We could have been running away, but if we were running away from someone, we were evidently lacking in any sort of fear. The running was joyous, and since we could not be wearied, it was the greatest freedom that I would ever feel in this world. Our footsteps scuffed the loose dirt under our feet, packed hard by many feet walking over them, by carts, wheels, and the odd horse or two. The ground was bleached white by the sun and so were the buildings molded out of mud brick and rock all rearing their head over us; providing relieving shade from the burning sunlight that we could not feel. We could not feel the choking dust in our lungs, nor the gritty taste of earth in our mouths either. We breathed only fresh air.
Laughing clung to the air around us, as we looked back over our shoulders and saw no shadow of pursuit. Yet we still ran, knowing there was something, someone behind us, though too far away to be of threat to us. The few people that wandered the streets only glanced at us, either smiled in amusement or frowned disapprovingly, and then melted discreetly back into the sandy buildings with their dark, yawning doorways. I tried to see where they melted too, but a frame of dark hair that I guessed was mine gently screened my field of vision in that direction. Shrugging it from the forefront of my mind, I turned instead to my friends. There were a group of familiar faces on lithe, bronzed bodies. Many wore shorts in brown, cream and other neutral colors. Some wore flowing white shirts while others wore a singlet over their lean bodies. They ran with me, regularly breaking into skips or jumps, or taking a few steps backwards as if in jest of those who followed. Their hair whipped around their faces in the wind as we ran, and their eyes sparkled in the sun. All fair faces, with dark tresses.
The road ran straight as far as we could make out distinctly, but as we ran on, we saw that it began to curve off to the right. We slowed down as the road began to curve, as if confused as to which direction we should travel next. Eventually, we slowed to a stop between a dead end and a junction that sped off eternally to the right, and was lost in a haze of light. One of the nameless friends broke away from the group, and walked a little way forwards. She turned to me a smiled, not with her lips but with her eyes that seemed to bury itself into my very core. She beckoned us forwards with a wave of her hand, held me in her gaze for a little longer and then turned, breaking the contact. We ran forwards, up a narrow flight of staircase hewn into sandy rock that made up a wall stretching right as far as the road, and connected to a house on the left. The sky was endlessly blue. A single, gnarled olive tree wound its roots into the rock around the beginning of the stairway, and silver leaves lingered on steps high above where the tree’s highest branches came to an end. Up and up, we travelled further and saw the city spreading below us. And then the stairs leveled out onto a grassy plain, stretching into the distance. Like before, a tree guarded the entrance into the next world, this time, a three with chocolate bark and fiery red and gold five fingered leaves. Its rusty foliage whispered and sighed in the none-existent wind, its high straight trunk supporting an expansive canopy. Its dark bark was furrowed and rough under my fingertips, entwining and snaking upwards and then spreading out into the elegant limbs. A dappled enclosure of shade surrounded its base, where the grass began to thin, then faded into thick, solid roots plunging themselves into the ground.
Soft, green grass tickled my ankles as I watched my companions began to remove their shoes. I followed suit. I could feel the grass. I could bath in the warmth of the sunshine. Beyond the gently spreading hill, the cream colored city stretched out to the edge of the ocean, and the dark blue waves tipped with foam crashed silently against a golden strip of beach. Focusing on the foreground, little white butterflies dotted the green grass, winking in and out of existence, lightly settling onto the white and yellow suns that dotted the lawn, then launching themselves into the air again and winking out of existence. The sun was no where to be seen, but it felt like early afternoon. The field seemed endless, and not a single tree grew in the middle of the roughly triangular plot, but lined the field on two sides, blocking our view of the surroundings. They seemed small to our eyes.
Turning where I stood, I noticed that the fourth side, behind the great red tree was a sharply sloping dirt wall. Curious as to what lay beyond it I stood at the foot and looked up. Nothing but sky. I tried it, and found the slope, impossible to climb in real life, easily supported my weight. I began to climb, feeling for foot holds and hanging on to various protrusions from the rough, textured surface. It was rather like the side of a mountain. Once in a while I would look down, and found that I was going up at an incredibly slow pace, though my legs and hands, rubbed red, said otherwise. Meanwhile, the group had gathered at where I had begun my climb, looking up at me with blank expressions. One stood out from the group, the same that had pointed out the stairway, and called to me. I cannot begin to describe what he said because it was not with words. It was like a tune that left her lips gently, and then floated up, in a gently crescendo in proportion to the altitude it gained, and by the time it had reached me, turned into a piercing, though not loud, beckoning. It was a sign, like everyone knows to run with the sound of an alarm bell. I retraced my steps, and jumped down a way from the ground. I fell gently and landed with a soft thump on my feet. The girl smiled her approval.
