And so they turned hand in hand, towards the valley. And there before their eyes he stood clothed in gold, singing a rainbow's song. He turned to them and held out his hands, tears streaming down his many faces. At one time he was old, another young, and yet another he was wholly unknown, a shifting cataclysm, waiting to find form. Sometimes lightning bolts would wrack his bodies with spasms, while at others, a swirling curled mass would emanate from his faces. But still, despite the agony, he held out his hands out to them, not as one crucified, but as one, welcoming his children home.

And as one by one his children came to him he saw that they had brought others with them, ones whom he remembered, and other whom he did not. His hearts leapt out and the song transformed its hue to the colours of love and joy.

And one by one his children, and their families, and their friends, reached to the youth of the ground and plucked at the soil. And slowly, with reverence, they raised the small stones aloft and ran towards him showering his memory as with confetti. In a fraction of time, the blink of an eye, the stones became rocks, the rocks, boulders... his friends hurling boulders of the earth at the man who sang his rainbow of love and joy, of peace and hope... burying him until his light died and his soul was buried in the past.

~

He exploded with breath, sitting up with a start, the sheets clinging to his soaking back. He tried to clear his eyes of the images that haunted his memories, blinking the tears away, his clammy hands pulling his hair from his sweat drenched face. He tore his hands away, staring at them as they quivered before him, gnarled and raped by arthritis. He clasped them to his face, attempting to dig into his own head until he could feel pain. Her concentrated on breathing, steady and easy, but still he shook, unable to rid himself of the haunting.

Slowly his hands dropped, lying forlorn in his lap. His eyes cracked open, the sadness dripping to mix with the sweat.

Slowly he pulled the covers away and swung his legs unsteadily out from the bed. His feet touched the cold floor and he stood. His head hung in resignation, his energy a distant memory. Slowly he limped across the room, towards the open window. Outside the world was still. But far away in the sky he saw the galaxies of planets and stars. He saw stories there, and people and places. He saw the birth of thousands and the death of millions. He saw intense cruelty and the beauty of love, followed swiftly by the forgetfulness of time. He saw catastrophe and salvation, hope and foolishness. But he saw and he knew.

~

And then he really opened his eyes and saw that shutters barred the window and that he still sat amongst the eddies and swirls of his sheets. He struggled to sit up but he simply fell back, his head glancing off the cold metal.

~

He awoke and whimpered his pain into the pillows, his eyes falling upon the hands of the clock. It was several hours later. He watched the second hand as it purred round the bland facelessness, marked only by cold numbers and painful lines. He sat there watching. Just watching; his eyes following the minute hand remorselessly, distracted only by numbers as they passed. He watched for minutes, hours. Time, a bitter irony, that meant so little now.

Slowly his eyes closed, his body relaxing into the bed once more, laid as it was, twisted like the sheets. His breathing calmed, and his fingers, that had been gripping the cloth as if for life itself, let their guard drop and lay crippled as before.

~

And it was as he lay there that the door to his room creaked back, that the shutters were opened, and that the light of day cast its eyes over him. Gentle hands straightened him, carefully leaning him upright, draping the gown round his shoulders. The lifting him from the bed, the gentle hands placed him into the cold comfort of the chair. He began to awake as he sat there, his hollowed eyes intolerant of the light. He hid them, glancing downwards, his crooked digits barely blocking out the light.

The helping hands brought his rug and tucked it round him. And he remembered that which he would keep remembering every day for the rest of his life. And he cried out in bitterness and misery, and threw the rug away. He saw the floor before him and pushed himself forwards, crashing to the boards.

He sobbed as the gentle hands lifted him and placed him back in the chair, draping the rug over his lap at the front of the seat. He sobbed as the gentle hands wheeled his chair to the open window, to the daylight and the sun. Soft words drifted away in the breeze as he lifted timeless eyes, haunted by time, to the could blue of the sky and a single sun.

There were no planets, no stars. There was no love. Just time. He closed his eyes and cried.

copyright Adam Woods 1999