CHAPTER FIVE: I AM FADING PALE Years passed and passed, as the leafs of the tress, turning brown from yellow,- changing with the seasons- until one day I decided to escape. For months I planned my escape, and worked from midnight till 3am cutting the chain. It was half way through, and would soon be completed, and then I’d make my escape. It was raining heavy that night when I made my escape, well it had been raining the night before and the night before that; so that was why I planned my escape anticipating it to rain in the night. I have been running in the thickest of jungles for six nights and five days without food and sleep. Well, I had to do that, I knew for sure that if I rested for one minute, I would be caught. “I know, for a fact, undoubtedly, that the King Toutoman’s men are out there searching for me”, I said to myself. I needed to talk to myself, if I didn’t, who knows I might get crazy, and insane for real.”Ah, the King Toutoman’s men’, I though. Even if a rat were to run pass one of them, and go in a hole, they’d still dig it out to prove it was a rat. There was no escaping these men, you’d get caught or killed trying to and worse still, I was dragging the heavy chain which had gladly held my leg bond to the wall of a cave, and the sound of the shackles went on and on and echoed far away in the cold nights of the dark lonely jungle. And besides that, what made it worse was that I couldn’t run any faster than a three year old; I was weak, hungry and the chain became an extra burden of weight as I carried it. ‘I should’ve died by the King’s hand’, I thought, ‘I can’t take it anymore. Where are the creatures, why haven’t I seen a single creature?’ I probed further in my thoughts, it was becoming all too much for me. Then I came to strange mysterious stream, which on the other side of it, a lifeless world, of tress with dried-up leafs, and skeletons of creatures, that were once alive. “I’m in the valley of the dead”, I said, and I looked around, and surely I was in a valley. I had been walking under the cover of thick jungle and I did not realize I was in a valley, much less the Valley of the Dead. I walked slowly through the stream and to the other side. When I came ashore on the other side, I looked back to other side, to the side where there was life. ‘What am I doing?’ I thought, ‘I have no idea of where I’m going.’ I walked for days, seeing nothing, except dead dried up tress, scotched grass, and many, many skeletons with strange heads, and horns, and funny looking skulls, some having three eye sockets, while other with four and, even, six hands. This was a world in a world. For days I walked and didn’t meet a single soul out here. Soon months were now skipping past me. Then the months slowly turned into years. After three years of walking in this lifeless world, I finally came to the end of this ‘world of the dead’. The world had come to an abrupt stop at the end of a sheer cliff. I stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down, blow and the bottom of the cliff, nothing grew. But when I looked a little further away, I saw a green carpet of forest canopy, that seemed to roll on and on in an endless fashion. “Ahhh, great! Just great” I screamed to myself, “how am I gona get down there”. ‘In life,’ I thought, ‘sometimes the green pastures are way out of reach’. I looked to the right, then to the left, to see if there was bridge, of some sort, that reached to the other side. But there was none. ‘The only way down was to climb down, just as in life everything is always hard for me, if only there was a way,’ thought I. I followed the edge of the cliff, looking for suitable way down, but I found none, and my search ended in vain. I sat on boulder of rock, and there cried. “Oh God, please help me, please help me,” was all I managed to say between my sobbing. I looked around, and realizing how lonely I was, I suddenly felt and became very lonely. There was on one there to comfort me. And I thought of the time when I was a kid; my life was full of joy and not dead like this world. I was much happier and enjoyed everyday of it. ‘So I can’t escape it’, I thought, ‘I will live on forever, only to cry a thousand-thousand tears… oh my life, where did you take me.’ When I was a boy, my father loved me vey much. I could see it in the way he hugged me, carried me and played with me. But when I grew up, all that stopped and was replaced with a void, a distance evolved between us, and then over years it grew and grew and became like an ocean, making us become like tow distant lands. Sometimes I wish I could be my father’s son again. When I was in high school, my dad was never there to help me with my choices, and guide me to choose a better career. It was as if they just gave up on me. Maybe if was because in their eyes, I had gone from one failure to the other, or maybe because I had done things, many times, that had brought shame upon them, and it was to an extant that they despised me and threw me out. ‘And why? Maybe because I haven’t been loved in life by my family, I couldn’t love and give love in return. Now life had to teach