Published by the Galway Review 4th April 2021

She was cooking for the coming retreat. A weekend for women who needed space in which to heal and rest. Holding space for women to heal and rest was her forte. But she was getting tired and had to push it away. There was no time for it. She had to finish preparing the food.. The house was cleaned, the beds made. She had written the meditations. Chosen the music. She listened to some of the music as she cooked. It was soothing. She sang, but stopped working for a moment to rub at her eyes.

Soup simmered in the pot and aromas of field mushrooms and winter chestnuts evoked memories of the years’ ending. Chestnuts always did that. The smell of woods and winter warmed her. Her homemade bread sat cooling on the racks beside her. The shape of it pleased her and reminded her of school mornings when her children were young. Still living at home. The familiar chaos of school bags and packed lunches and homework assignments being scribbled while the bread baked, ties straightened, shoelaces tied. She’d loved those mornings. Even the ones where she’d had to shout or the ones when they’d had tears and arguments. But the ones she’d loved the best were the ones when everyone was ready long before they had to leave. Where the bread was being eaten, butter, warmed from the still hot bread, dripping down their chins. And she’d read to them as they ate. Harry Potter. That was their favourite. And she remembered the morning they had all cried when Sirius died, and she gave them the day off school so they could read on. How Harry coped with the death of his godfather seemed much more important to them all than their ABC’s and their 123’s. They were the memories that homemade bread evoked. She wondered if the children, now grown, remembered Sirius when they ate bread in their own homes. God, how she missed them.

            She showered then, once everything was ready. Just in time for the first woman to arrive at her door. The woman looked more tired than she was. She’d hidden her own tiredness beneath a layer of foundation and powder. And concealer. She was good at applying concealer. It veiled so much. And she welcomed the woman with open arms. The woman said very little. She was nervous and somewhat shut down. Maybe she was just shy. She showed her to her room, made her a cup of tea and offered her a chocolate biscuit. She noticed how the woman’s hand shook when she took it. The kettle was still hot as the three other women knocked at the door. More tea. More warm welcomes. She loved their hugs and their gratitude. Recognised their relief of arrival. Letting go so much as they walked through her door. Just the process of the journey and of the welcome was enough to let their shoulders relax. Their breath ease. The first woman just needed more time.

And she forgot about her exhaustion. Forgot about her children. These women needed what she had to offer. She threw herself to the caring of them. The supper was soon steaming on the table and the women, one by one, voiced their appreciation of not having to cook for their families for a whole weekend. At the end of the meal, while finishing rhubarb and ginger crumble, she asked them to share a little about themselves and why they had booked the retreat. Three chatted of tiredness, their worries and tribulations, difficult relationships at home, old hurts. The need to withdraw from their worlds for a few days. To recharge. Heal from whatever hurt them. The woman who had arrived first remained still and silent, unable to share anything. Unshed tears forced inward. Whatever troubled her had gnawed too deep, for too long. The other three recognised her silence, knowing that the reflection she held was an echo of an ancient memory they all understood. One held by women who were still fighting the shadow. She kept a professional distance herself. The pain she saw in the woman was too absolute to get too close. Too risky. She squeezed her hand and turned away to clear the table. There was something about this woman that unsettled her.

The weekend went as planned. She nurtured and held space, keeping her own vulnerability at bay as the women bonded. They shared stories. Walked in the woods. Sung to the cold winter moon down by the lake. And they watched the stars play with the speeding clouds in the blackening night sky, as they journeyed to the shamanic drum. The one woman remained silent throughout. She didn’t run away. Bravery or terror kept the woman by her side. But she was drawn into an ever-increasing vortex of fascination toward her as she watched her continue the fight with her shadow, wondering if it was her own shadow she saw in replication of the other. Keeping a professional distance was proving difficult. She recognised how adept she was at keeping that same distance from the deepest part of herself that she saw reflected in those haunted eyes. How so different we all are; but how so indistinguishable. She saw so much of herself in this woman yet rationalised it to seeing the archetypal woundings of the sacred feminine. Something she knew and taught so well. The succumbing of personal power that women have endured since the birth of Eve. She refused to take it personally.

