This place is wrong. Where is this?
A dusty yellow-grey path cuts along a lakeside, the dull-bronze frame to an otherwise pristine mirror. The water is still and quiet as death save for the gentle lap of the shore; inland, a steep hill rises, a verdant wall of swishing grass and creaking trees, canopy crawling toward the night sky, melting into the darkness. Across the lake, sheer cliffs form a jagged silhouette against the sapphire night, offering no hope of ever being climbed; theirs are the ways of betrayal, of scrabbling and grasping hands and falling scree and bare, cragged rock.
A dream? You don’t recall falling asleep, but…
A single look back along the path shows only an encroaching wall of fog, creeping tendrils of mist like ghostly fingers inching forward to catch anyone who might falter on the road.
The only way is forward. Your steps leave no imprint as you begin to walk.
Two moons hang in the sky, one small and one looming large, a precocious older sister and demure younger brother lingering behind. Two billion stars quiver in and out of existence as the canopy dances a tender waltz in a passing breeze, as if even light which has travelled a million million years cannot fully permeate this half-space.
The glassy lake shimmers; which is the reflection?
A memory? The lake’s lapping laughter and the refracted glinting call to mind childhood, laughter, summer, but that was in the full brightness of day, in the reassuring presence of friends and family. And there is only one moon. (Isn’t there?)
Where – no, when – is this?
You stop. Music. Music? Surely it can’t be. And yet…is that music?
It is.
Drifting through the air in tandem with the sweet scent of damp vegetation recently brushed by rainfall, music flows from nowhere and floats everywhere. A looping bass figure throbs as though bubbling toward a surface, yet never quite bursts forth. These warbling pockets are the canvas upon which two melodies, one a shining bright gold and the other a murky, mischievous cerulean harmonise and coagulate only to melt apart again, order meeting disorder over and over.
The path whispers underfoot as you walk on.
And on.
And on.
You should be tired, feet and joints aching, and yet, nothing, save for an occasional horripilation. From the breeze, probably. You look at your watch; the second hand ticks back and forth, the minute and hour hands droop, swinging loosely with each shake of your wrist.
This place is wrong. This place is—
You freeze. Something approaches. Something large and snorting and vital.
A stag, giant even among its own kind, erupts from the foliage, a riot of broken undergrowth giving way to the sharp clop of hooved feet as the great beast steps into the path, a displaced cloud of dust billowing around long and powerful legs. Two great antlers, broad as the buck is tall are its crown, bone-white eruptions branching into branches and ever on into more branches finally to a pandemonium of jagged ends. Shadows from the stirring trees drift across fine, smooth fur with the sheen of a freshly split chestnut. Another snort; a low, rich rumble from a mighty chest cavity. The fresh fragrance in the air is beaten into submission by the animal’s earthen musk, the scent of leather and sweat wafting on currents of steaming heat.
Grit crinkles underfoot as you take an involuntary step back. Once, you reached for your mothers hand in an echoing museum hall as you both stood before the mounted skeleton of a Megaloceros giganteus, the Irish elk. The fear and adrenaline that should be pulsing through each fibre of your being never comes.
Its long head lowers, rope-like tendons working in its neck. The eyes are magnetic, orbs of deepest pitch, snaring passing light as a precision-cut onyx gemstone might catch the attention of a jewel thief. They are wells without bottom, from which disembodied whispers beckon. They are empty hearths in which a fire might suddenly erupt, warm and welcoming, or roaring, spitting, out of control.
At last, after a time immeasurable (it’s not clear if half a second or a whole cosmic eon has elapsed), the stag raises its head, and something begins.
The air around and between the antlers stirs, shimmers and shivers. The night is a curtain rippling in a breath of wind oozing in through an unseen window. Each attempt to focus on the arrhythmic motion is like trying to look through eyes filled with tears (though none ever come). The sweet aroma of foliage and water is intensified, the light from the moons and stars magnified, effervescent. Still the stag stares, as sure a grip as any ship’s iron-wrought anchor in a maelstrom. The breeze picks up for an instant into a howling, shrieking gust, the crack and snap of branches, the crash and roar of waves formed from nothing.
Then, silence. The eerie, untethered melody has ceased.
Between the stag’s antlers, possibilities, endless, spread out into a place without horizon. One stag becomes two and then four and then eight and on and on into uncountable variations, wavering in and out of focus, each one offering a different path; paths which might have been taken but weren’t, paths now closed off forever and totally and absolutely. Paths which have not yet opened and paths which were or are or will be so obscure that to understand them even as seen now is to attempt to divine patterns while looking directly at the shifting molten surface of the blinding sun. Paths avoided, other directions chosen, knowingly and unknowingly.
A glance, meant as a private invitation, a weighted and seductive offer; alas, too hidden, too covert, the moment passed forever.
A dog lying on its side on the table of a veterinary surgeon. Though rendered limp and helpless by anaesthetic, its bark-brown eyes wheel upwards in supplication, in search of reassurance, the whites shining with moisture. A door opens and shuts; a figure approaches clad in cobalt scrubs, face hidden behind a white mask, pupils dilated to reveal fervent blue irises.
