opals and onions; insignificance

[Insignificance]

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Time is a peculiar thing. In our darkest hours is stretches taut like skin on old bones, but when we fly on euphoria it is snatched from us in the blink of an eye. I have wielded my time with a carelessness that is unbefitting of any creature wanting to make something of themselves. There is no tales to adorn my name, no-one to remember my sad existence save for the lark singing in the tree and the rivers I followed on my journeys. There had been, once, but those days are long forgotten. Once, even I had been a young girl with fleeting smiles and with the indecision of youth tucked to my heart. Besotted with the world. But nowadays I am but a haggard shard of that girl – hollow-eyed and broken and old. But there is still that morsel of curiosity in the dead of my eye. The one thing that time has never taken from me. I too flick a wiry tail in resentment towards the pestering flies. I too will tired muscles into motion as I unhurriedly head for the river and its promise of escape from pestering insects and relentless sun. An inhalation brings the scent of something familiar. Something that works its nails deep against my skull, like the faint thrumming of a heartbeat. I close my eyes and inhale deeper, filling my lungs with the scent, like a fine wine that graces my lips but is not swallowed. I embrace the scent but do not allow it to settle any deeper than allotted. It cannot be, not after all these years. But I move in its direction – action bleeding its fingertips into my drive and sand turns to dust beneath my hooves. And there – at the brink of the river, she stands. Americus.  She is a wilting flower – frail and with the experience of a lifetime on her brow, but a flower nonetheless. As beautiful and wild as ever and I remember, remember, remember. An intricate web of moments spent together on days like these. ”Americus” I breathe, and her name on my lips is a remedy like that of a cool breeze under the scorching sun. ”Americus” I say again – and I laugh – a broken husky sound that wore it not for the glitter-gold of mirth in my eye could have been mistaken for a sob. For the second time since I have come back to Beqanna – I am home.  "Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for." insignificance