Golden Current 4: Autumn

Autumn

It was in the autumn after the cats left when they left. It was a ghoulish autumn, Grey Grass was always cloudy but this autumn was closing in. The clouds created a roof on the world like thoughts create a cap on the mind which is usually productive if everyone lets themselves have a good cry, but Grey Grass wouldn’t let itself cry. No eternal sunshine broke through, all was shadowy and grim and there was no crying from any of the bodies, just stuffy spittle eeking out of a wincing in the sky. On the day things changed, the three of them woke up with terrible headaches. 

They spent the day nursing cups of breakfast tea, talking and eating beans on toast with good butter. It was  rare then to get anything good to eat, least of all good butter. Traditionally people  ate a margarine spread named ‘I can't believe I am eating this’ which contained twenty seven ingredients common in paint stripper, it never molded and flies didn’t eat it. Richard got a food box from elsewhere, his  house just provided somehow. The three decided it must have come from Romamor because they heard and believed that there are cows in Romamor that live on rooftop gardens whose primary fauna are established lemon groves, lemon groves with roots that have sprawled into the walls and foundations of the apartment blocks and contrary to widespread assumption actually help the integrity of the building not hinder it. They wanted to live in this place of abundant butter and when asked to validate this Kingdom with an answer, Richard confirmed it with his humming. 

Richard was such a rarity, he was in Grey Grass but not of it. Totally comfortable there. All he did was basically whistle, hum and do nothing and things arrived at the house. Wiser children would have dreamt of living together in Richards House, which of course they already did. Instead of being in their reality, which contained all their wishes granted, they split like a cell and dreamt of living in this place of abundant butter, as they helped themselves to an abundance of butter.

They sat together in the garden as dusk gathered itself to become night, she who was already gathering herself to become dawn before she made her appearance. 

The three of them were speaking. I will relay some of the content but won't distinguish the exact speaker because when they were together they were a hive mind. When they were each alone they had one mind with three voices, when they were together they had three voices and one mind.

‘In Romamor, the people sit on tiled streets in the setting sun drinking warm alcohol like their blood, warm and soothing. They eat simple good things. The people are attractive and passionate.’

‘We can be a part of that life, we can wake up and drink coffee in tiny places where meat hangs from the ceiling, salted and honest.’

‘They wake up after evenings of intoxication welcomed by their  warm, settled bodies, coated with brown skin that is laid on peach cotton linen. They hang their clothes on the roofs with the lemons and the cows.’

‘The sun breaks through the cotton and wishes it well and the air fills it with fragrances that cheer beings for days.’

‘They don’t care whether their clothes are fashionable, they dress in cool, appropriate things with truly happy motifs on them. The things we wear here make us sequined gargoyles.’

‘We can take one small apartment and live together, maybe with others. The sun will pour into a balcony space and we can smoke there and rest our legs on the railings.’

‘We will fall in love no doubt.’

"We will connect with others and find the meaning of our lives, our purpose.’

‘We have little money and we don't know how to catch the train.’

‘Frida says you can only catch the train if you don’t know how.’

‘Richard just hums and food arrives at the house.’

‘We will go there and find out how to do that.’

They went upstairs to pack a bag. They packed their favorite clothes, toiletries and notebooks for journaling and talismans. They were going to visit Frida and potentially leave that evening.

As they were leaving the yard and passing through the alleyway to get to the street, Roscol opened his door and took them by surprise. Roscol looked sad ‘I want to gift you something' he said.

‘Ok’ they said.

Roscol disappeared like a spider, they heard him scurry up his stairs and back down, he reappeared at the door frame holding a garment which handed it to Ishcah, ‘For you’ he said. She stroked it, it was a long coat made of weighty cotton and lined with sheep's wool. It had long bell sleeves and a wide, generous hood. It was dyed with a deep bluish purple pigment; Cabbage and Woad.

Pictures and patterns had been embroidered into the coat using salmon pink,  golden and prussian blue threads. Whales and water moving and cells or petals or spheres moving, some maybe wooden animals leaping, all accented with little gold glows which may have been souls or stars or the chinks of light that catch a wave. The more they looked the more they saw a mingle of shapeshifting, smiling forms, all spiraling down to the bottom of the cloak where they took shape and leapt up. 

‘Why are you giving this to me Roscol?’ Ishcah didn't want Rune and Benou to be jealous.

‘Don’t worry’ he said, looking at all three of them. ‘Neither one of you is special. I want it to go where Ishcah is going.’

‘But we are all going together,’ Benou cried.

‘Ok then, you take it Benou, keep it safe.’

Ishcah liked the idea of possessing the cloak but the longer she held it, the heavier it felt. How did Roscol know where they were going? Was he suggesting she would end up alone? With a sense of foreboding she handed it to Benou.

‘Ahhh’ said Roscol ‘you would give that which you fear to your friend?’

‘It’s not that, I just feel pressured ’ Ishcah protested. Rune looked on, not factored in. 

‘It is that’ Roscol said. Ishcah welled up, she couldn't defend herself against Roscol.

‘We will share it," Benou said smiling at Rune. At this point none of them really wanted it. 

‘Roscol, why assume only I would be going where we are going?’

‘We can go together many places but we are always alone, I wanted it to go with your aloneness’ 

‘But what’s it for?’

‘The hallowinds blew, a primordial cat mewed, twas dusk. Fifty trillion cells contained in this husk?’ Roscol laughed deeply and went on pointing at the garment. ‘This mystifying matter impregnated with light, on the cue of its mew is absolved out of sight. ‘It’s all water’ he said, ghoulish and bright. 

A silent place exists, 

That place is he,

He is as dark, 

As empty

As 

Is 

Starless sea.

A storm rose there in the atmosphere, rumbling and thundering fiercer than fear. Tension gathered among the clouds and with a clap from Roscol he lifted the shroud. 

Roscol looked them in the eyes and finished with this ‘Out in the open on a plain of snow, you'll wander a landscape no man can no. You will yearn as whales yearn, pouring longing into space for your fire to be lit in a home, in a place. You will see it at first light, high and bright in the first winters sky, the Northern star, your heartward guide.’