Bleck Cra
2006-01-30 20:46:31
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COME WITH MEEEE ...
Up to this point, it had been a uneventful day; uneventful and huffy: a pinching boot, a burst zip and gloves-on-gloves-off. Beneath the mist, it had been pleasant enough; in it, chill - and in dead-man’s land, bitter. A stroll over Commedagh into a grumbling Hares Gap, a dull pull up Bearnagh and a lacklustre approach to the North Tor. Then, above me, at three’o clock, in the mouth of a black crevice ….. Death. No reader, no metaphor or allusion; Death itself - in the fleshlessness. Face black and featureless beneath a hood, and bones bare and shamed within the shadows of a ragged cowl. A finger crooked, fixed on my soul. Now it’s not every day you meet Death. In fact it’s usually just one day in particular. “That’s just great”, I huffed: “a blistered heel, a frozen neck … and now, dead.” But, noblesse oblige, and I enquired of Death “you alright?” “Fine, good and yourself?” By the brogue, Death definitely came from this island. Thirty-ish. And a woman. I glanced at a pantomime-ragged hem and it seemed Death was no slouch with the pinking shears. “Now you’re embarrassed”, boomed a distant, disembodied brogue - this time a male one and then barking like a dog, just like the boxer dog winging out from behind the Tor. And out he came - with the camera and Death now breathless and giggling. Don’t ask. I have no idea, besides by now I was doing some kind of mantra-type humming. “Ah yes ho - yes ha” I gibbered. “Ah yes …..ha” echoed the photographer. His gig, so I didn’t take any shots, but attach an effort from the opposite Tors. Best be nice to people on the way up: you might need them on the way doooowwwnnnn …... |