A churning sea roaring into impotent oblivion beneath a slate sky while diamond saltwater spray and whipping wind dance a catastrophic waltz.
Car brakes screeching, the last gasp, the flash of headlights too bright. A realisation, too late. The glaring, rhythmic reflection of blue lights in a puddle of rainwater as a siren wails its mechanical banshee keening.
A summer breeze, light and fragrant as the petals of a new blossom, floats through across a wheat field, the sinister stench of burning wood and smoke slinking along beneath it.
The pop of a champagne cork, the mandated cheer and stilted well-wishes of colleagues in a lifeless, airless office with stark lighting and grey walls.
A child’s delighted peals of laughter. Its hair is the same colour as hers. It has her eyes. The little one looks at you and you see her and everything you and her were and are.
Outside the membrane of the ever-splintering images, there is the pull, a magnetic force of such strength, the first fresh water offered to someone lost at sea, to look further outwards to the twinkling surface of the lake, and to the opposite darkness of the forested hillside where ethereal images flicker in the shifting air and light, dark and secret possibilities hidden within the depths of the heart, beyond rational thought or understanding.
The rattle of distant gunfire, a spasm of rhythm under the frenzied melody of sirens. The surge of worry for loved ones and the selfish twist in the gut for your own wellbeing.
A scream of hatred, the whiplash of cruel words hurled across an empty, echoing carpark, spears and daggers leaving scars which will never disappear, the muttering of curses and accusations which can never be taken back.
A question unasked.
The muted cough in a silent crowd before a reading.
The crackle of a campfire in August.
Retreat to a quiet room, phone in hand, shaking breath and stinging eyes and a voice you’ve never known yourself to speak in before.
That first gentle touch on a shoulder, where hesitancy softly gives way to desire.
A phone call never made; a message never sent; a word never spoken.
Biting a lip, a smile, shining eyes, a nod.
Awkward laughter at a bad joke. People clear their throats and quickly raise their glasses, no matter how close to empty, to take a sip; anything to escape the fugue in the air.
A life with her.
A life with him.
An empty house.
A son.
A daughter.
Piano and voice heard from a hallway, a stolen intimacy.
The last sunset.
A letter, torn open; Dear (is that my name?), we regret to inform you…
A winter moon, frost in the corners of a windowpane.
A life alone.
A lonely death.
Death witnessed by a stranger.
Death, surrounded by weeping children, worried family, apathetic nurses, bathed in a sweet ferric stench. The ache in your gut, deep and dull and ever-present, occasionally lurching into stabbing agony, piercing through your bones, upwards toward your throat and head and—
Enough! Enough. That’s…that’s enough. It’s too much, far too great to look at for more than a second, and nowhere close to satisfying the curiosity of a thousand lifetimes. The air expands, stretches as the stag’s eyes hold you for a last moment before blinking, unfastening the bonds of its gaze, and finally, space is whole and still and invisible again, light and motion and sound thaw from their stasis. There, the playful lap of wavelets against the stony lake shore, the aromatic zephyrs delicate as a concert violinist’s fingers, foliage rusting in time to the wind, while the music without players secretes itself into the darkness, each bell-like note and throbbing bass and chiming melody a reflection of the stars pulsating above.
After trying on a new garment (well-fitting, but much too exuberant, too wild and boisterous), this place (where is it?) has enfolded itself back within a comfortable cloak of serenity.
You breathe out, and the sound comes from somewhere distant, groaning, whooshing.
The stag stands up tall, snorting once, the gruff and dignified harrumph of a seasoned admiral inspecting his troops, before shaking its great shoulders, its coat of pristine fur momentarily frenzied, and turning away to return to the depths of the forest in a symphony of splintering and cracking.
You raise a pale, trembling hand to your head, but feel neither heat nor cold before your eyes see what remains before them. The path.
The only way is forward.
The bone-deep tiredness of a long walk never descends upon your body. Limbs flow as though moved by someone or something else, one foot always moving before another.
After a time that only a melted clock face might be able to display, a granite lantern appears ahead, splitting the path, fire flickering from within the carved firebox. Although the passage of unknown centuries and the attentions of the elements have left it weathered and chipped, rough to the touch of wandering palms, it is clearly the result of a laborious and deliberate attempt at refined elegance. On the front of the column, an engraving is hewn into the stone. You run fingers which seem too sure and steady over meticulously carved lines which trace the outline of a mighty stag, standing tall and proud, one hoof regally raised as it gazes off toward the middle distance, antlers rising like forked lightning being hurled skyward.
Without realising, your hand wanders to your wrist, unfastening the strap of your watch. Who was that a present from? It doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Its face cracks as it drops to the ground.
To each side of the lantern, a new path. A choice. Which to take? Which might lead to that essential place? The two trails fade away under the canopy, occasionally lit by shifting leaves and branches allowing the glow of the moons to penetrate below. At the very edge of sight, it is just possible to make out a distant orange glow further down each avenue.
More lanterns. More choices, endless until that final ending.
Two moons and two billion stars keep counsel above. A breeze, the lap of water, a melody without players.
This place isn’t wrong, it simply is. There’s no wrong choice. There’s nothing but a choice.
The only way is forward.