We spent the rest of the day in the field, chasing each other, chasing butterflies, rolling in the grass and resting under the shade of the tree. Time passed quickly, or my feeling of time was very much distorted, and suddenly, the sky ebbed into a dusty orange, and slivers of pink cloud adorned the horizon. A glowing red sun sunk halfway over the horizon bathed the creamy city in an infernal glow. The quivering sea, chanced upon by an ambitious alchemist, was transformed into liquid gold. By this time, we had all gathered near the tree again, and sat, while the girl who had led the group and called me down, stood in front of us, facing the sunset. She first began to hum, and then the first breeze of that day swept into our little group, and kissed our bronzed skin, raising goose bumps in its path. When the first coherent notes fell from her lips, they were once again, not words, but we understood what she was trying to describe. New life to replace the old, a new day to follow this one, just as night follows day, and is then chased away again. Just as trees grow old, a sapling will replace it, and just the adults will die, we will grow to rule the world. Before our eyes, a crack broke the ground near the base of the tree near the stairway, and a sapling grew where there was nothing before. And as the sapling grew, a thin sheen of frost began to creep up the roots of the magnificent tree. As the leaves of the sapling turned from a tender lime, to brilliant emerald, to a dusty yellow green and then into red and gold, the leaves of the older tree began to wither and brown. By tomorrow, one tree would’ve replaced the other. We turned back to the sky.
The sun had set, leaving only a tinge of orange separating the murky water from the velvety sky. A scatter of diamonds reached towards the after-glow of the day, blanketing us in its silvery shine. Once again, the oceans changed its gown, this time to one of quicksilver, shimmering and distorting in the dim light. The city, once red like the flames of hell, now glowed like age old bone, bleached ivory in the light, and lay silent and dark as its citizens slumbered. A mixture of light and deep shadows, one could make out strange faces outlined by buildings and white ribbon streets. Where the city ended abruptly to where we sat, the grass, rippling in the breezes that had permeated the once still air danced to their own unheard music…
Laughing clung to the air around us, as we looked back over our shoulders and saw no shadow of pursuit. Yet we still ran, knowing there was something, someone behind us, though too far away to be of threat to us. The few people that wandered the streets only glanced at us, either smiled in amusement or frowned disapprovingly, and then melted discreetly back into the sandy buildings with their dark, yawning doorways. I tried to see where they melted too, but a frame of dark hair that I guessed was mine gently screened my field of vision in that direction. Shrugging it from the forefront of my mind, I turned instead to my friends. There were a group of familiar faces on lithe, bronzed bodies. Many wore shorts in brown, cream and other neutral colors. Some wore flowing white shirts while others wore a singlet over their lean bodies. They ran with me, regularly breaking into skips or jumps, or taking a few steps backwards as if in jest of those who followed. Their hair whipped around their faces in the wind as we ran, and their eyes sparkled in the sun. All fair faces, with dark tresses.
The road ran straight as far as we could make out distinctly, but as we ran on, we saw that it began to curve off to the right. We slowed down as the road began to curve, as if confused as to which direction we should travel next. Eventually, we slowed to a stop between a dead end and a junction that sped off eternally to the right, and was lost in a haze of light. One of the nameless friends broke away from the group, and walked a little way forwards. She turned to me a smiled, not with her lips but with her eyes that seemed to bury itself into my very core. She beckoned us forwards with a wave of her hand, held me in her gaze for a little longer and then turned, breaking the contact. We ran forwards, up a narrow flight of staircase hewn into sandy rock that made up a wall stretching right as far as the road, and connected to a house on the left. The sky was endlessly blue. A single, gnarled olive tree wound its roots into the rock around the beginning of the stairway, and silver leaves lingered on steps high above where the tree’s highest branches came to an end. Up and up, we travelled further and saw the city spreading below us. And then the stairs leveled out onto a grassy plain, stretching into the distance. Like before, a tree guarded the entrance into the next world, this time, a three with chocolate bark and fiery red and gold five fingered leaves. Its rusty foliage whispered and sighed in the none-existent wind, its high straight trunk supporting an expansive canopy. Its dark bark was furrowed and rough under my fingertips, entwining and snaking upwards and then spreading out into the elegant limbs. A dappled enclosure of shade surrounded its base, where the grass began to thin, then faded into thick, solid roots plunging themselves into the ground.
