Ramblings & Ravings

Sorry, sorry, sorry that it’s been so long since my last upload, had a pretty crazy couple of months with uni assignments and gigs and the like. Anyway, this is an expansion of my “Flight of Fancy” story, hope you enjoy!

     I have always thought it strange that an alignment of certain aspects of everyday life can result in a truly extraordinary moment; it could be that the chef who cooks the same meal every day for ten years one day decides to add a slightly different amount of a certain spice and is blown away by the consequentially huge change for the good in the flavour of the dish, or the musician who has been playing the same song for years decides to change a particular note at the end of a certain line and experiences the same staggering result as our chef. If a slightly different combination of distinctly ordinary things can result in an extraordinary experience, why are there such things as ordinary experiences at all? Why do we not constantly seek change and difference with which we can thrill ourselves at our own leisure? Because it is not quite as simple as we first assume it to be.

     The thrill that makes that extraordinary moment so very extraordinary is the rush of discovery, the sensation of being at the complete mercy of your emotions and senses as you plunge into the unknown. An extraordinary euphoria can come from nothing more than a simple thought, a flight of fancy that sweeps you up in the moment and leaves you breathless, desperate to follow through with whatever whim has entered your mind. Such a thing happened to me, many years ago, when I was little more than a child, desperate for that euphoria and sense of excitement.

     My friends and family always used to say that I had a strange obsession with the idea of adventure, of travelling alone to some far off continent and being witness to sights and sounds that nobody back home had ever even had the gall to dream of and, I confess, the prospect of staying in one place for the rest of my life nauseated me; I wanted to get away and drown my senses in an alien ocean. In short, I was a hopeless romantic. On the day of my eighteenth birthday I decided that I was tired of home life and left to pursue the life of a travelling man. I moved from town to town, working anywhere that would employ me, never staying in one place for more than a few months. Now, this way of life could, to some, appear isolated and lonely but, and I say this with my hand over my heart, never once did I feel that way; I was taken with the idea that I was living as man was intended to live, as a free spirit. However, as months turned into a year, and one year turned into two, I did begin to grow weary of the perspective from which I viewed my newfound freedom. I would stare up into the sky and wish to be a cloud, drifting lazily on the afternoon breeze. And so, being a somewhat impulsive person, I decided to arrest my constant movement and, after several months of squirreling away my meagre wage, I bought a balloon. And now I come to the point of this narrative, that flight of fancy to which I alluded earlier, the moment that I truly understood my desperation for new experiences and excitements. It took place during the maiden voyage of my balloon.

     The wind, a pleasant relief from the midday heat, lifted tendrils of my hair from my scalp. As they undulated gently in the breeze, I stood in the centre of the wicker basket that had been my home for the past few hours and gazed up at the balloon that hung above me like a great, red tree canopy. A smile spread across my face and I felt the spirit of true adventure stirring in my breast. This was life! I turned my gaze to the sprawling continent of trees that lay below me, bisected by the huge meandering snake of the mighty Amazon, and squinted through the bright, South American sun as the reflection from the water’s surface winked up at me. I was mesmerised by that river. What I would have given to shed my lungs and swim, finned and web-toed, its oscillations, to glide through the water alongside pink and white dolphins and all manner of unimaginable fish and water reptiles. Imagine the euphoria at swimming below the giant Anaconda, hardly daring to breathe for fear that that terrible serpent would snatch you up in its inexorable coil and cruel jaws. That was true joy. I stood straight and stretched my arms out to the sides in a diver’s pose. I tensed, and then relaxed again. With a sigh, I let my arms drop back to my sides. Oh, how plain and sad it was to be a fragile human. 

     The wind, a pleasant relief from the midday heat, lifted tendrils of my hair from my scalp. As they undulated gently in the breeze, I stood in the centre of the wicker basket that had been my home for the past few hours and gazed up at the balloon that hung above me like a great, red tree canopy. A smile spread across my face and I felt the spirit of true adventure stirring in my breast. This was life! I turned my gaze to the sprawling continent of trees that lay below me, bisected by the huge meandering snake of the mighty Amazon, and squinted through the bright, South American sun as the reflection from the water’s surface winked up at me. I was mesmerised by that river. What I would have given to shed my lungs and swim, finned and web-toed, its oscillations, to glide through the water alongside pink and white dolphins and all manner of unimaginable fish and water reptiles. Imagine the euphoria at swimming below the giant Anaconda, hardly daring to breath for fear that that terrible serpent would snatch you up in its inexorable coil and cruel jaws. That was true joy. I stood straight and stretched my arms out to the sides in a diver’s pose. I tensed, and then relaxed again. With a sigh, I let my arms drop back to my sides. Oh, how plain and sad it was to be a fragile human. 

