Follow the White Heron

The cathedral bell rang from the distance, a hollow sound that bounced over the toy town, never settling in one place or the other. You guessed He could hear them too. You were sure He was timing how long you have been away, tracking the seconds between the toll of the bells, not caring that you were gone, but aggravated that you had left the house. The sun would be setting soon and the music from your ear phones was filling your head and blotting out all the pain that only just managed to stay within. The French blue river laid ahead of you, twisting like a caterpillar, the water passing so quickly it seemed. You looked at the river differently from everyone else, seeing every single atom of water and aware that you could never separate one atom from the others. Crashing into each other. Moving onwards, onwards. You now know the perils of stagnating water, oh too well.

The bench had been gored. The pen in your hand had moved alone. The blue ink scratched into the wood and flooded into its little veins, mimicking the river. You wrote Lewis Carroll’s words ‘I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”. You remember the last time you wrote these words and how much they had helped you feel less like a fool. You draw images of eyes and trees. Your hands felt cold. The cathedral bell rang again; you had been out a while. The ringing made you think of going back home to Him. Across from you and over the river the tall grey building looked like a house of cards. You loved that game, steady the hand and hope for the best. Looking solid yet being fragile. All of the colours long faded but the shape of each card stood out to the eye, no more suits, and no more pictures. You had forgotten that if it falls down you start again.

You noticed three sculptures that stood awkwardly on the sharply cut lawn, towering, looking like large drowned ghost birds trying to dry them selves. You had seen them before on a day out in the summer, but never looked in detail at them. They were dead in the eyes, water in the lungs. You asked yourself why were they still standing, did they not know that they had drowned?

You were very cold now. The extra layers clung around your throat and you stood and walked away from the bench. Leaving your feelings scratched into the bench for someone else to feel. Discarding them for all the use they were to you.

You walked around the corner; you stood upon the floating bridge and looked down closely at the drowned birds. All their feathers had been taken away and they had burned into a dark stone as the night had fell around them. You could see a glimpse of white in the marshy islands in the river. Maybe it wasn't safe here, maybe you should move? Go back to the bench? Your feet start moving. You hear the cathedral bell.

The bench is busy; a young man with dark hair underneath a black hat had taken it. He had a black leather jacket on and was watching the geese. So you moved on. You stand upon the road bridge above the river light and watch the flies’ circle and twirl together into a sort of soup in the air. That’s how He made you feel today. There were geese standing on the water weir that leads down to the marshes. You look over to the Hatted Man on the bench; he is staring like you had done hours ago. You see the fleck of white again, back to the left of the river your eyes chase it around the blades of grass and Indian Balsam, with their hot pink flowers and tough emerald stems that are hollow inside.

The plants make you think about who you are, who you were. You remember using these plants as a child. Peashooters, you called them. You had to look up their name when you grew older. The smell of them is sweet and humid. It seems like a mist of thick, pink aroma is being breathed out from their tips, as if the long blue caterpillar river is smoking them. As you inhale it your feel you mind growing calmer, able to more away from reality and search with ease for the white.

Sure enough the white moves from its concealment and you see the Heron. You stare deeply at it and seem to loose track of time, you’re not seeing anything, yet you are not unable to see. You are just lost within your thought of being so thoughtless lately.

When time comes back, the white Heron has gone and you are staring at the geese again, they are eating the weeds that grow in the river, sinking in their legs to get smaller and pulling them out to grow larger. The sun has set completely as the cathedral bells rang, left is only the lonely moon, missing his round brother.

You feel someone pass you by, much closer than the other people who had passed you by, desperate to dry out them selves rather than talk to you. Running so quickly in circles around the fire that is life. Never getting anywhere new. The Hatted Man stood to your left. He leans forward on one arm against the bridges ledge and is smoking. The amber flame seems to be the only colour left in the sea of blue that clings to everything. You eyes are drawn to the glowing like a bright grin elevated in the otherwise colourless world.

You don’t want to look at him. You stare down into the river and see yourself under the water staring back up at you. You turn off your music and let yourself hear the sounds of the river passing, let yourself hear the Hatted Man breathing in and out his own smoke.

“What time is it?” Your voice shocks you. What shock you more is that he lowers the flame slowly away from his mouth and guesses you a time you instantly forget. He jokes about you being late for something. You joke back. He tell you his will ask the next person who passes for the time for you and he moves closer along the wall

of the road bridge and leans with you to look down into the river. You see his reflection in the water stood next to you and know that he is drowning too.

You decide to walk to the cathedral for the time as the drying people will not stop, they don’t know that they have already drowned, just like the birds, why are they still standing? You wonder how long until they burn too. Until you burn along with them. Was it too late?

“No” the Hatted Man said to you and he told you it wasn't your fault, that you should leave Him as He was the one who took everything away. He told you that you had to take back your life. He told you that life was too short to waste being unhappy. He told you his name was Jamie.

You both were sat on the cathedral steps, directly below the time that rang and pointed up to the heavens. You eventually realized that you never cared about time or that the bells rang, that you had an ignorant loyalty to a thing that only made the life inside you rot. Jamie tells you all about his twenty three years alive, all about how long he has been drowning and all about the details that had turned to crystallised water in his throat. You think that he has been drowning too long. He tells you that it doesn't matter how long you are drowning, it’s when you stop trying to swim back up that you start to burn. You both wonder how you can burn under the water. You both suppose that everyone wonders that, but know that wondering isn't the thing that stops it from happening.

You almost cried when the time ended. Said you would never see him again. He said you would, but you never did. You both hugged and you can still remember the smell of his leather jacket. You watched him walk away until there was nothing left of Jamie, your Hatted Man.

You turned and walked slowly to the ‘home’ you used to live. All his words stayed inside your head for days. You couldn’t shake them. You didn’t want to. You moved two weeks later.

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26 November, 2014