She stopped talking and the cold realisation of what she had
said hit me like a sledgehammer. Even
though I had gone to the clearing that day to end it, for good or ill. At that point it was because it had ended
that I regretted the way I had gone about things. Later, with the help of someone, I would
better understand the enormity of it all and show true remorse. But not there, not then.
For the moment I only looked stunned, a million thoughts
going through my mind. Many of them
still trying to find a way to capture the unicorn (“If only I had made a pact
with that guy at work, he could swoop down now and carry her away”), others to
stop this intervention and continue in the spirit the unicorn desired - to find
that middle ground, set up a camp there and sign a treaty. A lot of it was that part of me that would
first see how badly I had sinned telling me what an idiot I had been and seeing
all the truths I had always looked past.
Quickly, though, I came to and saw the reality of the scene
before me. I apologised to the Lady of
the Woods and bid her farewell. She
nodded solemnly to me, no doubt pleased I was not to make a scene. She then stepped aside for me to do the same
with the angry creature behind her.
I looked down into the unicorn's eyes, or went to, having
trouble at first to look her in the eye.
Then I had a vision of what had gone before, smelled her burning hooves
in my nostrils, saw them bubble in my mind's eye, and knew what I was honour
bound to do.
I knelt and fixed my eyes upon hers. Instantly I sensed the wrath of a thousand
unicorns burning through her. All older,
all taller, all fixing me with the same stare that told me to stand off, to get
away. They were far away, somewhere
behind barriers or portals, unreachable without their own magic. Yet it seemed as if they were before me,
standing alongside my unicorn, so strong did I feel their will. And it battered me and I knew I would never
see her again.
Taken aback, when this passed, without knowing what to say
or do, I mumbled, "Sorry... Thanks... G'bye..." Then I stood up, turned around and left the
clearing for the last time.
As I walked away I heard an immense amount of rustling and
creaking behind me. Far more movement
than was natural on such a still day.
After I had gone about fifty paces it all stopped. I looked back to see the path was overgrown
with moss as if no one had used it for many years. And beyond that there was no clearing, just a
mass of dense tress either side of the old path as far as the eye could see.
I kept walking in the knowledge that the moss was growing
rapidly behind me with each step I took.
It was something I didn't want to see again and so I kept my quickly
filling eyes faced forward and sped the process up.
As the tears began to roll down my face I wondered how the
rest of life would unfurl itself. And
that I would have to either rediscover what I did before or find something new
- a task I had been trying, and failing, to do for weeks on end.
Instead I wandered on, not noticing where I was going at
all, worried more about my general direction than the directions I needed to
get back to the lay-by. My mind became
more irrational, more hysterical, as I lumbered onward, convinced, or
determined, that I was heading for a breakdown and that everything would soon
come crushing down upon me.
I imagined my life coming apart as I journeyed off route: I
would have to leave my job first following weeks of sitting at my desk and
staring at a blank computer screen. Then
there would be months of me not leaving the house, eating nothing but porridge,
and then dry oats, until my parents put an end to it and forced me to move back
in with them.
Finally I pictured being back in my bedroom lying on my
Thomas duvet for some inexplicable reason (we gave it away before I left
primary school but try regression), occasionally going out to Randy's old hutch
where I believed he was still alive and would spend afternoons talking to him.
That was when the fresher air of the breeze across the Great
Lake struck my face and shook me out of my downward spiral daydream. Which was a bit of a shock. Though I had been vaguely aware somewhere
underneath that I had gone off track, I ultimately believed I was on
auto-pilot.
Fed up with my mind thinking too much, I sat down for a
while to try and regain some semblance of order up there. Hugging my legs to my chest I placed my
forehead on my knees and just tried to forget what had happened and remember
how to get from there to the van. A
journey I don't think I had done directly, or not in that direction anyway.
An imagined me had gotten part way there when I heard
footsteps on the beach behind me. I
swivelled about to see Victoria, the Merlungh, exiting the forest. I raised a hand and waved. She returned it, approached and sat down next
to me. As she walked forward she seemed different
to how she was before. We began to
talk. Nothing I had imagined came to be.
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