memories – Of Glass & Paper

Glisten #writephoto

Is this you, running toward me, in the dying light of our star? Is it you, or your double, or your servant? I know it cannot be you, how much I wished it were. But I know: I lost you, eons ago, far away. Tonight I remember, the long voyage, the hopes, the battles. And you, your beauty, your strength, the knight this girl dreamed of. I see you, slaying the devils, archangel in a shiny armour. I see the broken sword.

And now this: a dying star, a dead sea. All hopes lost, so few of us left, waiting for the end, on the glistening sand.

Vista #writephoto

Thursday photo prompt

vista

“Soon we will be back, walking those hills, and finding ourselves, again.”

It’s true, she thought, life is an eternal come back.

Simply, we change, not the hills, not the sky. Only us grow old.

Or it feels like it.

So, we will have to rewrite the story, or is it stories?

Will the nights be as silent, the vistas as inspiring?

Will we retrace our steps, or lose our way, as if in a foreign land?

How do we rewind time?

Dream #writephoto

Thursday photo prompt

dream

They were back, still in a daze, amazed at the colours, the air, the clouds. She took his hand, in silence, knowing he could not be reached, yet. Was this real? Or was it a dream, another dream? If it was, then she did not want to wake him up, or herself. Not now.

If it was a dream, was there a purpose? Were they expected to go back, abort the mission, or go forward, further still into the future? Was this land their world, was it now, or was it down the tunnel of time? Then who was treading the sand under their feet?

Dakar

Secret #writephoto

Thursday photo prompt

secret

You can stop worrying, no-one will ever know, your secret is safe, hidden, under key. Now you have regained your freedom, there is no evidence, no proof, nothing has ever happened. Your thoughts are safe, and as you well know, time erases everything.

So, it is up to you, what you do with your life, where you go, who you meet. In the meantime, you only need to think of your enjoyment. As for her, she too will soon be forgotten.

Partir?

How to leave the city? Setting aside the why (perhaps one day?) how is the question. Maybe the correct answer is: we don’t, ever, we may be elsewhere, but our minds and hearts stay here. Maybe we’ll reminisce, as Frederick writing to Voltaire, much, much later (in fact many wars and forty years later) about Rheinsberg: I had the happiest years of my life there… It is impossible to forget anything: the tree-lined streets, deserted on Sundays, the granit monuments that remind us of the terrible events, the canals, the lakes, the sand, the Spätis opened all night, the parks, the crows… The little markets, the narrow lanes, a city from where one can travel, on an old bike, away from traffic, and lose oneself in deep forests…

We will long for the museums, the concerts, the sheer grandeur of those avenues, history always present, without fuss, without pretense. In many ways we won’t leave, even if, three months from now, there will not remain more than a shadow of our presence here, perhaps a stolen bike in some flee-market.

Cascade #writephoto

Thursday photo prompt

cascade

I listen to the sound of the cascade, and to the birds and other creatures, deep in the woods. Time flows, as if diluted in the icy waters of the stream. Is it an illusion? Or the harsh reality of our impermanence? Will I remember this instant, on the other side, beyond time, when I myself have returned to the primordial dust? Or is there nothing, just the blank canvas of another story, as yet to be written?

Otherworldly #writephoto

Thursday photo prompt

beyond

Over the years I learned to love this place, its calm, the view over the plain, and the mesa. There is a roof above my head, not that I mind the rain, or the snow, mind you. I have no other visitors than birds and small rodents, the occasional fox. Once or twice a year, I guess, an eagle flies over, perhaps to check if anything alive lies here.

I sense the changing seasons here, by the scents in the air, the colour of the rocks, the way the mist lifts as the sun rises.

Silence reigns. Other ghosts prefer small inhabited villages, empty houses. I know the value of solitude, of peace, of the veiled, soft voices of those who, like me, took refuge here, from war, from the plague, for millennia.