And then, the dance happened. It was the final day of retreat and she invited the women to participate in a powerful therapy of sound and authentic movement. Where the body becomes the choreographer, moving to its own rhythm. A place to sit in witness to oneself.

As I reach my arms high above my head, I feel the strength and endurance of the tree come inside and claim me.

 She didn’t think of the consequences this might have on herself. It had been the final part of her retreat for years. She understood the work and knew what she was asking them to do. The music began to play. She had the women stand with eyes closed, asking them to feel the beat and the rhythm. To allow their bodies to sway; to feel the joy of it. Move wherever the music chose to take them. One by one they began to realign. Listening to their inner child. Awaking to emotions yet denied. Feeling the intelligence of their bodies begin to stir.

One went to the floor, sweeping her arms around her in perfect embrace; her knees in genuflection of all she knew herself to be.

As I kneel and encompass all I am, I reveal the reverence and the beauty of my life.

Another stood and drummed the empty space around her as if it were solid; as if it had a face. Tears coursed down from her gentle eyes, giving countenance to the sadness of her lost love and to her broken place in life.

As I beat the space and feel my tears, I honour the grief in every part of me. As I observe the pain, so I can honour it and send it on its way.

The third woman held the melody in her hands, caressing every part of her. Her face, her eyes, her neck, her breasts; her belly too. With a gentleness that was challenging to see.

As I stroke my body with tender care, I embrace the love that was denied to me.

The fourth woman, the silent one, stood like stone upon the floor. She had not closed her eyes. At all. All fortress walls were rigid. Tight. No breath came from her – no tears – no cries. The three other women danced their dance around her, but she stayed unseeing and unmoved. She was in terror of the thing she had been asked to do.

As I keep my body strong, unyielding in its stance, I am protected from the world and from all the violators who come to invade my dance.

So frozen, she couldn’t speak, or move. But the pain and fear held in the woman broke down her own barriers of protection and professional distancing. She could not bear the other’s anguish, so petrified was she, as if it were her own. Standing behind the terrified woman, she took her hands in hers. She whispered to her to close her eyes and asked her to trust her. Her body began to move. Guiding the shadow of this woman with her. Dancing her body. Holding her close. Their arms began to rise above their heads, still holding tight to the other’s hands. She knew what to do, for it was what she yearned for, for herself. It was not because she knew it to be good for her. It happened out of love. She moved the other’s body and held her hands. Moved her arms, her shoulders, back and neck. Their bodies two, dissolving in acquiescence, to became one dance.

Like the roots of a tree, they fed into each other’s requests. One human being knowing the needs of the other. They were both women, frozen in pain. Both fighting their shadows of hurt and grief. Unarmed from the exhaustion of pain, the silent woman then gave way.

And she began to dance, alone.

First her movements were erratic, somewhat disturbed. But all the women gathered round her offering her affirmation as well as love. She closed her eyes and allowed the dance to take her.

As she and the other women watched, the once broken woman opened her arms wide within her dance. And gathered to her the invisible child that was by her side. The wounded inner child ran straight to her mother’s arms.

I’m here. Come dance the sky with me, the child cried. No one will ever hurt you. Not now.

It was the child that spoke. Not the dancing woman, who was laughing now.

As I watch the wind in her invisible cloak, gather around them, I feel at peace. A reconciliation with the shadows of my past. In perfect tranquillity.

The retreat was over and the women had all left. Evening was drawing in as she walked down the woodland path to the edge of the lake and lit a small fire in a clearing. The ghost-like trees were silhouetted in welcome familiarity.

