Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Make Sure To Read The Prior Post Before Reading This If You Haven't Already Done So!

The Sunday it happened had the beginnings of the perfect day. It was right before sunrise in late spring, the air had a bite that made us rush around on our bare feet searching for socks. But we knew the chill would lift with the sun, leaving only crisp blue skies, light breezes and that acrid smell of warming soil that I always associate with happiness.

Into the car, the four of us, racing the houses and lightpoles, until we moved so far ahead they disappeared behind us. We drove, rarely saying anything, except maybe to point out a cluster of deer or to sing softly with the radio; Sunday morning accoustics, only songs done accoustically, and usually live. Once in a while the semi-silence was punctuated by a snore, my mother's or brother's or my own. In this manner, we reached that valley looking up that hill. We were a little early, still in murky darkness, my parents sat and held a quiet conversation.

While they whispered away about work I kept vigilant watch of the hill. I cranked the window open an inch and heard the soft sadness of an owl's hoot. As I looked I saw the sun's rays appear from behind the hill, fanlike and beautiful. I had never known that the sun could create these beautiful crests of radiant lights. In the hues of the rainbow it flickered and danced and steadily grew stronger and brighter. But as it grew higher, that's when I saw that it was not the sun peeking over the hill but beautiful bright forms, grasping hands, steadily ascending. When they reached the peak, they swayed casting off spears of orange-red and blue-white, greens, yellows and all else in between. Then I realized that the light was emitting this music. It spoke of joy and sadness as well. As I listened I noticed that the lights moved in every direction, that one note changed with the dips of the mountain, and changed again as it dissipated into the air, their movement was making the music.

Then suddenly they were gone, the sun was bright and we were cast into the shadow of the mountain. I saw my parents looking at me and I asked what it was. They smiled at one another, my mom placing a finger to her lips and glanced at my brother. He was looking about, half asleep and yawning he closed his eyes, and only opened them again when we arrived home.

We never spoke of it, except that every Sunday for years we would drive up and watch it. I was always filled with joy and sadness every time. We watched for any signs that my brother would see it, he became the age that I was when I saw it but that too passed and he never said a word. I once asked my mom why we didn't just ask him but she told me that it would create an illusion in his head, that he wouldn't really see it, just see what we described to him and claim that he could. So they waited. I left for college and had a life of my own. I saw it only three times more before I moved far away. My parents finally gave up on the day of my brother's graduation.

One day, I called him and the conversation went back to our childhood, and I told him how I missed those drives up. He said he never understood why we did that, he figured it was some form of family bonding. That's when I told him about the beings and how they made me feel and the music they made. His response was, oh those things? Why didn't we just watch them from our backyard, I saw them there as much as I saw them upstate?



This post is purely fictional and are drawn from my imagination. No, I was not high when I wrote this. Any semblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Hope you liked it, write me comments if your did or didn't and why.

Me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Both posts started out well with the literary descriptiveness - very nice.

I thought the transition to fantasy on both posts needed to be more subtle/smoother.

The twist/reveal at the end seemed like it needed a little more crafting/smoothing out.

The setup for the twist was good though - he can't see anything etc.

I wasn't that thrilled with the fantasy part though, probably needs some crafting/honing.

The true-to-life parts were good though. Probably just need practice/research with literary fantasy.