Night falls, bringing with it a velvet cloak of darkness pierced only by the light of a moon draped in a thin veil of cloud. The air has a ghostly and ephemeral quality to it. From my vantage point, a deep trench beneath a gnarled and twisted section of oak root, I scan the clearing before me: a small oval of unchecked grass, fringed by tall trunks that blossom outwards as the eye roves upwards to create a canopy of interlocking foliage overhead, sheltering the oasis of green below. The little light from the pale spectre above glimmers weakly through the tree line, creating faint, dappled shadows on the grass that dance before me as the leaves and branches undulate gently to the rhythm of the cool night breeze. My long nose twitches to the scent of wildflowers somewhere off to my left; honeysuckle, roses and some other indeterminable yet tantalising perfume that I itch to investigate. Torn between curiosity and reluctance to leave the safety of my shelter, I thrash my tail, kicking up a small pile of loam that rests deeper in the recess. Distracted by the earthy scent of the dried clumps of leaf and soil I turn and, with my paw this time, again disturb the autumnal slumber that the season has wrought upon the leaves. Like desiccated butterflies of the deepest ochre, the warmest brown and of mustard seed yellow they, under my influence, flit before me; my own private production.

A short story I wrote. Here goes:

When I was younger I lived in a large, old-fashioned farmhouse, deep in the tangles and valleys of the English countryside. My parents, both involved in some important aspect of business that never interested me, spent most of their days in the nearby city, leaving me in the care of my decidedly detestable grandmother. Most of my time and effort was spent in avoiding the company of that old witch, and it was for this reason that I found myself walking through the patch of dense woodland that lay about a fifteen minute walk from my house on one November morning.

     I remember it was a particularly cold morning; a white frost coated the fallen leaves that littered the thin dirt track I was following, rewarding my every step with a satisfying crunch. I looked up at the bare branches of the trees above me and was struck by the stark beauty of the scene, I could almost sense the final approach of winter and the very air seemed to tingle in anticipation of her arrival. So enthralled was I, that it was a few minutes before I noticed that I was no longer alone: a man was walking beside me. He was a thin man, not tall but not short and dressed in a long coat of an unusual colour that seemed to be somewhere between red and orange. He had shoulder-length auburn hair that fell in sleek, elegant waves around his pale face and reminded me inexplicably of the branches of the Weeping Willow that stood below my bedroom window.  He seemed to be completely oblivious of my existence, yet he matched my pace so closely that there was barely a distinction between the sound of his footfall and my own. Uncertain as to whether or not I should speak, I cleared my throat politely. His head turned towards me and I was immediately transfixed by his extraordinary eyes; a beautiful hazel brown, they seemed almost to crackle with some kind of hidden energy, some sort of electricity, as they widened in surprise at my interruption. “Yes?” His voice was like warm honey, pouring itself from his lips and seeming to settle in the air between us. “May we proceed?” He spoke again. I nodded mutely and we resumed our stride. I hadn’t even realised we’d stopped. We carried on in silence for several minutes until the complete strangeness of the situation emboldened me to speech at last, “sorry, where are we going?”                                                                                         He looked down in surprise again, as though he had forgotten I was there, “why, to the end of course!” Obviously assuming he had answered my question, his gaze shifted once more to whatever indeterminable destination he could see ahead of us. Entirely bemused and utterly convinced that my mysterious companion was mad, I lapsed once more into uncomfortable silence. Every child this side of the Sun has had the mantra “do not speak to strangers” drilled into them since the day they arrived, kicking and screaming, on Earth, but there was something about this particular stranger, perhaps the sheer degree of his strangeness, which instinctively told me that there was no reason to fear him, and so on I walked.

     The silence stretched on until I could no longer contain my need to learn the name of this apparition, for this was the conclusion I had reached. He greeted my beseech with another glance of those eyes of his and exclaimed, “but you already know who I am, it was you who invited me!” Now, confused as I was, I was fairly certain that I had not, at any point of my previously solitary journey, extended an invitation for anything to anybody and I told him this. “Ah, I thought you’d say that, written all over your face it was.”                                                                                                                                               “Are you a ghost?”                                                                                                                                                                  “A ghost? My dear child, there’s no such thing as ghosts.” He smiled down at me in an indulgent sort of way, and then reset his gaze upon his goal.                                                                                                                         “What are you looking for?” I asked.                                                                                                                               “For the bend. The bend that leads to the fork that leads to the other bend that leads to the end.” He laughed aloud at this, one pure note that seemed to dance through the branches of the trees around us, and then looked down at me again, “but you are looking for the bend too, that’s why you asked for my help.” Losing patience now, I reminded him that I had done no such thing and that he was yet to inform me as to who or what he was. He stopped at this. Worried that I had offended him with my petulance, I moved to speak, yet before I could open my mouth he turned to me once more and, lowering himself so that his hazel eyes met my blue, said softly, “look at me. Look at the way the trees lean toward me as I walk by, and the way the grass strains through the frost to reach my feet.” I looked down as he said this, and was shocked to see that he wore no shoes or socks, his pale feet nestled amongst the frozen blades, completely exposed to their chill. “My dear child, I am Autumn.”