One

Bleak mid winter. The wind blew on the nothing new. The vast expanse of landscape shared in the barren nothingness, sprawling out in front of him in shades of grey, a mist enveloping the valley. The blank page stared up at him, accusingly. White. He could not find the word. The word to end all words, leaving nothing to be said. It was trapped on his tongue, sealed in his head.

I awoke, with a startle. My room remained the same as the night before, and the day before that. I scraped the stubble from my face with a blunt blade, splashed myself with cold water, and fingered the lines forming under my eyes. Another day.

I stepped outside to a grey sky. Eight o'clock, or near enough. I walked the usual ten-minute journey to the train station, alone and lost in thought. I took out a cigarette as I waited for my train. You see, smoking momentarily distracts you from the boredom and tedium of time unspent.

When I stepped onto the train, it wasn't the usual faces. There were grandparents, mothers, fathers, children, teenagers; not the usual crowd for a Monday morning. I glanced at my watch. It was Saturday.

In a moment of madness, I decided to stay on the train, to wait and see where it would take me. The thought of somewhere new appealed to me; I craved seclusion. I wanted to go somewhere where no one knew me, my name, or the little minuteae of personality attached to that name. I wanted to abandon my identity, to assume an entirely new persona, however briefly.

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Two

I have always had a certain penchant for trains. I looked about me at the blank faces, as they stared aimlessly. It has always amazed me how you can share a fragment of time with complete strangers, playing a part in the tragic comedy of their lives. Maybe only an hour, or two, or even three, but still, a minor role. I looked out the window. As we pulled out from the city, the ash-grey buildings and the black asphalt roads gave way to an entirely new landscape. The river flowed through acres of green. An occasional factory, junk yard, or rural farm rose and fell from the fields and meadows as we slowly made our way south.

It was nearly ten thirty when I arrived. The name, in four-foot lettering, was unfamiliar to me: Hades' Heath. I stepped out on to the platform. The weather was no better here. If anything, it was a deeper grey, as if an iron fist tightly clenched the sky above. There was an electricity in the air, the kind you get just before a storm. I could feel it brewing. I didn't know what, but I felt something. When I looked around me, I realised I was the only one to get off the train and that, in fact, I was the only soul in the station. I assumed this must be one of those unmanned rural stations; virtually abandoned and dead to the waking world.

As I stepped out of the station, there was a man hunched up and hugging his knees. His face was dirty, his clothes shabby and his shoes virtually falling apart. He was bald, but wearing a tatty trilby. One eye was closed up, sewn together so that his face was in a permanent contortion, fixed with a permanent wink. He spoke to me.

'Could you spare any change?'

I rummaged through my pockets, but only found scraps of paper, a lighter and a dirty handkerchief. I apologised and tried to get away. He thanked me anyway, and spoke again.

'Where are you going?'

The question, simple as it was, seemed to speak volumes. It was as if he knew something I didn't, as if his words took on an extra meaning, something which could never be expressed by mere definition. He repeated the question.

'Where are you going?'

I hesitated. I had no idea.

'I'm sorry. I don't know.'

My heart beat its usual refrain - I am, I am, I am - but in more dulcet tones. He looked at me. It was as if he could hear the tatoo as it beat against my chest. He spoke with a certainty, a certain assurance so that I trusted this familiar stranger immediately.

'I know. I can see into the abyss of the future, the darkness of the beyond.'

I frowned with confusion, and slowly stuttered.

'But... you're blind.'

'Only in one eye. Patterns and formations appear on the back of my eyelid; images and dreams ordained by some divinity.'

I didn't understand, I couldn't comprehend. I faintly smiled, feeling distinctly awkward. He appeared at first to be just a crazy tramp, a beggar afflicted with an over-inflated sense of the psychic. I felt troubled, disturbed by his mere presence. I held his gaze and said,

'But how? How do you know?'

'I just know.'

I didn't dare ask him. A pang of fear shuddered throughout my whole body, as thunder echoed somewhere in the distance. I apologised and told him,

'I have to go.'

'I know.'

I could hear my step as it resonated down the cobbled streets. I wanted to get away as fast as I could, but it was as if time had stopped. I looked at my watch. It was nearly noon.

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Three

Noon and midnight have a certain resonance which goes far beyond their numerical value. Twelve is only a number, but when twinned with the significance of time, it takes on an added quality, the heightened consciousness of association. Preconceptions shape our every judgement, our every choice, and we can never escape them. I wanted to. I wanted to abandon everything with which I had been conditioned, both nature and nurture. I wanted to recreate my essence, to reform my beliefs, to forget the unforgettable. I wanted to see the world in an entirely new way. But it was impossible, futile. But I wanted to fight against the dying of the light.

As an actor alone on a dimlit stage, I craved the epilogue, the final soliloquy to redeem myself from my sins, to resolve within myself the irreconcilable and inconsolable. The ultimate apology from a death-bed desperation.

On the stroke of noon, a blinding light surged through the black clouds. Momentarily, I couldn’t see a thing. But then, as my eyes began to focus, a shape began to take form. It was a woman, silhouetted by the sun, clothed in a white light, an incandescent luminance. At least, that’s how it seemed.

The brilliance of the light harshly contrasted the darkness of my depression, the darkness which had pervaded my mind, affecting every perception, every emotion. It was like I had been staring at a black wall, on the very precipice of the abyss. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Not until now, at least. It was as though I had been caught in a perpetual cycle, unable to break the shackles which bound me to my fate. Her sudden emergence freed me from those chains, allowing me to see, alleviating my blindness. I saw her, looking angelic. An angel emerging from an apocalyptic distopia.

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Four

She spoke, softly at first, her voice hinting at a childish innocence, yet sprinkled with a melancholy.

‘There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look.’

She smiled. She was beautiful; a paragon, a muse bearing a creative torch. She expressed everything in that smile, everything I had ever wanted to say. I tried to smile back, but I didn’t know how to reply. She was so beautiful.

I lost myself in that smile, escaping from everything that had gone before, and everything that was yet to come. I lost myself in the moment. A unique sensation of freedom tingled in every cell of my body as I suddenly connected with myself. It was a reawakening, a renaissance.

It is moments like these when mere words are too crude to express such epiphanies. We can only try, yet the constructions themselves are self-effacing; annihilating the very moment they are trying to describe. Words stumble clumsily over the fragility of experience, extinguishing the fleeting flame they are trying to nurture. It is only in the brief interludes of silence that we can hear the echoes of the past.

She knew this, and looked intently and meaningfully. I understood. She conveyed everything in the eloquence of silence. It was only now that I could smile a smile of comprehension and connection. We were each other; she was me, and I her. Inseparable and indivisible. We were one. Nothing could rupture the perfection of silence. We lost ourselves in each others’ eyes; harmony personified.

She was an island, emerging from the barren sea. She was my sanctuary.