A Horizon
With steel cold waves rushing onto and through the shoals of
pebbles, she sat down on what remained of the grass and looked out over the
water. It stretched away to the horizon,
one that for me had always held hope. I don't know what she said, what she saw, how long she stood there looking across the sea, only what she did.
My mind’s eye won’t let me see what happens next, it pans up to the grey steel sky which looked down with cold indifference at that unspeakable act.
I don't remember the months that followed. The world within me grew like some physiological
defence, taking me in, alternatively shielding and exposing me to what had happened. Life and death had never been so close, so interchangable.
Even now, when I am alone, silent spaces fill
with the metallic tang of the sea, the sound of waves rushing through cold,
lifeless stones and cover me in an indifferent sky. I think of her, what she would be if she hadn't been lost.
Jolted and displaced, I ran away, reduced my life to a backpack and roamed towards the horizon, still naively sure that whatever hope had been buried behind me, would be waiting for me ahead.
I walked, I ran, I flew and sailed. My feet cut the earth of mountain tops , I stood knee length in tidal drifts staring up at an upside down moon, I sat on the edge of Icelandic cliffs, staring out over jet black seas or braced in valleys with a branch in my hand fending off wild dogs.
And in each of those times, when I was truly alone, with no one but God to answer to, I said her name out loud.
Now and then I would see her getting onto a bus, going into a store. If I fell asleep on a bus, she would be sitting next to me, and without opening my eyes I would know. Without substance or pain, without judgement or guilt, without language.
There is Hope. I want to tell her. There is Hope. Her name, my words, still linger and vibrate in every place I’ve said it. In case she ever returned, I would point to them, to prove that there was Hope and that they all pointed to the Horizon.