me itself’, I thought to myself; as I sat there and stared at the other side. ‘What’s on the other side’, the thought seem to intrigue me. “That is why I’m here. Exactly,” I said to myself. “Hey crying boy. What’s wrong?” I heard the finest, sweetest, loveliest voice of a girl; shouting down towards me from above. I looked up, and what beheld me sight was something I could see only in my dreams. She was the hugest bird I had ever seen. She swooped down, flew up, and came down again. Then flapping her wings, she hovered above me to hear what I was to say. “I can’t get down there”, I said. “Is there a way down?” I asked her, looking straight into her pretty eyes. “You can’t get down there,” she said, “And you mustn’t.” Then she went on, “That is the dark forest. Whether day or night, it is always dark. All the evil in ‘this’ world comes from there.” She scanned me thoroughly, eyeing me up and down, looking at my face for, at every small detail,-“then suddenly she said, “There’s only one way, but I’m going to carry you across. But you’re not gona like this. Look to carry across, you’ll have to jump and I’ll catch you.” “Why can’t you just land and let me climb onto your back,” I called up at her. “It’s because I can’t touch the earth of the dead world. If I do, I’ll die instantly. “How comes you’re not dead?” she replied. “Well it’s a long story, I’ll tell you later”, I replied to her. “I’ll want that. Now jump and I’ll catch you.” She replied back. I stood on the edge of the cliff and I looked down. It was very long way down, and the tress seemed grass below. “Really, will you catch me,” I called back at her. “Trust me” she said, “I am conjured to helping you, my friend.” ‘Ahh,’ I thought, ‘Trust is the only thing I have left. “Okay, here goes nothing,” I said, and I jumped. For a moment, I thought I was going to fall forever, but she was there in an instant, and she grabbed me on my shoulders with her talons and carried me higher and higher, until the cliffs and the valley were so far down, and we flew away into the sunset. The sunset was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. We landed in a little clearing beside a small hut. “Blue Bird’ she called out. Then, turning to me, “My sister lives here,” she said. “I just hope she’s home and nothing bad has happened to her” Just then a woman in a blue dress came out. “Oh come on Jesmina, you can’t live in your human form,” she said to the woman in the blue dress. It’s against the Law, you could get punished for that, you know”. “I know, Lorisa, I know, I just didn’t want him to be scared.” The woman in the blue dress spoke. Lorisa turned to me, “she changes too, you know, into a big blue bird.” ‘A big blue bird,’ I thought, ‘Where had I seen a big blue bird?’ then it suddenly struck, ‘Yes, was it she who brought me here?’ So the Jesmina took me into her house and she told me I could hide there for a while. “Do you have any ink paper”, that was all I wanted at first; was ink and paper. I sat down on her table and I wrote, and she watched me as I wrote: Now I feel that maybe all my words, all my thoughts, all my rhymes are fading, or is just me that is fading? I feel I am growing pale every second, while dripping chances slip past me. My swing is so slow; I am too far from ever catching them. And I do have dreams of the prison world I lived in; it’s as if it has become my home. Do you know that when a man’s spirit is killed, he dies a slow death from within? He sees himself dying from within, but there is nothing he can do to stop it. But the magic is the power of his true love, only the kiss of a true love can save a person dying from within. “It’s a beautiful story,” said Lorisa, and I turned and noticed that they were both standing behind me and watching me write. “Yes”, I said, ‘This is my story. This is the story of a young man, whom the world left outside in the cold to fade away. While fading he contemplates upon his life, and remembers Melanie, his long lost love. Every poem is a dedication to her. If only he had the time, he thinks, if only he had the time. He would have gone back and told her he loved her. Sometimes he wishes he would stay young forever, sometimes he wishes he could go back in time and undo all the wrongs he had done. But maybe these were just wishful thoughts, and only in his dreams could he relive his life, and undo his wrongs.” “You know, in life there are only four choices; life, death, blessing and cursing. All of us have chosen our paths; so never blame your neighbor for your curses.” Said Jesmina; in a soft tender tone. “You know… your right. I’ll add that in too,” I replied. Now I am at a…at a hide out. In this chapter I have coded a secret message; I have coded it, incase the King’s men might read it. But to read it, you must read with the heart. Only the one who reads with the heart will decode the message. “I have chosen Life; I have overcome Death, I have seen blessing, I have tasted curses, So I have chosen life, And live shall I”
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 05:31:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015