We walk this path, distant but together, like shadows: our steps leave no mark on the wet sand, no-one is there to notice our shimmering shapes.
Silent we drink the light, our ethereal bodies need no other food; once, we were flesh and blood, perhaps, or is that a dream too?
Soon it will be dark, somewhere the star will rest, or shine over other wandering souls.
Subdued, we wonder: is this a new dawn, the beginning of our futures?
Or is it merely our memory, our longing, for how beautiful it was, long ago,
Before we arrived…
“Will they be waiting for us?
It doesn’t look so far, just a few steps, not a big deal,
not as if we had to go on a boat, as some have to.
And there is no island, just a circle of stones…”
Indeed, there are several gates to enter Paradise.
We will live another sunset, another night, another dawn. The world is old, but we are still young, and we are learning, to deserve this world, to protect our children, to fight greed and its evils. The beauty around us will teach us respect, for Earth and her Creator.
At long last, then, we may be admitted, among the other creatures who share Earth with us, forever and ever.
So wild the sound,
so fast the torrent,
does she live here,
hidden from us,
the beautiful fairy,
guardian of the waterfall.
Now is the time. We must face the test, and tell the Truth. The Truth we remember.
Then it’s out of our hands. We must pray our memory does not fail us.
We will stand between the boulders, small creatures we are, bowed in awe. The Ancient may look down on us, or not. We will not know.
For, if we pass, we’ll only know the other side. If we fail it will be the end. To dust and to ashes.
This calm landscape makes waiting a sweet pleasure: the stillness of the air, the lambs’s voices, the sharp green in the trees. Here you said once you would come back, so I wait here, every year, at the same spot, near the water, looking at the sky’s reflection.
Nothing has changed, the sheep, the trees, the soft grey of the houses. Well, only me, getting older, otherwise, your absence is the same, year after year.
It’s lonely up here, one doesn’t meet humans too often, mostly the locals are ravens and rabbits and moles, and the occasional eagle. But I like it, this is my place, where I dream, and remember. There are sweet memories, and also dark and stormy ones.
Yes, there is a storm coming this way now. I love it, the low clouds, a drop of rain here and there, I can feel the strong winds already, snaking through my empty eye sockets, resonating in my skull. “The Old One”, used to call me the villagers, when there was still a village nearby, long ago.
Nowadays the Old One merely enjoys the peace, and the storm.
It’s a narrow stream, on this side our present, on the other, the past, or an unknown future. What to chose? Staying here, where we are now, is not an option: sooner or later, but maybe much sooner, we have to step on those stones, make up our mind, and chose.
We have to be cautious, the stones are slippery, a wrong move, we may end up in a past where we are lost, or even worse: in a future where we are enslaved.
“It must be done,” she said in a calm voice, her everyday voice.
The dawn was stunning. “I am going to leave you, and all the beauty…” he thought, silent. He had made the pledge long ago, when it all started. Invasion. Invincible machines. Cities burnt to ashes.
Then, all knew it would take some sacrifice. Against inhumanity, to win and survive would take more than courage. There, a short distance from them, lied the devils, yet unaware.
They would see him, though, but they would not, could not recognise what he was before it was too late. Just a human being. They may even try to capture him, to play.
His comrades had already disposed of the other aliens. It took only a small nuke, for each nest. But it took a human to do it. This was the last nest left.
The human spirit.
They kissed. There was no tear: they were both beyond tears. Her chopper waited nearby.
He checked his watch. In ten minutes he would start the walk toward the hill. By then his wife would be far enough. She would see the mushroom though. Just a small nuke.
Remembering H.G. Wells
