Gunfire drifts through the open windows, peppered with music, I duck low and through the curtains that part in the warm breeze for me as I leave the dark sitting room, entering the garden. Another explosion rocks the room as lovers curl together on the sofas, watching a battle in some movie. The violent noise comes at me from all sides, stereo sound from surrounding houses that encircle the small plot of green grass. A scream rises shrilly from all around me at once. A moth flutters in front of me. I flick my hands up to catch it. The lovers whisper seductively to each other. The moth’s wings tickle my hand, its antenna caress my palm, its legs claw at my hand as it yearns to be free. Raising my left hand from above the moth, it tastes the free night air. It lingers a moment longer, then with a quiet hum of wings, that is obscured by explosions all around, it floats off into the night air. Lovers whisper almost silently, tanks roll through towns, rattling the windows from within. Silent, I sit on the lawn. The drone of insects around me, a dog barks in the distance. Men fall and scream and die in the alternate realities playing out in living rooms and bedrooms and lovers sigh loud promises to each other through open windows around me. I sit quiet, alone on the grass. I thumb the night-light on my watch, its green glow illuminating the dial, showing up the ragged cuff of my shirt. It is gone midnight. The nearby motorway is quiet. I lie back on the damp grass watching the stars above me, contemplating the nothing that fills my rooftop to rooftop horizon. The distant stars fill the night sky. We ignore the gaps between them. The whole of the universe is really emptiness. We look at the stars and see them in two-dimensions. White spots on a black canvas. Spinning infinitely slowly through galaxies at mind-numbing cosmic speeds. Our deluded optimistic eye sees the moon rise and watches the vast white body shimmering across the sky, failing to comprehend the enormity of the quarter million miles between us and it. It is just there. And the stars are paint drips dropped on a sheet. We flatten the universe, we can understand that. Draw lines to match up interstellar distant constellations that are unfathomably far apart. We fail, repeatedly to see that the universe is endless, interminable, unimaginable emptiness. I lie on the grass; explosions continue rocking windows and staining curtains red as blood spills. The stains of death washing across the sky, tingeing it pink and orange as I sleeplessly watch the sky for an hour. Everything is changing.
You never sleep, not really. Not properly. Lights glow orange through my closed eyes. As I open them, I am assaulted by neon lights. Sirens and engines pound at my ears. The bus crawls through a new city. Twisting and turning through traffic, passing statues, cathedrals, fountains, museums. The radio plays quietly. The city noise from outside, car horns and revving engines, sirens screaming and the bus noise from within, children cry, music plays, conversations are uttered, through this sound Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chili Peppers begins on the headphones of girl opposite as she shuffles her cards endlessly. My eyes close, listening with my whole body, casting off the noise of the city and drifting away to the far off land of lakes and mountains.
I approach The Lake slowly. Drums and guitars play silently in my head. Lyrics sing out gently as I watch the mountains. I raise my head, glance at the moon setting ahead of me. As the moon rubs shoulders with the mountains it brightens the horizon, making the edge glow like a white neon tube, curving in to the contours of the mountainside. I sink to my knees as the song plays to me, “I’ll make it to the moon if I have to crawl.” Stones stab through my trousers, the gentle breeze wraps around my bare arms. Slipping through the buttons of my shirt to caress my chest. The wedding ring resting on its leather around my neck shifts and rolls slightly against my chest as I settle, kneeling on the stones. Resting, weary as pilgrims do. My eyes grow accustomed to the non-light and at the same time, the lonely walk through the darkened park recedes and the water and distant shore line find definition ahead of me. Ducks swim around slowly, waiting to be fed by this late night intruder to their world. I stand on the gravel, thinking of the times I arrived with my family to watch the sun set; discussing the day of walking, walks for tomorrow and the day after. Birds now my only company in this world of childhood holiday. The rising moon picks out detail at random in the distance, a moored boat on a far off jetty, the beckoning line of a trail up the mountain, a crowd of sheep sleeping near a wall that weaves organically along contours. But I do not need the light; I know every contour of the beach and the docks. I know all the mountains that surround me with their huge magnificence. I need not to come here to see it. I close my eyes, out of the darkness rise the peaks and ridges of the distant mountains, the moorings, the pulled-up rowing boats. I need not come here. But I do. I love to. Yet also I hate to. Every step has been taken before. Everywhere I go has been previously explored. Yet in the vast uncertainty of life, these mountains, this Lake holds true. Gives me an unchanging, undying land of peace and safety. Everything is changing.
Standing on the gravel the February wind cuts through me, whips around me. I clutch my coat tight against the cold. Snow caps the distant mountains. I throw bread to the ducks pecking at my legs. Hands struggle to break the bread through thick gloves, sound muffled by my hat, motion muted by thick layers of clothing. The bread runs out and they waddle to the next family that is feeding them, geese fly overhead, honking noisily.
I sit bolt upright, whacking my forehead sharply on the torch low hanging in my tent. The walls are soaked from the night’s long rain. I shiver deeply, quickly pulling on damp trousers and a thick shirt. Sticking my head out into the October fog I see the shadows of a flock of geese in the thick fog heading south for winter, fleeing the cold of the north. I stagger over to a tree to urinate, then hurry back to my warm sleeping bag on stiff legs. Wiping my wet, muddy bare feet on my trouser leg as I reach the tent. Inside I look at the clock; 6a.m. I pull a thick coat and two more pairs of trousers into my sleeping bag, crawling in after them. Resting awake for 30 minutes more sleep before we strike camp and paddle on downstream.
