“What if the door is locked?”
“And what if it’s not? Your constant pessimism is so wearing”. He scrapes at the ground with a twig, not purposefully but negatively wearing away at the earth, flicking stones away, digging in to root out a channel. “Why should everything be against us?”
“Well you just assumed that it’s alright, no one said that said we can”.
It is two hours since I was disturbed, forced to hide, but I’ve managed to remain unnoticed, I have learnt to do this.
Crouching, uncomfortable and wet, my calf muscles aching under the compression my posture is placing on them, my lower back is tight and painful. It has taken weeks for me to lose the urge to dampen my fingers with my tongue, a magnetic habit that I had acquired before adulthood, but the dirt ingrained in my fingers is drawing them toward my mouth. I perceive stress as dryness in my hands; even though I am no stranger to filth I feel dirt the same way. A dry branch has caught against my sleeve and if I move there will be a sure consequence, a snap, a cause so simple as to effect my discovery.
I cannot see them but their voices sound weak, I picture them emaciated, lank hair matted, with lice, like me. Both of them have the bitterness of strong people no longer able to be the source of their own determination colouring the timbre of their voices. I wonder if once they had all of their material lusts satiated, were considered beautiful among their peers. Beauty lost becomes a source of suffering; poor beauty becomes incarnate.
“Do you think that guy who use to own this place is around? I’ve heard that he’s still here somewhere.”
The question brings a light and casual laugh and he pauses before saying “You know, I think I wish he were, now.”
His sudden change in mood seems to give her confidence. “Me too, I’m sure we could all help each other. He knows every brook and gully”.
“Hey do you remember when you first bought me up here and we found him, meditating? We had that fabulous Lamb that you roasted and he had that crazy smoke.”
So I know them, God that’s disconcerting, I am frightened and hopeful. I don’t remember that time, but I do remember their voices now; I think that we were friends though I have my doubts the term is appropriate. I discovered this place much earlier than any of my temporary acolytes; I was seeking refuge, to recede from an incessant life but, weak, came to hope that strangers would arrive. They did of course pulled-in by the parties that I put on. They weren’t exactly wild but there was enough of everything to fill whatever short term emptiness arose. I was happy to fund it all.
Those who came were younger people predominately, some seeking to retain a carefree spirit in their hatch-battened corporate lives, some just hedonists, others thinking that this part of the world may hold a secret. I never held much truck with mysticism.
“Look it’s getting late, have you any idea where we are going or shall we pick our way back?” The frustration in her voice is rendering her hatefully.
“Does it matter? The time I mean? We’ll know exactly where we are in the morning, and then we can get to the cabin, make a fire, take a wash and have a good sleep. God, it’s only one night in the open, we know that we’re safe here; we could hear anyone coming for miles if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“So much for a fun time then”
She says this with such resignation, her broken heart had hoped for something on which to rest, a few days of visions, childlike, slowly entering her consciousness but car, bed and shower are strong forces.
Within the cage there is kindness
And other forces some unknown
I lean against an old wall waiting
With tricks to play wood on stone.
It’s a song that I wrote when people listened. I thought that they always would.
“Once these things mattered to you” he said.
She continues in her resigned mode, the same as contentment just moved along, same life, same actions, but a different tonal centre. It is now so dark that I cannot see a thing. She begins to hum the tune to my song. The compulsion to lick my fingers strengthens with the compulsion to show myself too. I am so frightened of being exposed I am held in stasis. As each desire grows the other keeps it firmly in check.
“They do matter. Still. Look, if we head back to car we should meet that trail, the one which leads up to the ridge. It’s a clear sky now, the moon should be up soon, we can hopefully see the copse and then make our way down to the hut. I want to do this, for you, for us. I wish he’d never sold it, especially to those two bores.
“Good girl, that’s the spirit. And if we can’t work it out from the ridge, we’ll head back to the car, sleep there overnight and find our way in the morning.”
He’s pleased, his enthusiasm is almost unbridled. I can hear him take hold of her, the whispered intimacies. They crunch away across the floor of leaves and rotting wood, back the way they came.
I wait for maybe five minutes so as to be sure that they have gone. Numb limbs, stiffened and sore it takes me a long time to make my body move freely again. The hut is only a few metres distant. I pick my way at ninety degrees to the path they took, up the hill and find a more comfortable place to watch and wait. I hope that they will find it again. I want to see who they are, see if I remember them.
I sold the hut because I didn’t want to be responsible. Loneliness is cause for despair though it is better than death and some lives are so deathly.
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I wrote this on a whim. Montaigne believed marriage to be a cage and I believe that all of us married know this idea. Some cages are traps, some give us voluntary captivity, some we are free to leave for a while and return, some we can bend the bars to fit if poorly made.