Soft, green grass tickled my ankles as I watched my companions began to remove their shoes. I followed suit. I could feel the grass. I could bath in the warmth of the sunshine. Beyond the gently spreading hill, the cream colored city stretched out to the edge of the ocean, and the dark blue waves tipped with foam crashed silently against a golden strip of beach. Focusing on the foreground, little white butterflies dotted the green grass, winking in and out of existence, lightly settling onto the white and yellow suns that dotted the lawn, then launching themselves into the air again and winking out of existence. The sun was no where to be seen, but it felt like early afternoon. The field seemed endless, and not a single tree grew in the middle of the roughly triangular plot, but lined the field on two sides, blocking our view of the surroundings. They seemed small to our eyes.
Turning where I stood, I noticed that the fourth side, behind the great red tree was a sharply sloping dirt wall. Curious as to what lay beyond it I stood at the foot and looked up. Nothing but sky. I tried it, and found the slope, impossible to climb in real life, easily supported my weight. I began to climb, feeling for foot holds and hanging on to various protrusions from the rough, textured surface. It was rather like the side of a mountain. Once in a while I would look down, and found that I was going up at an incredibly slow pace, though my legs and hands, rubbed red, said otherwise. Meanwhile, the group had gathered at where I had begun my climb, looking up at me with blank expressions. One stood out from the group, the same that had pointed out the stairway, and called to me. I cannot begin to describe what he said because it was not with words. It was like a tune that left her lips gently, and then floated up, in a gently crescendo in proportion to the altitude it gained, and by the time it had reached me, turned into a piercing, though not loud, beckoning. It was a sign, like everyone knows to run with the sound of an alarm bell. I retraced my steps, and jumped down a way from the ground. I fell gently and landed with a soft thump on my feet. The girl smiled her approval.
We spent the rest of the day in the field, chasing each other, chasing butterflies, rolling in the grass and resting under the shade of the tree. Time passed quickly, or my feeling of time was very much distorted, and suddenly, the sky ebbed into a dusty orange, and slivers of pink cloud adorned the horizon. A glowing red sun sunk halfway over the horizon bathed the creamy city in an infernal glow. The quivering sea, chanced upon by an ambitious alchemist, was transformed into liquid gold. By this time, we had all gathered near the tree again, and sat, while the girl who had led the group and called me down, stood in front of us, facing the sunset. She first began to hum, and then the first breeze of that day swept into our little group, and kissed our bronzed skin, raising goose bumps in its path. When the first coherent notes fell from her lips, they were once again, not words, but we understood what she was trying to describe. New life to replace the old, a new day to follow this one, just as night follows day, and is then chased away again. Just as trees grow old, a sapling will replace it, and just the adults will die, we will grow to rule the world. Before our eyes, a crack broke the ground near the base of the tree near the stairway, and a sapling grew where there was nothing before. And as the sapling grew, a thin sheen of frost began to creep up the roots of the magnificent tree. As the leaves of the sapling turned from a tender lime, to brilliant emerald, to a dusty yellow green and then into red and gold, the leaves of the older tree began to wither and brown. By tomorrow, one tree would’ve replaced the other. We turned back to the sky.
The sun had set, leaving only a tinge of orange separating the murky water from the velvety sky. A scatter of diamonds reached towards the after-glow of the day, blanketing us in its silvery shine. Once again, the oceans changed its gown, this time to one of quicksilver, shimmering and distorting in the dim light. The city, once red like the flames of hell, now glowed like age old bone, bleached ivory in the light, and lay silent and dark as its citizens slumbered. A mixture of light and deep shadows, one could make out strange faces outlined by buildings and white ribbon streets. Where the city ended abruptly to where we sat, the grass, rippling in the breezes that had permeated the once still air danced to their own unheard music…
You have an amazing imagination and you expressed yourself beautifully. This piece of writing was surreal in the most aesthetically wonderful ways.
ReplyDeleteI love how much attention to detail you had in your writing, particularly regarding sight and touch. "She first began to hum, and then the first breeze of that day swept into our little group, and kissed our bronzed skin, raising goose bumps in its path" was brilliant.