We pass under a concrete road bridge. The long, high bridge arches over us as I look at the campsite beside us. Ducks peck at the grass and swim in the frigid November water. A hearse rolls slowly along a busy main road above and behind us. I lie back in the seat of the canoe drifting. Waiting for the others to catch up, I sip cold coffee, suck on frozen solid chocolate. I flex tired arms, stretch stiff legs.
I relax into the worn, faded bus seat after a long day of lectures. The bus is parked outside a university, waiting for lights to change in road works. It waits and waits. Two elderly ladies in front of me start fidgeting and complaining, rocking their chairs slightly as I stare at the passing traffic. A truck rolls by, an ambulance, an ice cream van, a funeral party. A long gap in the traffic I watch students mill in and out of campus. The lights change and we pull away with a growl and rumble of the overheating engine.
You never sleep, not really. Not properly. Lights glow orange through my closed eyes. As I open them, I am assaulted by neon lights. Sirens and engines pound at my ears. The bus crawls through a new city. Twisting and turning through traffic, passing statues, cathedrals, fountains, museums. The radio plays quietly. The city noise from outside, car horns and revving engines, sirens screaming and the bus noise from within, children cry, music plays, conversations are uttered, through this sound Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chili Peppers begins on the headphones of girl opposite as she shuffles her cards endlessly. My eyes close, listening with my whole body, casting off the noise of the city and drifting away to the far off land of lakes and mountains.
I approach The Lake slowly. Drums and guitars play silently in my head. Lyrics sing out gently as I watch the mountains. I raise my head, glance at the moon setting ahead of me. As the moon rubs shoulders with the mountains it brightens the horizon, making the edge glow like a white neon tube, curving in to the contours of the mountainside. I sink to my knees as the song plays to me, “I’ll make it to the moon if I have to crawl.” Stones stab through my trousers, the gentle breeze wraps around my bare arms. Slipping through the buttons of my shirt to caress my chest. The wedding ring resting on its leather around my neck shifts and rolls slightly against my chest as I settle, kneeling on the stones. Resting, weary as pilgrims do. My eyes grow accustomed to the non-light and at the same time, the lonely walk through the darkened park recedes and the water and distant shore line find definition ahead of me. Ducks swim around slowly, waiting to be fed by this late night intruder to their world. I stand on the gravel, thinking of the times I arrived with my family to watch the sun set; discussing the day of walking, walks for tomorrow and the day after. Birds now my only company in this world of childhood holiday. The rising moon picks out detail at random in the distance, a moored boat on a far off jetty, the beckoning line of a trail up the mountain, a crowd of sheep sleeping near a wall that weaves organically along contours. But I do not need the light; I know every contour of the beach and the docks. I know all the mountains that surround me with their huge magnificence. I need not to come here to see it. I close my eyes, out of the darkness rise the peaks and ridges of the distant mountains, the moorings, the pulled-up rowing boats. I need not come here. But I do. I love to. Yet also I hate to. Every step has been taken before. Everywhere I go has been previously explored. Yet in the vast uncertainty of life, these mountains, this Lake holds true. Gives me an unchanging, undying land of peace and safety. Everything is changing.
Standing on the gravel the February wind cuts through me, whips around me. I clutch my coat tight against the cold. Snow caps the distant mountains. I throw bread to the ducks pecking at my legs. Hands struggle to break the bread through thick gloves, sound muffled by my hat, motion muted by thick layers of clothing. The bread runs out and they waddle to the next family that is feeding them, geese fly overhead, honking noisily.
I sit bolt upright, whacking my forehead sharply on the torch low hanging in my tent. The walls are soaked from the night’s long rain. I shiver deeply, quickly pulling on damp trousers and a thick shirt. Sticking my head out into the October fog I see the shadows of a flock of geese in the thick fog heading south for winter, fleeing the cold of the north. I stagger over to a tree to urinate, then hurry back to my warm sleeping bag on stiff legs. Wiping my wet, muddy bare feet on my trouser leg as I reach the tent. Inside I look at the clock; 6a.m. I pull a thick coat and two more pairs of trousers into my sleeping bag, crawling in after them. Resting awake for 30 minutes more sleep before we strike camp and paddle on downstream.
We pass under a concrete road bridge. The long, high bridge arches over us as I look at the campsite beside us. Ducks peck at the grass and swim in the frigid November water. A hearse rolls slowly along a busy main road above and behind us. I lie back in the seat of the canoe drifting. Waiting for the others to catch up, I sip cold coffee, suck on frozen solid chocolate. I flex tired arms, stretch stiff legs.
I relax into the worn, faded bus seat after a long day of lectures. The bus is parked outside a university, waiting for lights to change in road works. It waits and waits. Two elderly ladies in front of me start fidgeting and complaining, rocking their chairs slightly as I stare at the passing traffic. A truck rolls by, an ambulance, an ice cream van, a funeral party. A long gap in the traffic I watch students mill in and out of campus. The lights change and we pull away with a growl and rumble of the overheating engine.
Part 7 is released tomorrow, the last part of the story.
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