Denizenize: To constitute one a denizen
Vast: A waste region boundless space immensity
Euphrasy: The plant eyebright Euphrasia officionalis formerly regarded as beneficial in disorders of the eyes
—–
It’s the dead of night in the middle of the day. It’s the colorful reflections in a pool of oil. It’s the thick, heavy cowl of an executioner.
The trio – a man, a woman and a young girl – were walking slowly across a vast open plain. It was a wasted region, dry and arid, flecked with small, coarse bushes like balls of twisted copper wire. Between the sporadic vegetation, slow growing melanin deficiencies, the russet dirt had become the daily canvas for their feet, whilst up above a low hanging sun offered little beyond a weak, anemic twilight, punctured with heavy, ominous clouds. The air pressed at their skin, kissing it, as though a storm were waiting to break.
It’s the nightingale’s feathers. It’s the bottom of a wishing well. It’s the skin of an olive.
One word hung in each of their minds, a monotone chime that rung ‘home’ with the swell of each heartbeat. Father knew where he was going; he knew how to reach safety, how to get ‘home’.
The girl, Little Rosa, had run on ahead and stopped abruptly, standing over a body lying in the dirt. She’d screamed.
Her mother, Marta, assured the small girl than the man was ok, that he was merely blind and taking a rest. That is what the blind did now, there was no way he could find ‘home’ without sight, let alone walk, so he would rest instead.
‘It is what happens if you eat too many grapes,’ said Marta matter-of-factly. ‘ The juices fill up the stomach and spill into the eyes, filling them up until you cannot see.’
‘Why the eyes? Why not someplace else?’ asked Little Rosa.
‘Because the eyes look like grapes the most, they feel familiar to the grape juice,’ replied her mother.
Father shuffled over to the dusty man, his sunglasses reflected two bodies, dull and muted. He mumbled slowly over the body, always the same words, a token gesture before moving on, ‘I denizenize you as member of the human race, may you rest in piece.’
It’s the dilated pupil of a white-eyed Lion. It’s the Cimmerian abyss. It’s the self-effacing tabula rasa.
*
The moon is out and still the trio walks. It is cooler now and the insects have retreated for the night, a welcome respite. Yet the stillness is too eerie, too real, too much of an emphasis on how alone they really are.
From pocket to hand to mouth, Father chews buds of euphrasy flowers into a bitter paste. He stumbles onwards, reeling in ‘home’ like thread on a reel. He feels the dirt between his toes, the air on his face, the whistle of shifting sand in his ears, and tastes the iron tang in the air. He swallows the euphrasy paste with a grimace and then futilely adjusts his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
‘Just follow Father, he knows where to go,’ says Marta as if repeating an oft muttered mantra. She’s crouching so she can meet her daughter’s gaze, wide-eyed and trusting. It breaks Marta’s heart when Little Rosa looks up towards Father, an uncertain look on her face.
Unaware, Father simply gazes out towards the horizon, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses.
Stories On The Sofa 