both the noble prize for science as well as the production of a commercial crop that had its own incredibly marketable gimmick.

If the twins had been there, no doubt due to their somewhat diminished stature they would have been forced to point and cry up to the apple in a child’s helpless longing though no doubt only moments before one climbed upon the others shoulders and with a half balancing half falling motion was able to swipe the apple from the tree which would then be eaten at once with all the aforementioned attributes ignored save for red, yummy mine, of course not before dividing it equally between them and saving a quarter for Herove if he were lucky enough to show up.

Herove on the other hand had mixed views of the tree for on one hand the fruit seemed to be as it was perhaps to Adam before that fateful day when he ate unto the apple but he, perhaps unlike Adam, felt such a loathing for this fruit and all its wicked emanations of evil that though he was captivated by its sight he also could not bear the sight of it.

Herove’s thoughts, perhaps because he knew the tree of the knowledge of good and evil more intimately than the others, centred the most on the fact of what the apple was and what it could mean, though instead of approaching it as he had approached every other problem upon this ship, that is with crusaders sword swinging, he shied away perhaps justifiably, perhaps cowardly from this fruit and all that it symbolised, to such a degree that Gaultherias would have had no fear that Herove would do anything voluntarily to disturb its pendulum like motion as it sat so provocatively on its branch like perch.

If Holly were here assembled amidst her beloved and her new friends as perhaps she should have been, what would she have done? Being Holly it is hard to say, being a female it is even harder to say for one moment the capricious fancy to eat the apple just because it is there and just because it is red and if she ate it no one else could have it could have been enough, though if the apple had caught her in a dissimilar mood she might have had such a feeling of private yet apparent compassion for this one apple that hung so delicately so that it in an instant metaphorically yet unconsciously mimicked in some uncertain way the mother like state of the universe, an apple which could be upset at any time by the smallest of greedy hands or the most gentle of well meaning breezes that she would have thought it a horrible act to take from this tree its one and only fruit.

So for all these unique individuals the apple was something different yet it still somehow managed to stay the same and what this same was we shall soon see.     erove H      

What’s in the wind?

 I breathe the winds

And exhale a breath

Fetid air garbage dumps

Swamps thick with mire

The leaves spiral around

Will its seed find clean ground?

Eden oh Eden beauty wrought

At what cost shall it be bought

Sensual suffering unearthly pull

Be for her Gods fool

Take the apple upon your tongue 

Lets its juices like blood run

Let its flesh be that of your mate

And the universal fate

Of courageous crusaders swords

Divine right and holy wards

  Of a storm to come and a dark lord

And a dark river to forward

As we gazed with our own unique wonder at this glistening fruit that had its own unique identity in each of our eyes we all came to the conclusion that while this fruit meant something subjectively different to each of us, it also possessed its own unique and infinitely precious identity and while our own appraisals were lighting our own interpretation of this fruit they were equally cloaking the unique identity of the true fruit and for all our pale and pensive powers of perception we knew that we would never be able to discern what that identity was.

We stood each in our own anxious excited universes, each one made a statue in the silent throes of his or her own silent imaginations. Statues, captured and enraptured by the apple standing as though transfixed by a truth that was more true than the sun and sky that surrounded us and for a time each of us gave up our need to live, or even to acknowledge these things that had born testimony to all that we now were and what we would some day become.

Instead we gave all our energy to that fruit that dangled on its tiny filamentous stalk and glittered red under the shameless licentious sight of those that beheld it and gave each to us a portion of itself for which it held us.

None amongst us seemed likely to break the spell of its appearance in front of us and the ship and we were seemingly frozen in time because of it and the tree that had bore it so that for an infinite moment, when all gazes hung upon it, it seemed anything could have happened.

Then someone spoke and it seemed that only this could have happened and we were each torn from our own private version of heaven and hell to behold the one who had spoken.

