Meadow

The Space Between Life & Death

“Ein! Yfirgefin!” “Alone! Forsaken!” The bellow split the air, sending roosting seabirds into frantic flight, with raucous cries. A stallion stood alone on this miserable stretch of shoreline, his ink-dark body trembling with rage and grief and exhaustion as, again and again he lifted his pale foreleg to strike viciously at the surf rolling in. If not for the fact he was already soaked to the bone, having only just been spat out of the sea, the great splashes of water would have drenched him. Soon enough, he was utterly spent, and stood there, chest heaving, head bowed, salt water dripping from his ivory muzzle with its twisted, broken smile.

And his eyes, they were stinging (from the ocean). He couldn’t see, he couldn’t see.

He blinked, and he breathed, and finally beheld the storm retreating along the horizon. Another bellow, no words this time, just a savage, strangled scream. A flicker of light forking through the grey, but no rumbling reply came to him across the waves. In silence, in devastating disbelief, he watched as the thunderheads dissipated, stranding him in this nowhere place, leaving him hollow and empty of everything. Eventually he moved, turning on stiff, numb legs to hobble up the thin stretch of beach and onto grass that seemed withered and lifeless underfoot.

It couldn’t be real, he kept telling himself. The air tasted different. And the wind, when it deigned to break the deafening silence to howl and moan as it rose and fell over land that seemed so flat and void of life, did not sound the same. “Jafnvel trén munu ekki tala til mín,”“Even the trees won’t speak to me,” the pale-faced male observed, wheezing the words as he stumbled, slumped sideways into an unrelenting tree trunk, crushing the air from his lungs.

He struggled to get it back. The way it hitched and caught in his throat (throbbing, raw) caused his heart to flutter in fear. And as was his way, he carved into the terror that crippled him, blunt teeth bared, seething and spitting words sharp as shards of deep winter ice, shaping it into something else. “Hvað gerði ég rangt? Allt sem ég gerði - allt sem mig langaði í -”“What did I do wrong? All I ever did - all I ever wanted--” With a toss of his head, the dark stallion sought to free himself of his fear-turned-to-ragged grief. Forgot how close he was to the tree on his blind side, and in a way, this was a blessing.

Teeth clacking together, he grunted at the pain blooming along his jawline, and the moments of clarity that followed provided him with a foothold, stopping short his descent into despair. But he was half-way drowned already, and it would take time for him to reach the surface again. Biting down on a moan of grief, he gingerly circled the gnarled tree. It had grown crooked, and squinting up at its branches, the stallion surmised that it was dying. A snort of laughter danced between his pallid lips,and while it lingered, the whole of him came alive.

A moment later the wind whistled by and stole the spark from him. The white-chested stallion pressed his forehead to the knots and whorls of the bark of the tree, ignorant of the way it bit abrasively into the skin of his muzzle. (Or, perhaps, craving it, because this body didn’t feel like his any more, and how else could he know if he was truly still alive?) His eyes were burning again, and a sob rose in his throat, threatening to choke him if he didn’t set it free.

“Af hverju þurftir þú að yfirgefa mig?”“Why did you have to leave me?” he rasped, and it was the foreknowledge that his question would never be answered that sent the tears rolling down his chalky white muzzle. “Ég... Ég var ekki tilbúinn.”“I... I wasn’t ready.”

But then, he supposed, as he sullenly pulled away, seeking to steady himself without relying on the mute and lifeless husk that was incapable of lending him any sort of guidance, even though he accepted all things came to an end… He would have never been ready.

No-one left behind ever was.

Dreamer, Pathfinder
& teller of truths