Its white hair had been neatly combed above a broad, smooth forehead. Strong features, narrow nose and jutting jaw, no face of smooth living, but carved by Atlantic gale.
Worn hands of sinew and vein, lank and finished, flanked the sides of a coarse grey smock. Crooked hands, clenched by the grip of toil. Thumbs and fingers made cups, each held a spray of the first little blue speedwell. The head tried to rise, hands straining at the rough sides of a long box, eyes burnt with the brightness of a warning, an ardent plea. Gradually the old face sank back into a salt stained pillow, and slowly its flesh dissolved. Bit by bit bones protruded, cheeks became craters below a tall forehead, until only teeth and skull remained.
Last to fade from black round sockets were imploring blue eyes, blue and deep. In their distant focus were horizons of space and freedom.
Vague stooping figures bore a coffin of rough hewn planks along the grooves of a sand blown track. Spring had come to the dunes, the machair sparkled, fresh from the showers which fell like dust on the lambing pastures. The thin bleating of the new born was on a breeze that held the warmth of southern latitudes. Down by the tidal wrack a flock of dark backed curlew were resting before a journey long and far; and occasionally their ascending trill was on the soft rhythm of an ebbing tide.
Above the beach, the green of sheep cropped turf was smothered by yellow primroses. In a burying ground of low stone dyke were simple wooden crosses, their bleached arms and worn spines ground smooth by drifting sand, the wood hardened by salt. They leant against each winter gale, unpretentious symbols, worthy by their toughness of those below. And amongst their number the long box was lowered.
‘Earth to earth, dust to dust.’ I heard the music of the geese rising from Atlantic’s edge, and on their northbound wings went all meaning of death.
Thoughtful heads were bowed; by turn each figure bent, took sand. In solemn thuds it fell, dull, hollow thuds, a beating drum in the caverns of eternity.
Slowly as the coffin covered, I looked down.
Letters were burned upon its lid.
Hector MacKenzie of Sandray, drowned 30th April, 1846, aged 84.
In utter horror, I looked upon my name.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Sundial without a sunset
Ten days, ten years, a thousand, nothing marked their passing. There is no judge of time beyond a conscious form, nor for a mind separated from bodily sensation. I merely lay, inert and staring; the white ceiling, sometimes clear and bright, often a fog wavering with dark shapes. Yet my thoughts remained surprisingly lucid. The hallucinations, if that’s what they were, I relived clearly and strongly. Had they any meaning beyond the ravings of a brain wrestling on the edge of some great journey, defending itself against death?
Mysteries of the occult, flickering candles and an esoteric cloak of preying shadows, the black art of necromancy, communications from the grave, warning or portent; what factor, what force, totally unknown to present science could bridge the gap, exist outwith time and space?
Nothing in my research on particle interchange so far led me to believe that images sprang from the cosmic void. Exchanges in the energy flow of charged particles I understood, to a degree. Electro-chemical reactions become memories, are stored, forgotten, and await recall; dormant yet existing; but in what form? Could the charged heights of human emotion be transmitted? A psychic wavelength imprinted on some unfathomable dimension of the heavens? There to wait, holistic and impervious to the particle decay which destroys a universe, only to build again.
Beyond all my attempts to frame some logical understanding, her eyes had appeared in my vision, appeared to me moments before we’d gazed at each other; that much I knew. The eyes of the vision and those of the woman were identical. I’d looked into them in a waking dream, only to meet them again in the seconds before
Worn hands of sinew and vein, lank and finished, flanked the sides of a coarse grey smock. Crooked hands, clenched by the grip of toil. Thumbs and fingers made cups, each held a spray of the first little blue speedwell. The head tried to rise, hands straining at the rough sides of a long box, eyes burnt with the brightness of a warning, an ardent plea. Gradually the old face sank back into a salt stained pillow, and slowly its flesh dissolved. Bit by bit bones protruded, cheeks became craters below a tall forehead, until only teeth and skull remained.
Last to fade from black round sockets were imploring blue eyes, blue and deep. In their distant focus were horizons of space and freedom.
Vague stooping figures bore a coffin of rough hewn planks along the grooves of a sand blown track. Spring had come to the dunes, the machair sparkled, fresh from the showers which fell like dust on the lambing pastures. The thin bleating of the new born was on a breeze that held the warmth of southern latitudes. Down by the tidal wrack a flock of dark backed curlew were resting before a journey long and far; and occasionally their ascending trill was on the soft rhythm of an ebbing tide.
Above the beach, the green of sheep cropped turf was smothered by yellow primroses. In a burying ground of low stone dyke were simple wooden crosses, their bleached arms and worn spines ground smooth by drifting sand, the wood hardened by salt. They leant against each winter gale, unpretentious symbols, worthy by their toughness of those below. And amongst their number the long box was lowered.
‘Earth to earth, dust to dust.’ I heard the music of the geese rising from Atlantic’s edge, and on their northbound wings went all meaning of death.
Thoughtful heads were bowed; by turn each figure bent, took sand. In solemn thuds it fell, dull, hollow thuds, a beating drum in the caverns of eternity.
Slowly as the coffin covered, I looked down.
Letters were burned upon its lid.
Hector MacKenzie of Sandray, drowned 30th April, 1846, aged 84.
In utter horror, I looked upon my name.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Sundial without a sunset
Ten days, ten years, a thousand, nothing marked their passing. There is no judge of time beyond a conscious form, nor for a mind separated from bodily sensation. I merely lay, inert and staring; the white ceiling, sometimes clear and bright, often a fog wavering with dark shapes. Yet my thoughts remained surprisingly lucid. The hallucinations, if that’s what they were, I relived clearly and strongly. Had they any meaning beyond the ravings of a brain wrestling on the edge of some great journey, defending itself against death?
Mysteries of the occult, flickering candles and an esoteric cloak of preying shadows, the black art of necromancy, communications from the grave, warning or portent; what factor, what force, totally unknown to present science could bridge the gap, exist outwith time and space?
Nothing in my research on particle interchange so far led me to believe that images sprang from the cosmic void. Exchanges in the energy flow of charged particles I understood, to a degree. Electro-chemical reactions become memories, are stored, forgotten, and await recall; dormant yet existing; but in what form? Could the charged heights of human emotion be transmitted? A psychic wavelength imprinted on some unfathomable dimension of the heavens? There to wait, holistic and impervious to the particle decay which destroys a universe, only to build again.
Beyond all my attempts to frame some logical understanding, her eyes had appeared in my vision, appeared to me moments before we’d gazed at each other; that much I knew. The eyes of the vision and those of the woman were identical. I’d looked into them in a waking dream, only to meet them again in the seconds before
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