pylonsSepia Sky
A Very Short Story

By Rayne

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She lifted her head towards the wind and closed her eyes. She liked the whistling sound it made as it rushed past her ears. It smelled of gasoline and roses – of carnage and fading laughter. Her legs swung freely in the openness beneath her and from above her, a voice: “It’s so small and empty now. So broken...”

“…Broken” She repeated quietly.

They stared out over the mottled land below, pockmarked from the mortars and slick with oily rainwater. The earth that sprawled out mere feet beneath them was too cold and exhausted to feed from the thunderstorm just barely past. Like a timid child hiding in a dark and empty room, the landscape below was indeed “broken”.
The sun was rising somewhere beyond the grey …she could only make out the small gash of quartz coloured light making its way indifferently towards its destination. Ripples of cloud moved like the fin of a leviathan, and as they did, the rainwater glittered - defiant in the face of destruction.

She said: “I wonder if the rain really does connect the sky and the earth some way… if there’s some kind of relationship there that’s just beyond our understanding”

“I think perhaps it does” came the answer.
“…see how the rain washes the earth’s wounds? It’s like watching a wizened child nurse a battered mother - in a way.”

She pondered this for a moment. And then with a sigh: “So, where to?”

“Does it matter?”. A fair question.

She peered upward at her brother. Handsome in his gauntness, childlike with his almost feminine features, she felt a pang of sadness that he saw what she saw. No-one should have to see beauty die... least of all a thing of beauty like himself. Even so, it was unlike him to sound so lost. With another, deeper sigh she responded: “I guess not. But perhaps somewhere greener… no?”

“There’s no green left, sis”

“If there is, let’s go find it”.

For the first time since the end of the world, he smiled. Not forced this time but honest. His messy black hair flicked back and forth over his shoulders and across his cheeks in the steel-edged wind. She pulled herself up into a standing position and climbed slowly to where her brother stood on the pylon. For a time she watched him intently, curious as to his thoughts… then she followed his gaze to a distant tree in the west that look like a skeleton screaming at the heavens with its arms raised above its head…. A dark cloud, of the blackest shade, lingered above this tree. It seemed to levitate above it as if it would remain there forever. Calling.

“There?” She asked.

“There” He agreed.

Silence enveloped them for a time, and then…

Thunder drummed a rhythmic solo in the distance somewhere. It made her think of old Bill Ward with his large handlebar moustache and shiny pants. She couldn’t help a smile. The storm was coming back for them - and how she wished she could reach out her arms and embrace the living, pulsing thing that was the rain. She knew he felt it too. She leaned over backwards and looked down at the point directly below them. The bars on the pylon were still cold and wet from the previous onslaught, this time it wouldn’t last as long but the rain would be heavy. Slowly, unthinking, she began to braid her hair into fine, separate braids – a ritual of her own invention that dated back to her unexplainable childhood habits.

She felt him sit closely to her side as she ended off her last braid and as the first fat splat of rain landed on her hand. The smell of extinction was still strong but the rain was washing it away, as it does all things, little by little. Now, as Bill Ward made his furious way across the flashing sky she focused her full attention on the storm. The time had arrived, and their decision had been made.

She zoned in on the colour of the clouds... the shades of grey. She let the colour consume her and even as her eyes closed she smiled a child’s smile whenever lightning licked the sky. He reached the place in his mind before she did - she could feel the glow on her upper arm even through the thick coat that she wore over her bandages. The light seeping out from her brother sent her deeper into her own mind… the place where they met once more on a level that was not completely physical. In this nameless place he was even taller, his hair golden-white and flowing. In this place she felt weightless, she was stronger and she could feel the strength down to her bones. Her shoulders began to tingle with a familiar sensation… hot, almost liquid like a scalpel or a tattoo needle. When she opened her eyes, the world had taken on a customary blue hue. Everything was still distinguishable but slightly shaded in by the cobalt that had enveloped her mind since the early days. Looking over at her brother she smiled gently, surprised as she always was to see his wings folded up like those of a bird. They looked like wings that would belong to a bird of prey: ebony-black at his scapula, grey toward the middle and tipped in pure white feathers. Her own were not so grand, instead they were a blue-grey colour right the way through… she was the pigeon to his eagle – so they’d always joked. The only thing she liked about her wings was the one red feather that grew insistently on the inside of her left wing. As children, he had once pulled it out after she’d called him names. She had been so upset with him for it, until she discovered he’d kept it in a book as a reminder of her while she was away at times. The feather had grown back around the time that she had returned home… testament to her love for her brother.

