I remember the first months in the city, I was puzzled by people wearing black, as if in mourning. Months and years passed. Slowly, I wore darker clothes, without knowing why. Not only during the grey season, all the time.
Did I forget Spring would come, clearer skies? Did I ignore the cheerful chorus of the winged friends?
No, like so many others, as if in a dream, I became untouchable, a silent ghost, sometime observed in the deserted streets, wrapped in darkness.
Photo by Alexandra Shchelkunova on Pexels.com
This year it may have arrived late, but now, it is here. The time of the year when shadows play tricks, shallow shapes appear, as if conjured up by a malicious genie, and then disappear, erased. This lovely vision may not be real, those blond hair, flying in the light wind, are not what they seem: as I got nearer, anxious to see the face, it’s nowhere, it’s just me, and some hidden gnome, invisible, yet present, and I think, laughing silently. The light is low, diffused, under the trees one does not recognise anything, cannot see through the light mist: I see you, but is it you? Or an ancient witch pretending to be you?
The waters of the canal reflect a deep green that doesn’t not come from the sky, but from an elsewhere, a deep, unfathomable to us, humans. We lost the skill to see this light, but was it ever a skill, or rather, a right? Gold and brown, grey and a colour which is undefined, a wavelength our eyes don’t capture. Dark knights ride in the clouds, bearing runes that may signal our end, our dismissal from what is, still, paradise. I feel small, in a world that, for now, and the next few months, no longer smiles at me. Those ghosts are not my friends, they merely remind me that life is short.
And Winter is coming.
It is not so far, where we met for the first time, when we were incredibly young, and so ignorant.
Not so far in distance from here, but in time, we dare not say. We know, much have changed around us, everywhere.
Except us.
Wiser we are, and so much stronger.
We’ve lost tracks of all those years, for we live for the present: ghosts we might be, but the happy sort,
as we have each other, for evermore.
“Insane”, did you say? Yes, I agree, who wants to wander, alone, half naked, in this desolate landscape, other than a madman? But I am on a journey, probably a long journey. “Where are you going?” could you ask, but you won’t.
I want to find them all, all the ghosts, the people I met, once, some I knew, others I loved. There are others too, whose names I never knew, but somehow I can remember. They are all long gone, and I want to find them, to see them a last time. I am sure they are still around, and, perhaps like me, they are wandering, looking. It’s a natural thing to wish, I think, to retrace our steps, to try and meet the long gone shadows of other beings who crossed our lives.
“But”, I hear you argue: “who cares, and why?”
Why should I care? Because life is short, because there are now so few of us still alive, still thinking. There are witnesses, of course, trees, rocks, animals… Sadly we have lost the art of talking with them.
So it is, and I go, keep going, on this journey, until I too disappear in a little cloud.
I know, you’re hesitating. For good reasons. It looks familiar, the small neat garden, the lavender, the path that leads to the ancient door… Yet, there is something different, or has something changed? You look at the old stones, at the bench, yes the bench, where you used to sit, next to him, waiting for nightfall. Someone still looks after the garden, and it’s not him.
If he were still there, he would be in front of you, welcoming you, welcoming you back. Or would he? After all, much time has passed, much has happened. You haven’t counted the years, of course not. You just know something has changed.
But, perhaps, it’s you? If he were there, at the gate, would you still see him? Would you acknowledge him? Now, look: you’re staying in the shadow, why? You know this place, you were once happy here, weren’t you?
Ha, I see… yes, I understand why you hesitate. You know why he’s not here. You know full well. And now, I am afraid. I am beginning to understand who you really are. Are you inviting me to sit, on the bench, waiting for nightfall? Are you moving me back, to where you were, to where he was… to where I am now?
Beyond is our world: this is the threshold, how far mortals can trade.
Beyond is where we belong, we, who once lived and haunt these woods.
Beyond you can see us for who we are: the way humans were,
Before the Fall.
Often we walked in those woods, you and me, when the bluebells shone, and the sky reminded us that Easter was close by. Today, the air is clear, the ground soft to our feet, as it was then.
“What is the difference?” we could ask. But we don’t. We both know. Our bodies have no shadows, we meet no-one, or rather, no-one meets us. We are invisible, though we still love these woods, the valley below, the old Roman villa nearby, the memories of our lives.
We hear voices too, far, far away: are they people we once knew? Or are they the dreams of ancient ghosts, like us?
“Beyond those hills is our home”, he said softly to her ear, as they looked down the valley, toward the estuary. There the town was cradled, a thin glimmer of light against the darkness.
She shivered a little, but not from cold. She thought again of the place, the wild garden, the old walls. No-one had been there for ages. She could already hear the front door creak. Who would notice their return?
“I will look on as you fall asleep, I will wait for as long as it takes.” His voice so low only her could hear his words. She smiled, of course he will look after her, as he had done for all those years, as they roamed the world, away, so far away from home.
“We haven’t been near humans for a while…” she said, as she leaned against him.
“I know,” he replied softly, “we just hear them, they ignore us and will continue to ignore us. For them we are a flutter of fine dust, a tiny vortex in the air…”
We can no longer tour the City as it was, and yet, in the dawn hour, we can chase its ghosts. For we ourselves change, under its spell, and we too evolve into something of the past, an obscure picture in the dust of Time.
Inspired by the Secret Keeper’s prompt, and Babylon Berlin
We listen to the crystal melody of the waterfall. Sun rays bounce off the glistening rocks. Is this a dream, or are we there? There, in the valley we cherish, where, in the sharp, icy air of dawn, our young souls met, one Spring.
It’s not a dream, but it is only a picture. So, my dearest love, we have to wait, for our ghostly shadows to find a way back, there, near the waterfall.
