I'll Tie Your Shoes.
once
The wind was a brisk South Westerly, biting into your very soul from the arctic shores that they tell me are falling apart, being vaporised and threaded through the cells in my body, producing fucking goosebumps. Climbing over the rotten branches of indigenous trees I had no real hope or desire in the ability to actually name them, I saw the summit of the hill. Snow everywhere! The world was white and my breath was smoke: dry not damp. It's a lover's hill. In the summer, the world is green and carpeted in tartan rugs and picnic baskets and the vast arrays of couples copulating the sudden rash of unnoticed sunlight. It makes me depressed when I walk in the summertime. Too many people around. Too many memories. Too warm. Warmth can only be appreciated in such a frost-bitten climate.
I once suggested that we should move away. Be somewhere permanently cold and freezing and winter. He disagreed. The field and the hill was a weak place.
Nine hundred, thirty sic years, seven months and three days ago, this field started to be used as a dumping ground for plague victims. Corpse Hill it was nicknamed. Cursed, you see. Cursed. Many a peasant saw the dead walking on these hills. Demons too. It is a place where angels fear to tread - it said on the first maps of the area. Ministers and the like often tried to make the ground Holy again but all attempts failed. This was demon country. Hell on earth.
Three hundred, fifty seven years, four months and seventeen days ago, that's when the first artist decided to set up shop here. He was inspired by the Romantic brigade: Shelly, Byron and the like. Setting up in the pretty countryside seemed like a good option for a beginner of the poetic arts. He only ever wrote one poem: Nyx and Company. Nyx was the Greek Goddess of the night, you see. It spoke of a devilish battalion of monsters hiding in the dark. He was soon sent to one of the Bedlams. They sent in a minister of the Church of England and they reported to seeing a hellish ghoul exist from the mouth of the poet. They soon discovered that rigor mortis had set in some time before.
Four years, two months, five days and two hours ago, I met him. I was walking to clear my head: something had upset me. Upset my soul, you see. Tore it into little pieces. Bloody pieces. I was sobbing and watching the stars. Stars were always a fascination of mine. So pretty, and then all that stuff that could be connected to those stars like a puzzle. Aliens, planets...existences beyond mine. How brilliant would it be, I often mused, to be a citizen of the cosmos, to be that extra-terrestial.
And then, I found him. He was hidden under some snowy bracken, his leg twisted. I heard him calling to me and I found him. He was sticky with blood and mud and melting snow. From the moonlight, I could see he was wearing very smart trousers and a t-shirt. He had a dazed expression on his face and didn't look entirely well.
"Do you want me to get help?" I had asked. He looked at me before giving a rictus grin.
"I never expected you to be here, Flavia." he said, gritting his teeth in pain. I looked at him with a curious expression.
"My name is not Flavia. It's Leisha." I corrected. He gave a cold laugh before wincing in pain. I offered him my hand and pulled him up. We barely spoke as we hobbled as one across the ice and the snow and the mud.
Home was warm and empty. I aided the man to sit on the couch. He staggered a little before leaning back into a comfortable position. I sat on the edge of one of the chairs. Ignoring me sitting there, waiting for some explanation to what he was actually doing out in the middle of the night in the freezing cold. He stared at the painting I had hung over the fireplace - he didn't seem to like it much. Worry and pain, like unpleasant memories, had spread themselves over his features. I picked up my mobile phone to call an ambulance. The man pulled some stick out his jacket pocket and I dropped my phone on the floor. Somehow, an electric shock had passed onto me and I was irritated.
"What did you do that for? Are you a blood moron or what?" I snapped. He looked at with a soft anger. Ignoring my question, he sat up on the chair before pulling out a large yellow disk.
"What history do you know, Leisha? Do you know your local history?" he asked. One press of that yellow disc and he promptly disappeared.
I once suggested that we should move away. Be somewhere permanently cold and freezing and winter. He disagreed. The field and the hill was a weak place.
Nine hundred, thirty sic years, seven months and three days ago, this field started to be used as a dumping ground for plague victims. Corpse Hill it was nicknamed. Cursed, you see. Cursed. Many a peasant saw the dead walking on these hills. Demons too. It is a place where angels fear to tread - it said on the first maps of the area. Ministers and the like often tried to make the ground Holy again but all attempts failed. This was demon country. Hell on earth.
Three hundred, fifty seven years, four months and seventeen days ago, that's when the first artist decided to set up shop here. He was inspired by the Romantic brigade: Shelly, Byron and the like. Setting up in the pretty countryside seemed like a good option for a beginner of the poetic arts. He only ever wrote one poem: Nyx and Company. Nyx was the Greek Goddess of the night, you see. It spoke of a devilish battalion of monsters hiding in the dark. He was soon sent to one of the Bedlams. They sent in a minister of the Church of England and they reported to seeing a hellish ghoul exist from the mouth of the poet. They soon discovered that rigor mortis had set in some time before.
Four years, two months, five days and two hours ago, I met him. I was walking to clear my head: something had upset me. Upset my soul, you see. Tore it into little pieces. Bloody pieces. I was sobbing and watching the stars. Stars were always a fascination of mine. So pretty, and then all that stuff that could be connected to those stars like a puzzle. Aliens, planets...existences beyond mine. How brilliant would it be, I often mused, to be a citizen of the cosmos, to be that extra-terrestial.
And then, I found him. He was hidden under some snowy bracken, his leg twisted. I heard him calling to me and I found him. He was sticky with blood and mud and melting snow. From the moonlight, I could see he was wearing very smart trousers and a t-shirt. He had a dazed expression on his face and didn't look entirely well.
"Do you want me to get help?" I had asked. He looked at me before giving a rictus grin.
"I never expected you to be here, Flavia." he said, gritting his teeth in pain. I looked at him with a curious expression.
"My name is not Flavia. It's Leisha." I corrected. He gave a cold laugh before wincing in pain. I offered him my hand and pulled him up. We barely spoke as we hobbled as one across the ice and the snow and the mud.
Home was warm and empty. I aided the man to sit on the couch. He staggered a little before leaning back into a comfortable position. I sat on the edge of one of the chairs. Ignoring me sitting there, waiting for some explanation to what he was actually doing out in the middle of the night in the freezing cold. He stared at the painting I had hung over the fireplace - he didn't seem to like it much. Worry and pain, like unpleasant memories, had spread themselves over his features. I picked up my mobile phone to call an ambulance. The man pulled some stick out his jacket pocket and I dropped my phone on the floor. Somehow, an electric shock had passed onto me and I was irritated.
"What did you do that for? Are you a blood moron or what?" I snapped. He looked at with a soft anger. Ignoring my question, he sat up on the chair before pulling out a large yellow disk.
"What history do you know, Leisha? Do you know your local history?" he asked. One press of that yellow disc and he promptly disappeared.
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1/3.