On a Sunday Afternoon
On a Sunday afternoon in late November, I remember walking along a
hillside by an oak tree overlooking West Hall. The city spawned below me,
free with its Sunday drivers returning home from prayer. I took counsel with
the great oak as I lay my folders aside and took comfort in its grand lap.
Centuries past as I watched sweet Ariel swirl the leaves in her autumn breeze
whilst the clouds above, in their fluid ballet, danced to my imagination. I
walked across the hill once more as she caressed my face with her cold harsh
hand. The sun was returning to his humble home once more as light scattered
across the horizon in a brilliant rainbow of colour. I ran to the lightpost,
arms spread, as I welcomed delicate Ariel into my body. Wind rushed through
my clothes as she accepted my invitation. Harder and harder she blew as
electricity ran through my flesh. Noise, like a flock of a thousand birds
preparing for flight, ravaged my ears as my papers became like leaves blowing
through the grey dying garden that was now returning to the ground and
preparing for winter. I cursed the wicked Ariel and, in frenzied rage, ran to
recapture my lost gold.
I spun endlessly through shrub and brush as the impish Ariel and her
daemon brothers played their childish game with me. For no sooner would I
reach for a paper lying calmly on the ground, would it be blown away for me to
chase once again. A man with a small child caught a paper while passing and
returned it to I, their owner. I ran around the garden once more as he
continued on his way. And when I had collected my prize I returned to the oak
to pause for a moment and calm my spinning head.
As I stood there in bemuddled anger, the siloquette of a head rose
against the fading sky. I watched as it rose slowly up the hard concrete
stairs leading to West Hall. It was well laden with the books and bags that
had kept it comfort during its brief stay at home. It paused on the path in
front of me to rest itself of its load. I circled to a concrete slab on the
other side of the path, making myself busy in organising my wind-ruffled
papers. It was a woman, in all her radiance, returning from the break, with a
white cotton hand-knit hat and long golden hair, that few but Rumpelstilkskin
could have spun. Jeans and sneakers, much out of place on such a young woman,
were all that lie uncovered by her bright red Sunday coat buttoned against the
wind. I took pity to her and thought that I might help her in her load. But
my actions were too long forethought, as when I looked again she was atop
another flight of stairs quickly melting out of view.
I returned to the oak once more and stood upon the grassy slope staring
down its bare chest. A childhood urge filled my soul, racing through my body
like a rabbit running from a fox. The urge overcame me as I ran down the hill
with exponential speed. My feet stumbling the faster I went, unable to keep
up with the speed my spirit knew I must reach. I leaned back to maintain my
balance....fell....and slid down the hill like a runaway ski. Earth tore at
my back as I reached the bottom with rigid stop.
I lay there. Back against the earth, eyes against the sky. Seagulls
above me met in a wondrous show of aerodynamic splendour as they approached a
nearby building. Were they aware of their audience I wondered? Perhaps they
were, and were showing off as well. Ghostly Ariel ran across my body as the
grasses she moved tickled at my sides. She was beckoning me away from the
earth I lay upon, into the magickal domain of the air. I obeyed her call and
rose to my weary feet, to be met by an iron fence barring me from the road
ahead and the road from me. I followed the dark black spikes along their way
to an abandoned gate, locked and overgrown with grass. The bars to it were
bent and the gates no longer would close. The chain that loosely held them
together was rusted with age. The wind and rain had done their best to wear
the stone pillars that hinged the gates to the earth. I reached to pull the
heavy gates apart. Coldness ran through my body as wind blew and frigid metal
touched my hand. I slipped through the gate and flew across the asphalt
prairie to an even less fairer side.
Marble ruins laid before me. Weeds contaminating the rocks with their
evil blight. Fallen stones, like warriors slain in battle, laid scattered
below in a landscape of valleys and caves. Useless paint of childhood boredom
defaced the broken marble steps that were once part of this grand approach. I
looked up and stared at the sky, looking for some hope in the despairing air
of that dead, abandoned place. The sun, almost completely covered by its
nightly quilt, filtered through the lego buildings of the city ahead. The air
grew colder as darkness encroached. My senses grew tense, becoming ever more
acute. The polluted air of the city began to invade my nostrils as the quiet
swishing of cars became my ears.
The afternoon was fading into evening as dusk fell over my place of
peace. It was time for me to return to home once more. I buttoned up my
jacket as I heard the saddening Ariel whistle her last goodbye. The birds had
all grown silent, sleeping high in cozy straw nests swaying with the tall
trees. Cold against the wind I made my climb back up the steepened hill and
paused by the oak once more. I thought to take one last look, but argued
better against my will. For I do not wish to know what lies there after dark,
only what lies in my memory deep, of something I experienced, once on a Sunday
afternoon.