The Journeyman............travels inside
It was hot and stale, the air still and the only movement was the sweat starting to roll down my back. I tried to move my head, to look around at where I found myself but it was impossible; my arms and legs would not move to my orders but I did not start to panic, instead a clam had come over me the same as when a young child is collected into its mothers welcoming arms and carried above all its problems back to the safety of its home, no control over its own movements but safe in the knowledge that it is protected and cared for.
From my eyes I could see a countryside worsened by too much sun and little rain. The grass, uncut and brown, did not wave as there was no wind, no breeze at all to disturb it or the dust road that cut through the grass leading to .......... here. I was bent over, arms folded on an ancient and cracked post and rail wooden fence whose colour, once dark and rich now grey and broken with deep gouges and cracks running between the grain. It was twisted and rickety but strong enough to act as a guide to where the dust road ended and the baked earth and grass began and to hold my weight as I casualty laid my weight upon it.
The sun was low, setting I would guess from the heat of the day, and shadows ran full length they were allowed. There must have been a tree behind me judging from the shadow that lay to my side and stretched out merging with my own. The tree was dead, or leaf less, long branches with hundreds of off shoots stretching out like fingers reaching for the sky. My shadow was long and thin, different to my own and now I am not sure where I am or what I can see - still no panic, just the knowledge I am not where I once was, not who I once was.
I cannot hear, nor smell, only see. I am behind someone else's eyes looking across a ruined meadow, standing on a small mound, no a bridge of mud and stone which lay over a dried up stream small enough to stem over and only noticeable by the line it cut in the sloping ground around it and by its lack of brown grass which was dominant everywhere else.
Here, in this dry scene, a tree, a stream, the grass and me, I was completely alone. There were no birds in the sand coloured sky, there were no animals on the ground, no rodents, no cattle, no insects within the grass. There was one fly, a large black thing making a haphazard route along the rough cut bed of the stream, following it but not crossing it. It flew in my peripheral vision until it was out of sight. It had made no noise; either it was silent or there was no sound here to carry to the ears this body must have had.
The fly had gone.
A shadow appeared to my left, it moved slowly across the grass until it reached the height and shape of my own; another person I guessed. it sagged, leaning on the railing just as I. It was now motionless, soundless. My guests body did not move to observe this new comer, nor did it move its mouth or tongue vocalise the recognition of its presence.
We were just there, two people on the same dust road, in the same countryside and on the same squat bridge. I was on my side of the waterless stream and they were on the other.
We stayed that way for hours, neither moving or speaking. The heat was almost unbearable, but neither moved to seek shade. Then, slowly, ever so slowly like the rotation on a planet and without any alteration in our bodies or the heat, it went dark.
From my eyes I could see a countryside worsened by too much sun and little rain. The grass, uncut and brown, did not wave as there was no wind, no breeze at all to disturb it or the dust road that cut through the grass leading to .......... here. I was bent over, arms folded on an ancient and cracked post and rail wooden fence whose colour, once dark and rich now grey and broken with deep gouges and cracks running between the grain. It was twisted and rickety but strong enough to act as a guide to where the dust road ended and the baked earth and grass began and to hold my weight as I casualty laid my weight upon it.
The sun was low, setting I would guess from the heat of the day, and shadows ran full length they were allowed. There must have been a tree behind me judging from the shadow that lay to my side and stretched out merging with my own. The tree was dead, or leaf less, long branches with hundreds of off shoots stretching out like fingers reaching for the sky. My shadow was long and thin, different to my own and now I am not sure where I am or what I can see - still no panic, just the knowledge I am not where I once was, not who I once was.
I cannot hear, nor smell, only see. I am behind someone else's eyes looking across a ruined meadow, standing on a small mound, no a bridge of mud and stone which lay over a dried up stream small enough to stem over and only noticeable by the line it cut in the sloping ground around it and by its lack of brown grass which was dominant everywhere else.
Here, in this dry scene, a tree, a stream, the grass and me, I was completely alone. There were no birds in the sand coloured sky, there were no animals on the ground, no rodents, no cattle, no insects within the grass. There was one fly, a large black thing making a haphazard route along the rough cut bed of the stream, following it but not crossing it. It flew in my peripheral vision until it was out of sight. It had made no noise; either it was silent or there was no sound here to carry to the ears this body must have had.
The fly had gone.
A shadow appeared to my left, it moved slowly across the grass until it reached the height and shape of my own; another person I guessed. it sagged, leaning on the railing just as I. It was now motionless, soundless. My guests body did not move to observe this new comer, nor did it move its mouth or tongue vocalise the recognition of its presence.
We were just there, two people on the same dust road, in the same countryside and on the same squat bridge. I was on my side of the waterless stream and they were on the other.
We stayed that way for hours, neither moving or speaking. The heat was almost unbearable, but neither moved to seek shade. Then, slowly, ever so slowly like the rotation on a planet and without any alteration in our bodies or the heat, it went dark.
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