Dry Stone

The road undulates through the valley. Rising up, only to follow the sensual curve of the hill down towards another, deeper valley. The small, clapped out car labours and whines as it clumsily caresses a lover it can never be worthy of. There is shame in every mile, but still it plunges deeper and deeper.

She began this journey in a blinkered state. There was only the road ahead. There was nothing of worth beyond that. Nothing else mattered. At the outset of that journey there was only the dreary sameness of house after house. Open prisons populated by grey people going through the motions prescribed by the Doctor State. Take your medicine and you’ll survive a while longer yet.

The intensity of failed lives and grey existences made way for green fields adorned with the frills of hedges hiding vibrant life from a toxic world of grim progress. The journey punctuated by scars on the land. A brutal operation without anaesthetic, for a train line that was failing before it was ever born. A symbol of the modern age. A banner of entitlement that delivers disappointment and yet more anger upon an apathetic populous.

Gradually the manmade marks fell away and nature held sway. Small villages pockmarked a land that became more and more interesting. Hills rising up to meet her. Falling away only to rise again. The rhythm of the journey was deep breath after deep breath. Rising and falling in a pattern that calmed her, despite her need to hold onto her anger.

As the rage within her subsided, her eyes saw more clearly. She did not turn her head, but still she saw the scale of a land that dwarfed any ambitions she may have harboured. She receded and yet felt more for the sensation of belittlement. Grounded. A part of something that made sense at last.

The urgency of her arrival was forgotten long before the destination appeared before her, and she was there too soon. The experience of the journey itself truncated. Yet again she was robbed of something that was rightfully hers. The familiarity of loss brought her back to herself and she grit her teeth and tensed her muscles in response to a world that had always chosen to be hateful towards her. Her life a storm of broken glass and venomous cries that drowned all else out. A noise of chaos and pain that battered and shattered her thoughts before she could finish thinking them. She wore barbed wire. The barbs never allowing her to neglect the reality of her nakedness. Never could she hide from the hungry eyes of a world that consumed. Yellowed, poison coated teeth snarling and laughing at her plight.

The cottage was far away from the places that hurt her the most. It sat huddled up in the base of a valley. A frightened animal making itself small. Hiding in an isolation that made it stand out all the more.

As she clambered out of her car and unfurled, she realised that she had an affection of sorts for this building. Barely remembering to close the car door behind her, she walked deliberately to one side of the front door and placed both of her hands on the stone hide of the structure. Closing her eyes she remembered that she had once been tactile. That this was how she saw the world. She fancied she felt the house breathing in time with her own meagre breaths.

Communing with the stones allowed her respite from an existence she had grown weary of an age ago, even as she understood she’d brought everything she’d sought to escape with her. In her mind’s eye she replayed the film she’d recorded in the periphery of her vision. Ribbons of dry stone wall. Tendrils of this place reaching out to her and welcoming her.

She found the word home presented to her. Examined the foreign concept and found that she could not reject it completely. Everything had its place. Perhaps she could claim this as hers. Dare she believe that?

The door was unlocked, as she knew it would be. Traversing the threshold was a ceremony of sorts. A transition from one state to another. A decision made. A rare choice that she would now enact and could never take back.

Again, her hands found the stone walls. Warmer now. A warmth that seeped into her. Spoke to her. She was livestock encased within a structure that was safe and yet had the potential to contain threats all of its own. There was a darkness here. Her nostrils filled with strands of aromas. The mustiness of damp earth mingling with a smell she would seek to rid herself of soon enough.

The feel of the stone under her fingers awakened something within her and the memories dripped through a crack in her own walls. Impossible memories of another time and another life. Freed at last. Never too late. But it feeling like she had missed her cue all the same. Deprived of a part of her and a connection only that part could form.

The memories were of a childhood that did not fit the person she had become. Now she welcomed them as they filed past her. Her hands stroking the rough stones. A strange power flowing from them and through her. Sharing themselves and the ancient knowledge they held. She could not hope to understand them beyond this gift of memory and the grounding she felt. A temporary belonging. But then everything was temporary. Her most of all.

As the memories collected together she saw what they meant. She was loved once and in being loved, she would always be loved. There was no end. The memories spoke to her of a beginning that would bring her around in an all encompassing circle. Another gift. One she could not return for a refund.

And here she was. Not back where it all started. Not quite. But this was a fresh start of sorts. A place of change and of hope. Having spent far too long hidden away inside. Inside herself and inside the confines of a house that had no soul and no purpose. Her a ghost stalking a sparsity that consumed her. Here she was. Inside a heart that beat only for her now.

She revisits the memories now. Daring to believe they are real. Brave enough to introduce herself and allow a conversation when she has not listened to a single soul for an age. Not even her own. She sees a version of herself she thought lost to her. There was an innocence to her back then. The smile is real. Her eyes light up with something more than mischief. She is running through a field. Spreading her arms out as though she will take off and rise into the sky. And she knows that she is flying. That the innocence she once held had her believe that all things were possible. An escape from the world. But more than an escape. An enchanted time when she knew she was loved. Loved by him in a way that seems impossible now.

And yet…

Another memory – pulling on ears and beard. The cartoon princess all but forgotten. In the moment and only the moment. Laughing and playing and never wanting to fall down from this giant of a man. Never wanting to grow up and away from him.

She was loved and that love will never end now. She cries at last. Cries for the very first time for the loss of who she once was and who she could have been. He saw her for who she was and he saw the potential she contained. He believed she could live out the life that was meant for her. Probably never stopped believing, having shared these memories and known her for who she was.

She cries and is blinded by tears that have lain dormant within her for far too long. Liquid distilled with everything she has squandered. Flavoured with a love that was hers all along. Loss assails her and sings its lament through the sobs of her aching chest. She presses her forehead to the stone. A cold embrace that is more than she deserves.

X marks the spot and here be the treasure of her life. It was here, always here. Waiting for her to strike forth and adventure once more. She lifts her arms and stretches out. Forming a cross. Still capable of flight even with her feet placed firmly on the ground. She stays like that until she can barely move. Wishing for longer, but few wishes are ever granted. Wishes are imagination railing against the constrictions of reality.

She turns to face the room and the fact of her existence. A single stone laying on the threadbare carpet. It’s flank is painted red. A prone figure. Her father. A man she told herself she did not need. Turning him into a totem for her pain and hate. Telling herself stories in which he was always the villain.

She had to do it. He loved her once, she could not allow him to take that away from her as well. Could not risk him giving the lie to that which she knew she contained. A loose end that needed to be taken care of before she unlocked the chest in her heart and sorted through the toys and relics that once were hers. Carefully stored magical items that restore her to herself.

Stepping over her last link to the past, she looks through his books. Picks one up and seats herself at the small dining table. The hard chair more welcoming than the sofa across the room. His sofa. The imprint of him lingering even after he has left this place. Pausing for a moment to look again upon her father, she casts her mind back to the house she left earlier that day. A house that was never a home. Her gaoler lying in the kitchen. Another end that was required for this beginning. The cessation of a reign of casual terror inflicted upon her by the woman that should have been her mother, but never was.

No more lies, she thinks to herself before immersing herself in the fantasy of the book in her hands. She reads until it goes dark. Eyes staring at the blurred words now denied to her. Eyes staring even as blue lights invade the peace of the room and the door swings open to reveal two alien figures who bind her wrists and lead her away to another life. Another reality that she will deny and escape from.

As she steps around the still form of her father, she wonders whether she might have been too hasty. Whether she could have trusted herself to listen to this man and hear the story of him. Now she will never know. She thinks that was how things were meant to be. That this was always how it would end. An end to a beginning that should never have had an end.