Window on a Soul [2009]

Let me tell you a story; give you a window on a soul, on a moment and on memories.

Colours wash across the cloudless sky, bleeding from empty blue towards twilight. High up, the crescent moon cuts the air and rooks wing home to roost. The air is biting cold and breathlessly still broken only by the song of the robin, crystal clear and poignant. Its song tells of a summer far gone and of autumn turning to winter, that soon it will embrace the enclosing nights and crisp frost morns.

Looking out towards the clear dusk skyline a girl sits, possibly on a rock, or is it a tree stump, on a wooded hill. It’s not clear. She sits at a point between the seasons - between the years - and the diurnal rhythm of life itself. Visions of her at many sunsets merge into one. This point spans time itself linking her to her past and future. 

Memories well up in the swell of emotion she feels and spirits draw near at this time of fluidity and magic. 

Closing her eyes for but a moment she listens to the robin’s song. She slips into the past. 

She remembers.

A warm weight leans against her leg and to her side a familiar solid presence. She smells warm Labrador, engine oil, dubbing, and brylcreem, as well as the freshness of air over woodland. She can visualise the deep sandy-coloured coat of her dog sitting back against her leg - the thick wave of the fur across and down his neck and shoulders, the velvet of his flat ears and the thump of his tail. She can imagine the weathered flat-cap bunnit of her Papa beside her - bunnit of dark blue tweed - darker still with the ingrained dirt of life - sitting atop his dark silver hair and sky blue eyes, his worn Barbour jacket with pockets full of essential odds & ends, and in his hand- the weather-seasoned fruitwood walking stick that goes wherever he does.

She misses this physical presence that speaks of home. She misses the friendship of intelligent minds aware of life. 

She wants to open her eyes and be back there again. To see that quiet smile, to sit in the silent calm of friendship, to go back to a golden time that was somehow the very best and the very worst of times. To be able to see her Papa’s face again or be held in a hug close to a beating heart and to tell everything she wishes she’d said- if she’d just had the chance.

Holding the feeling and the memory still for a moment she pauses, trying to capture it in her mind to save it away for a rainy day, to be brought out when in need of comfort. She holds her breath then lets it go. Reluctantly opening her eyes, seeing a tear-filmed vision of the sky. The past clings to her, the memories too and the spirits nearby. 

The sun sits just on the shoulder of the hill. Slowly, yet visibly sinking into the land. In a wood on the hill the rooks have reached their homes near the last rays of light.

Looking down from her vantage point she gazes into the valley steeply below- fields ringed with woods of skeletal trees. Dry bracken and grasses choke the ground between brambles and bush. She can just make out the curve of the river sliding past between the shadows of branches. 

Mist lifts from the water and ditches to roll through the woods and fields. Dark shapes can be seen through hanging vapour as the day creatures hand over to the night.

It’s darkening now as the croak of pheasant echoes off the land.

She should go home, to her present life. The past is gone and nothing will bring it back. 

Being surrounded with memories can be like sitting under the familiar warmth of a duvet, she feels reluctant to let it go. She sits a little while more. Glad to sit between the worlds and closer to the past - for it to feel like a moment just gone, as opposed to a lifetime. 

Looking up she can see the sun has slipped away; the warm colours fading fast as the dome of cold sky darkens to night, stars pricking points of light high above. 

She closes her eyes to hold the memories close for a moment, aware of the pain in her heart that cuts at her throat and washes down her cheeks. A welcome, if painful connection to a grief that felt long gone. Wet cheeks cool quickly in the air.

Putting the cherished memories away once more she opens her eyes and stands, aware that her face, hands and legs have grown cold from sitting out. As she picks her way through the shadows of the uneven dead-growth to the pathway back home, she can still feel the fading awareness of the spirits that gathered. Her mind is slowly shifting back towards the mundane now. 

The path of churned mud is hard under foot. The pathway is a tunnel through more branches leading down from the valley wall to her home. Half seen in grey twilight shadow ahead she fancies she sees a familiar figure - a man making his way along the path with his dog out for a walk. Waterproof jacket, dark flat-cap, tall barked stick and familiar gait. Closing her eyes to check herself she imagines the smile. Upon opening them again she finds the path as it was - empty and cold. A dark road home.