The speaker seemingly materialized out of nowhere to appear at the base of the tree and her voice, her posture, every sensual detail of her desired anatomy that slinked with the sensuous grace of a snake said to us, want me, covert me, have me and each of us was drawn towards this figure captured by her words, ensnared by her spell, wanting what each of us could surely not have.

She moved forward, her hands running with their own sensual life over the tree, caressing it with her softness before they were gone from it so that it seemed that the tree, even in its vegetable like apathy, was crying out for the caress to go on as each of our eyes also cried out for it to go on.

She was before us, almost amongst us, favouring us all with the sleepy sweep of her eyes that were twin pulls of unfathomable dark reverence that each would fight the other to drown in, she was before us, her body slinking with the purely animal cunning of the lover and the fighter, all things in synchrocy in some exciting harmony that all of us wanted to become entangled in.

She was before us and never had her body been this natural, neurotic, erotic, a marvel, so that it was possessed by the word wanton and with this world she made of each of us her slave.

Her words came again, a seemingly incoherent slur of syllables that slid like silk against each of our own private sufferings so that we were again slaves for her.

“Herove and company,” she spoke as she gave to me her twin pools of unfathomable reverence, though in them I could now see such wrath enwrapped in such want that I shied away from them and with this her laughter rung out amongst the darkness of the heavens that now surrounded the ship and if this darkness had to have a sound then this sound would be her laughter and her laughter and the dark made such a marriage in those heavens that they seemed as hell.

“I bring you greetings my fellow men upon this fallowed voyage, and greetings too from all that dwelt in and beneath this tree.”

Each of us in our own private appraisal, in our own private selves where a small part of us dwelt that could live in the proximity of her shied away from the meaning of what she said, even as the rest of us surged forward at everything she didn’t say.

“It is indeed good my friends that that we are all assembled here again for a new purpose reigns and I am here to herald its approach, I have been below and have seen what you all have feared to see for yourself.”

With these words she left the trunk of the tree, her hands making one last unconscious brush against its bark as though her hands were saying the goodbye that her heart refused to acknowledge.

“You see my friends, save for Herove in his naïve love lost lunacy none of you have realised what walked amidst you; none of you have realized what I rue, you see my friends those of you who try to reason with what you see before you, around you and indeed within you will always fail for it is only when you can dismiss this that you will see everything as I have. Herove saw it, though as men are want to do he cloaked it with his own misplaced sentimentality, took from it all its gravity, tore from it all its depravity and thought that he could rue its malady.”

She glided forth between us towards me every movement a small promise to paradise, a sexual guise that nothing in the world could hope to disguise and then she was so close that I could feel her breath and the heat from her breasts and she paused as though to kiss me and then decided to dismiss me.

She turned again to the tree, the curvaceous hourglass complexion of her form seemingly to drain from us our lives in the way that sand in the hourglass drains away time and then she was before the apple, staring up at it with the same lust that we stared at her, so that the energy of our want became hers and the energy of her want became the apples until all the universe seemed to be concentrated upon this want and all the universe seemed to be chanting in union want, want, want.

The apple was indeed only an arms length away, swaying in its own pendulum like way the time that the rest of the world had left behind and as we swayed we were captivated in kind.

I imagined we all cried for her to stop though we were captivated as much by her as her by that apple and we all stood as statues as she did what she had come to do.

I watched with dispassionate passion as her all so sweet arm rose a little, as her shoulder rotated a little, as one breast rose a little and the other dropped a little, as her leg stretched a little and her head went back a little and her throat was bared a little.

I watched her fingers uncurl a little then close a little and then her arm pull a little, then pull a little and then in her hand was the apple red round and little, all so little.

So in her hand rested the universe and her eyes rose looking us each in turn just because she knew it was hers and from here she turned and came back to us and to each of us she came until it was only I that she had not come to and then it was my turn.

She was before me and the darkness of the sky seemed so absolute that the stars of the sky had gone out and the tree behind us had at last gone out and every life upon this ship save our own had gone out.

