Deedwell: A Fiction In Progress – 2

Here are some more words from the fiction I’m working on that might be called “Deedwell”.  This is a bit where the main character is reminiscing:

Because the old is gone.

The past – behind me.

And that past was once young, and once that past was the future, and then that past was the present itself, and so each moment that passes changes the past.  Or so it seems to me.

What’s in the past keeps growing and becoming older.

And it will continue to age. From infant, to child, to teenager, to mature adult. A personal imagination, I confess.

I understood this passing by the past would be the consequence of my leaving. Even before they told me and again when they remind me as attempted threat: That there is no going back.

It’s okay.

I made my choice.

And now, I can almost laugh at the futility of their words “There is no going back” as I shield back with my response:

“I signed up for this, remember?”

…

I remember.

…

I did cry once. I mean out loud of course. With sound.

I should say I let myself cry out loud. Just once though. After I left. That was the past, as I was leaving.

Naturally I didn’t let her see. So that’s okay too.

I carefully closed the door. I know the knack with that door of my own childhood, and she didn’t know I was going. Although I’d premeditated on the going for months, I knew her knowing my leaving was coming could not have worked in the context.

And so I was careful to step lightly over the threshold crunch and I trusted to minimise the worst of the amplification of the event.

And I handed over. Departing to Impart.

Only one cry out on my whole journey towards a new focus. Destination: The Only City.

Not that I meant to make a sound out loud. It took a while to realise this timing was the opportunity.  And so it took a while to allow myself that one cry. But when I allowed the beginning to depart I didn’t stop until I had finished. I took the time to give it life.

And I remember some call it Aue.  And it was my Aue.

Aue.  To come apart and stand alone.

Aue.

I carried the cry out to the scarred and sacred hills and then beyond.

I let the cry graduate on to the currents of the air and as it departed me I imagined the Aue as a creature wild and casting free to settle and relax anywhere it cared. I acknowledged and made my roaming loss come alive. An ancient and yet unfamiliar forming of my grief settling and imparting upon whichever inanimate presence it chose to encounter.

Maybe my Aue could be acknowledged by the land at least and also for just this one time perhaps it was for myself. (I hear you, Loss). Just for myself, for this one time to give it voice.

And so, as I walked away, I let the enormity of the action I was undertaking untangle itself from my constricted heart. And I unwound the vibration of it until it was ribbon-released into the high wind for the time I could.

A fine-tuned and lasting note of Aue it became.

At the time I could release it. For I was alone that time.

I cried out for all I was losing and all I was asking to miss. To never see, or hear, or touch or rest in.   For when they say I will never return. For when they say I will never see or hear the Former again. For the worst which is to miss the changing and the life and the growing I know is happening – and I am part of.

But then I let the cry diminish. Lifting my will away from it until it became only a light touch on my heart.  “Pianissimo”, I would have termed it.

I concentrated on the energy of each foot as I stepped forward to remain imperceptible. Almost so I drew myself into myself as I passed on.

Onwards I mean to say. Of course. I mean to go. Towards my intention. To where I mean, mean I.

I have a small fancy… I wonder if she could or would or should know that I cried.  Somehow. If I could leave her a piece of my intent with that knowledge. Maybe, I could ask the wind to carry the voice back to the Former.

Listen.  Can you hear the whisper?…

No.

It is past now. It has died down and faded anyway.

Because even the cry I made was before I did the Deed.  And then, after the Deed, I signed.

So.  Past is surely left behind for me.