Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Enigma


The Tracker ~ Dariusz Zawadzki

She pushes the door; it swings wide – off-key.
Enlightened, the contents of the room cower from the dust that blunders in.
Dogs pause in the alley, taste the air and find it wanting, a testament of half-remembered affection and tender touch long lost; the taste of blood is a changing agent.
In the distant chasms between futile and fragmented skyward fingers pointing, thunder echoes the coming storm.
Enigma eyes the night with red lenses edged in fear.
The room appears safe; no lurkers or spirit traps; no coated hangers.
She enters, adjusting the lenses to cautious - more orange than red.
A faint glow emanates from the teeth of the skew-hanging picture of god – a picture she’d found earlier, malingering beneath the ripped up floor - the glow seems to whisper words of comfort to the back of her mind, but in a language unfamiliar.
As is usual, Admedan sits it the electric chair in the corner, a melancholy look on his face and black water from the gash in the ceiling dripping on his face like surrogate tears.
Enigma cannot be sure whether or not he’s moved since she left him there this morning; she drags him away from the leak and, in a gesture learned from the flickering, kisses his cold forehead.
She crouches in the corner to wait for morning.
The flickering begins and she is lost to the world.
Tonight the dogs run through strange places – grass grows long and impossibly green; the sky is bright and Enigma dreams of horses.
The doors swing wide to drink the light from forgotten suns.


5 comments:

James Higham said...

Impossibly green grass is sometimes found in Blighty.

Garth said...

True! Other climes offer up the impossible green of astroturf

CherryPie said...

The chair needs to be moved...

Garth said...

Chairs missing (according to Wire anyway)

James Higham said...

Chairs and their cunning placement is a science.

Bookshop

Buy this book on Lulu. Kindle Version
Kindle Version
© Garth Erickson. Powered by Blogger.

Followers

Page Ranking Tool
Creative Commons License