A Tale Of Madness

It felt as though the night had spread its hold on the world as far as eternity, but as all hope of seeing sunlight again fizzled away from my heart, I caught, in the corner of my eye, the crystaline twinkling reddish glow of a fresh dawn striking the earth with its harmony in light & sound. The red orange glow lit up the sodden ground like a wild fire rushing to greet us as we stared in awe at its magestic beauty. The very flames of the sun licked our faces as I prayed for a dry day. Not another thought passed through my mind as the clowds themselves flew in fear from our blueing sky, determinned not to be evaperated, or melted like an ice cube absent of a cold drink on a hot day. The rising heat was matched only by our enthusiasm for the rising of steam from our clothing. It curled away from us gracefully like an ebbing fog or the smoke from a cigarette eeking its way to the nearest air outlet in a closed off room. As the freshly lit new day rose into existance, I felt a change in our moods, our steps lightened on thier path as they carried us forward to our goal with renewed enthusiasm. A strange sensation, but a welcome break from that overwhelming sense of dread I had carried with me secretly since the off..... 

......The barn itself was barely a shelter at all, with as many holes in the supposed roof as my mother's cullender. It was a welcome but depressing sight for our tired eyes. Our dilapodated surroundings, with its dirt floor crawling along under our feet, made me feel sick to my stomach. One look at my companion & I realised I wasn't the only one unimpressed. "Needs must" I heard my mother's voice trample its way through my brain like a stubbord elephant. An attitude of a past era, "make do & mend" sprang to mind as well, but no amount of false smiles & morale would fix this place up in a jiffy. We looked around, treading carefully so as not to crush too much of our travelling carpet, centipedes & beetles escaping from the weather where they could. We found a corner where the roof was almost intact & after sweeping as many bugs away with our feet as possible, as futile an exercise that might have been, we settled, backs to the weeping & creaking walls. Eyes heavier than the soaking clothes we sat in, we began to drift into a restless lull. The sickness in my stomach made its way slyly to my head, creaping up into my grey cells like an invisible disease. I woke sweating, not sure what it was that had roused me. Bleary eyes casualy scanning the darkness, half awake invincible covered me before my consciousness was thrust into action by an alarming noise. I woke faster than was normal, lurching my wondering mind into action. It was not a pleasant feeling. I thought I alone was awake but a hard gripping hand around my forearm told me I was not. The noise scattered itself around our barn, tickling the ground with its flickering steadiness. Were we surrounded? No we couldn't be, we had our backs to a wall. A small comfort as terror filled our souls faster than an aligator dragging its prey into that crushing & inevitable death role. Closer it came, the noise, closer. We huddled together as still as our shakes of fear allowed, pushing back in the vain hope we'd become one with the wall that had supported our sleeping selves only a few moments before. Panic filled the air, prickly & hot like a sudden heat wave. Blind fear threw us from the ground & our heels kissed goodbye to the moving carpet faster than they'd cared to say hello. We'd returned to our stormy skies, muddied path & insane eels of light, hearts pounding. The rain was not such an unwelcome guest from here, but I was not about to offer myself up to it on a silver platter with all the trimmings just yet....

.....It seemed like an age had passed. We had faced obsticals in our body & in the weather, rest had to come soon surely? Cold like the mountains before us & as wet as the rain that had plagued our every step, we saught shelter. The clowds were so thick that the only source of light was not the moon we had hoped for, but the sparradic flashes of lightening that danced accross the sky like some kind of insane eel out of water. Every now & then those crazy, posessed eels would throw themselves accross the blackest sky illuminating any potential safe house. So far only the odd scraggy looking tree with a passion for looking like haggered twisted old witches had shown themselves. All hopes fading & every step making our knees feel closer to the path ahead through fatigue we steadied ourselves onwards. Suddenly the hollow shell of an old barn hurled itself into our path! Shelter! We caught up with ourselves running for the reletive dryness that was enough of an answered prayer to make a dead donkey cry, full of relief that was to be sweeter than fresh lemonade, but unknown to us, to be very short lived......

.....the darkness closed in around us as like a thick blanket of fog, heavy & suffocating, surrounding us with its moody blackness & water filled skies. The rain had become our unwelcome companion, barrarging every naked surface with it icey cold kiss of numbing pain. Hands blue & faces red raw from to the wind that ripped aound us, we burried our heads in our chests & pursurveered. Like a brave but weary battalion marching towards battle & death we walked on, depressed & nurvous yet silently determinned to reach our goal. I had had a bad feeling about things before we set off, but the profetic falacy of the situation that surrounded us now made me feel even more uneasy. I began to question myself, whether we had done the right thing in leaving, it was too late now, the sound our heavy footsteps on the muddying road that echoed around my brain told me that...... 

We left, rain beating down on our brows, the gently warmed raindrops working thier way through our scalps 'til they dripped lovingly from our foreheads & the tips of our noses. Once cold & icey, thier journey to freedom warmed them beyond thier desires & they sought to escape the twisted & thick prison of trunks that was the hair on our heads. Thier journey ended as they hit the ground around our footsteps, ours had only just begun....