She came at me until it was only the apple that stood between us and not a more potent mix of need and heed could there ever be and I was captured as I have always been, made mad within the darkness of her eyes and the softness of her skin as I had never been and within these I found the only home that I have ever known and as the world dimmed and went out at last around me I was made to look within those unfathomable depths where my own reflection was held and made to suffer the sweet darkness of her spell.

She was there and I was where I was and her hand that held the universe within its gentle grip was between us and within her grasp, it seemed that she was offering up to me everything that she was and if I were to take this from her I would know everything that would soon be and I trembled unknowingly, childishly and foolishly alone against this revelation and it seemed that all my life I had been striving for this moment and yet if this moment were to pass all my life would go with it and I could see naught within her eyes nor did the expression upon her lips let me know how this would go and then suddenly as though from a far off place a gentle wind seemed to blow.

At first it only brushed despairingly against those gentle hairs at the nape of ones neck as though it were begging to be acknowledged and then in our acknowledgement it seemed to find the strength with in itself to blow a little more and with these small breaths I saw the first of Holly’s hair make its first movement in its caress and how I ached to brush these thin black tendrils aside as I had done before and then I felt it within my own hair and as it connected us both under its caress it soon came to pass that I knew this wind and it said without words those words that I had heard so long before, yes this is me, hear me, feel me,  know me and finally when the world seemed to be teetering upon the lip of an abyss trust me.

It was then that she seemed to return and within her eyes I saw some deep concern and I lost at this time my will and could barely contain the trembling of my legs and my heart was beating such a tattoo that is seemed to drive out all other thoughts save the one thought that it was this woman that I wanted, yet more still the apple that lay in the delicate cup of her hand and for these I would strive with all my life for.

She brought the apple up between us cupped within her hands and against her breast and the heart that stirred beneath, her eyes were all mystery and allure, dark with some unknowable truth and the taint of damnation, her smile was of the wanton and as she brought the apple before me her eyes seemed to be swimming in some kind of ecstatic ecstasy.

I felt the flesh against my lips and with an involuntary motion I caught it up between my teeth and heard and felt the flesh give and felt the juices pour and I fell into a swoon before her my head swimming with revelations. Yet amidst all this ecstasy there still dwelt within me that small doubt that she had come from the dark tree and the words Herove his name and I to be his bane still echoed within my brain and then these words were blown out and instead Herove his name and I to be his dame was left in their place and I could not tell whether it was her breath, or the winds that blew them into my ear and I trembling unknowingly, childishly and foolishly, though now not alone, looked into her eyes and saw the compassion that I had only caught a glimpse of once before.

I knew that perhaps everything would be alright and she sensing this trust and the wind within and all around us brought the apple up and between us, offering it again as she had offered her lips before, offering it again as she had offered the conjuncture of her hips before and I accepting as I had accepted neither truly before took from her the apple and all Gods law and the skin ripe as she was always before and the flesh sweet, as the flesh sweet that she bore and the core as secret as her core and in that simple mouthful I knew as much of the universe as I had known before.

Like this the apple was consumed between us, my big bites to her small bites and the fruit of sin, the juices of sin running between us until the apple was all gone and as their soft silvery black seeds went down into each of us I knew that something about this world had changed and far off I heard as though a great cry the loss of God upon the earth.

At about the same time the last of the apple had been taken I was jolted violently to my knees and made to fall violently against Holly and in my unbalanced surprise she fell to the deck before me and I saw out of the corner of my eyes Gaultherias making his angry way towards her and in his hand a great mass or rope for which he was to strangle her.

All around the others trapped in tense excitement to see this woman die before them and I realized that they did not know what I knew and they thought Holly to be the foul dark minstrel of the dark trees malevolence who had trapped me with her malignant melody and I the victim of this calamity and then I was up and between them throwing myself in front of this dwarf and his great piece of rope hoping with all hope that it would not be she that he would choke.