The rain was coming harder now, bringing her out of her reverie and at the same time strengthening some primal urge deep within her that she couldn’t name. She stood slowly, carefully. Standing at her full height she shrugged her coat off her shoulders, pulling her wings tighter against her back as she did. Her coat billowed out underneath her, falling gracefully to the far-away ground in tatters. Wordlessly the two slipped off of the tower, plummeting in freefall. Arms outstretched and eyes wide open they melted themselves into the wind. In a rustle of sound, two pairs of massive wings unfolded and beat heavily downward, pushing the two into an upward race. Like ballet dancers in an empty theatre, they twirled and folded with the violent storm, white fire illuminating their eyes and thunder providing the choreography. Ever westward bound, following the rain; no purpose in their dance, no crescendo to achieve, they simply were.

Lost in time, lost in joy… they turned towards to the darkest part of the sky, above the woeful tree. It was in this storm that they would finally leave this place together. As the heavens poured the rain into the hungry earth, they climbed ever closer to the dark cloud. Slowing and pulling back, she hovered. Her brother appeared at her side, anticipation evident in his wan smile.

“You ready, little brother?”

“Since the day I was born. You?”

She smiled at him and in that smile she said “It all lead here. Our job is done and now it’s time to go. Angels in the rain will find no answers here anymore. The Earth has been cleansed, we are the last of our kind… let’s leave the rest to the rain”.

And into the darkness they faded… the only reminder of them to the fallen trees: the Sepia Sky.

We stand in awe of that which cannot be seen, and we respect with every fiber that which cannot be explained. People are able to hold on to hope, since death is that which cannot be seen. People have hope because they cannot see Death standing behind them.

If I were the rain, that binds together the earth and the sky, who in all eternity will never mingle, would I be able to bind two hearts together? We come together, like drops of water, like the astral bodies - we oppose each other like magnets, like the colors of skin.

Unless I grip the sword, I cannot protect you. While gripping the sword, I cannot embrace you. Yes, there is no Fate for us… Only those who are swallowed by ignorance and fear and miss a step fall into the rapid river called Fate.

We should not shed tears, that is a surrender of the body to the heart, it is only proof that we are beings that do not know what to do with our hearts. If it rusts, it can never be trusted. If its owner fails to control it, it will cut him. Yes, pride is like a blade.

Oh, all of us dream that we are flying the skies with our eyes open. Everything in this world exists to wear you down. We reach out with our hands, brush away the clouds and pierce the sky to grab the Moon and Mars but we still can't reach the truth. Light a fire to the fang that cannot be reached so that I do not have to see that star… So that I do not slit this throat. We think a flower on a cliff is beautiful because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge, unable to step out into the sky like that fearless flower. Every time we set aside our pride we take a step closer to the beast, every time we kill an emotion we take a step away from the beast.

Don't be afraid when you are deceived for the world is already full of deception.
Red like blood.
White like bone.
Red like solitude.
White like silence.
Red like the beastly instinct.
White like a god's heart.
Red like thawing hatred.
White like a frozen, pained cry.
Red like the night's hungry shadows.

We fear that which we cannot see...
we respect that which we cannot see...
and thus the blade will be wielded.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

These are the words of Inoue Orihime, a young Japanese girl in the popular Anime series called Bleach (Anime being something I am severely addicted to). It's a piece that has always been very close to my heart and has recently resurfaced as an old muse. Hopefully in days to come I'll post my "wanderings" as they take shape. They are not strictly based in anything... but passages like the one above, certain songs and photographs will always be the wells from which I draw a lot of inspiration.

Any thoughts you guys have I would welcome :)

R

If anyone is interested in assisting me in battling it out against the dull wits of a couple of local xtians... here's the link:

http://lowveld.womf.com/207039/Pagan

Pls forgive my irritation - I find it hard to hold the moral high ground on Mondays.

♥R

Hailsa all :)

I've been hunting those elusive Muses of mine again... and I thought I'd share a waterfall with you. I fell into it quite by accident, but it carried me far, far away. Let me know where it takes you.

Dreamland
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE- out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by-
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

- Edgar Allan Poe

Much love and peace, my friends.
R