Parts of the substrate
had been scraped with a broad blade. Patches of wet color bled through the
withered earth. Regions of rough surface concealed nameless portraits raked in
viscid tones. A few turned their textured heads silently. The paint itself was
alive in covert plot, so that he became wary where his feet fell.
His eyes were drawn to
the lake. It mimicked the ebon sky in shades of carbon black. He did not dare
its depths. Mirrors might reveal lies that he’d craved only to forget.
Dull pigment stirred
like dust in the backdrop of his thoughts. Voices murmured dimly and then
amplified quickly into a cacophony of corpses; their rasping chorus reached
over obsidian channels and across the unseen void. The landscape broke into
fragments and points of color that swirled and lifted higher. A blue streak
forked above the swelling waves and thunder cracked so close he could smell the
ozone. Hands fell from his ears. He stumbled forward as the ground came up to
greet him.
In the eye of
the storm was silence like a terrible roar, and the richness of the world was
drowning in its wake. Just one detail stood away from the twisting fray. He had
seen nothing like it here.
Slowly he reached for
the object of his design. He pulled it closer. Its polished handle and nickel
ferrule wrapped securely around the sable tip. It was a talisman. At that
moment, the wind died down in a sudden hush that tore the breath from him.
The storms fading
reprise ceased in the timbre of her words, “Life is a tide of terror and great
beauty...for which we are all responsible. We must each know who we are with
certainty; a conviction to merge in myriad possibilities. Go to the mere and
see who you’ve become.”
At the water’s edge
the sky had turned a deep Prussian Blue. A few stars flickered in the lake. She
was behind him. Though her beauty still startled him, it was the stranger who
stood beside her that caught his eye. He knew the face. But, the inner image of
the child so familiar did not match. The man staring back at him looked both
tested and tranquil. He saw past his hurts and misgivings with intense desire
and strength of will to make of life whatever he chose.
Epilogue:
The solitude embraced
him for a few moments before he realized she was gone. The plot surrounding had
no more hold on his heart. He looked into the lake to where she had been. A
radiant circle was mirrored there, full and round.
The Moon: how he
longed to be there. It was waiting like a promise in the sky; he waded away
from the shore and dove into its shining center.
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