He came at us still, the wrath of a thousand blinding suns alight in his eyes and his great dwarf muscles clenched to do this deed and I knew at once that there was no force upon earth that could stop him and knowing that it was fruitless, that it was impossible but still willing to try I reached for the last of my hope and pulled forth my great crusaders sword from the trunk of The Tree of Good and Evil and with its pitted blade I set to hold off this creature who’s wrath seemed to know no bounds.

In the instant that I pulled the sword free, as I felt its iron blade slip silently between worlds, the West Wind that had been around us seemed to be sucked away as though a great vacuum had opened up and taken it from us and a moment later the ship gave such a start that I knew only one thing and that this one thing meant that we were now again on our way to the place that is so strange that none can speak.

Though I thought that this revelation was so strong that the dwarf would be forced to stave off his attack I was wrong and I felt him against me, the sword thrust aside and his great dwarf fingers reaching for the delicate swan neck of Holly and I in a similar rage of denial and defeat went for him and in that moment that should have sent the sword cluttering to the deck to rest long and harmless against its passionless expanse it fell in such a way that is always the case with sharp things, between us, its hilt against him and its edge against the juncture of my ribs and then in the confusion as all wills went along with their might I felt it press closer and closer as though upon my very heart and then I was falling falling into night though with the last of my words crying to him.

“Holly is innocent, it is all… everything will be alright.”  

Epilogue

He came home to welcome earth

The place of rebirth

To a city to the city he at last came

A place to bury his loss and pain

His poor parents were not there

Just a whiff of West Wind air

From the log of the good ship Hope

It was sometime later that they found the land that is so strange that none shall speak and upon this land they brought the body of Herove, the one who’s body had roved but who would rove no more. His body was cast into a small tomb that in the past may have been a drain and with a small amount of soil from the ships hold and a broken stop sign they made a small grave for him and his belongings.

With his sword they made a cross as to mark his body that was appropriate to a man of swords and also from his belongings they found a journal that was appropriate to a man of words and each of these and the tears of Holly went down into the earth with him though the silence of his friends around him were all that he truly needed, all that anyone truly need to accompany them along their way and with this they left him and his memories, save for the ones that they kept for themselves.

Also the dog which had mysteriously appeared as they made land was now with them as they all said there last farewells, and though they tried to bring this poor pound back to the ship so determined was he to stay that they were forced to let him have his way, and as they walked back the way they had come their footfalls were accompanied by his sorrowful howl as he lay down upon the grave of Herove.

One must wonder at the fate of those others, those who had also come in search of the answers that the West Wind had whispered a promise of, well they too found answers though like Herove’s, those answers were not simple nor were they found at the end of the journey, but as they left the land that is so strange that none shall speak each in their own hearts knew a truth that was above and beyond the question that had brought them there.

Later as their vessel began its journey east, as Holly with her hands on her belly stared back the way she had come and forward to where she was going it was then that  she saw amidst the city a great tree growing and then upon her brow the first touch of the West Wind that was again growing.

As she looked up into the heavens a flight of ravens circling, circling forever upwards as though they were in search of something though she could not tell whether that something was the future or whether that something was the past.

Sown are the seeds the seeds to be

  The womb of the wind was the key

He suffered the silence of creation

He made of it genesis and revelation

The mystery of death was the lure

The love he felt for his parents pure

The West Wind was the cure

For all that he could not endure

From this mystery came all

 For this mystery he did fall

Though with his fall he made right

And took from the world Gods might

And gave to man his evolutionary right

To live again in his own light

To make what he would of light and dark

And to put upon the universe his own mark

 He sowed the seeds and grew a flower

He fertilized an egg a golden bower

He gave it to the eternal evergreen

The ever silent sun beam

From it grew a magic tree

A tree born so that man could be free

Good and evil softly entwined

The creative consciousness unbind

He let its branches mend the seam

Between the seen and the unseen

And then when all turned sower

He hugged the bower

As we hug the bower