The Book of Elijah Knight 

Escape To The Forest

Asher is strapped in the back carrier. He drifts over my shoulders, his head, drunk with sleep, falls forward, resting and then jerking suddenly within the curved arch between the back of my head and the end of my neck. “It’s too early sweetie. It’s not time yet.”

Leaves skid across the thick layer of ice on the creaking lake, the stems lightly sifting the snow.

The flakes stir and crinkle, drifting and settling like onion peels on thatched rooftops. In the distance, squirrels scratch away at the trunks of silence.

At the foot of a birch, almost as if a mummy wriggled free and escaped, lay its white, unravelled and discarded coil. My heel crunches into the snow. Our steps grow faster and faster. Come, Asher. Run. Run. Let’s escape. Free, we run as if we were the invisible, fully unravelled mummy.

Dry, yellowed leaves, somehow eluding fall, shake as we rush past. I hold my hands up, protecting Asher from the swinging branches. From his bulky snowsuit, his dangling forearms bounce and swish when they rub against my shoulder. Hidden animals scurry beneath the snow’s surface.

I come to a halt, my hands at my hips, my torso half hunched over gulping for air. The flakes drift down, zigzagging before the evergreen backdrop, floating down like a giant Baby owl’s seminal shake, its nubile, downy feathers released.

Asher is already asleep. He, seemingly like only a baby breathes, sips three quick, precious breaths, and then sighs, as if it were all too much. His mouth is slightly open and completely carefree, yet his lips curve - like at the edge of sadness.

I remove the carrier from my back and support Asher’s flopping head. I succumb to the caressing snow, and down I lay looking through the tips of overhead branches that encircle my face and shroud the sky. I look through the circular clearing as if I lay in a deep, empty, topless silo. Asher’s breath puffs out, his warm breath sculpts the cold into the shape of an invisible little hand that unravelled from its mortal coil.

I place the carrier holding a sleeping Asher on my chest. His weight presses the back of the carrier against my chest. Still strapped into his harness, as one person, Asher and I seeming share a set of eyes, and watch the snow fall. We let the flakes flutter to our eye lashes and blanket us in its layers of silence - as if the entire world had closed her eyes.

FacebookTwitter

Your Voice

Click here to add a comment

Name:


Location:


Web site:


Email:


Rating:






Tags (separate each tag with a comma):


Title:


Comment:




Please enter the Captcha code:

1. 6RCVXKcH0x
2. HOj50ZtH
3. kLo4PXC2PT
4. L4YiTVFNsGM

enemies� redress to

naijasportsgists.com from biO6aehB

enemies’ redress to justice – I’m sure he was almost overcome with the urge to raise his right-arm in the extended, anterior position. The political hue of the residential race has also taken a new & sensible turn with a renewed critique of the poor. Mitt Romney now praises the McDonald Burger chain as the epitome of good business, thus promoting sensible wage structures & more employer influence over employees as the way forward. NZers have shown their support of some fascist ideals by voting for John Key, but we can do better with enhanced, more coordinated attacks on the lazy and under-employed & pass more laws to prevent people like Metiria Turei & her people from gaining parliamentary power. NZers must continue their support of National who must strive even harder to control the unruly masses & keep the NZ the way it was meant to be. As a starter, Norfolk Island could easily be re-commissioned as a detention venue. The ‘God of nations’ we entreat is alive & well in the ‘land of our fathers’ – we should take note & give Labour a belated farewell.

Posted at 2:28:am 02/10/14
Tags: L4YiTVFNsGM

Was this comment useful?(80/166 people think so.)

-Report This Comment-

Powered By XCommentPro

1. 6RCVXKcH0x
2. HOj50ZtH
3. kLo4PXC2PT
4. L4YiTVFNsGM

Click here to add a comment

Name:


Location:


Web site:


Email:


Rating:






Tags (separate each tag with a comma):


Title:


Comment:




Please enter the Captcha code:

FacebookTwitter