It was as she was putting the final branches on the fire that she saw her. In the fading light. Walking towards her through the drifting smoke. Her own little girl, her inner child. That part of herself she believed long dead. She held out her hands and pulled her in to the warmth of the fire. They danced together, just the two of them. She had yearned so long for someone to come dance her body and now she was here, twirling with her through the leaves and dancing beside the gentle waters of the lake. Holding hands, their bodies moving as one.

Without warning she began to laugh. And then she cried and laughed again. She danced like the wild woman she had always known herself to be. Danced until the stars, together with the moon, tumbled from the night’s sky. And as they fell, her breath eased and she knew that she was free. She waited while the fire burnt down to ash, her spirit slipping into peace. As a faint light glowed from the East, she walked back along the path, holding tight to her child’s hand, the wild woman beside them, guiding them home.       ​

 
Sara watched dawn unfold as they drove through the outskirts of the remarkable mountain city.    She was leaving.  And she was glad.  Her taxi driver did not speak any English and Sara did not speak any Hindi.   But that was ok.  She didn’t feel like speaking.  She just wanted to drink it all in.  The leaving behind of the yoga group she had been part of.  The dawn.   India.  She had hired the private taxi to drive her through the foothills of the Himalayas, from Rishikesh to Chilianaula.  She was going to an ashram dedicated to the guru Haidakan Babaji.  It was a three-hundred-kilometre journey and taxi was the safest way to travel as a single woman in this part of northern India.  It was not just the safest way to travel, it was really the only way to travel through these mountains. 

Knowing that they had eight or nine hours of driving ahead of them Sarah soon found a comfortable comradeship with her driver, through their enforced silence.  For the first hour they did not say anything at all.     The shadows of the early morning light metamorphosed into sacred cows lying in the dust.   Old men were hunched over small fires at the edges of the road, warming their lost dreams.  On and on the city sprawled into smaller towns, the traffic and the people never ceasing.   As soon as the sun was fully up, and life was busy on the roads, Sara’s driver pointed to a building up ahead.  
“Chai.”   It wasn’t a question.  It was a matter of fact. 

They entered a very basic cafe.  The building made of corrugated tin.  Four tables.  A few chairs.  No menus.  Sara presumed the driver would sit with her.  She was disappointed when he left her sitting at a table all alone and went to sit with other drivers outside in the sunshine.  She would far rather have been with them, for it was lonely in the café and she was the only person sitting at a table.  A few waiters stood around watching her.  She was ravenously hungry but did not know how to ask for anything and the lack of menus made her task impossible.   She ordered and drank a very hot sweet black tea and returned to the car.  It wasn’t the best start to her independent travelling.

They drove through mile upon mile of farmland.   In the fields either side of the road, sugar cane was being harvested with teams of local men felling the crop with murderous-looking machetes.    Oxen lined the roads, pulling huge carts that towered over the small taxi as it swerved in and out between the beasts on the road, avoiding the carts, bicycles, children, dogs and monkeys that were running alongside the wagons.  They passed three elephants lumbering along the road.  Tourists piled high on dilapidated baskets on top of the wretched-looking animals.  It was the only time Sara had seen this spectacle since she had arrived in India.  Many years before she had been guilty of taking elephant rides with her children in Thailand.  That was before she realised the extent of the cruelty used in the training of them.  She still felt a thud in her stomach when she thought about it.  Each time she wished she could turn back the clock and make a different decision.  No elephant should have to live that life.  Here on the side of the road she witnessed three and wondered what lives they had, if any.  She turned her eyes away.  She did not get out her camera.  There was nothing she could do but stay in her taxi and continue past.  Sara wished them a happy life, prayed for their rescue, closed her eyes.

Soon the air grew cooler as the taxi began to leave the towns and cities behind them, climbing higher into the mountains.  They drove for hours through the Jim Corbett National Park and Sara gazed out of the window, longing for a glimpse of tiger and leopard.  None were visible, but she felt them.  The presence of the large cats prickled her neck around every corner.  Instead, she had to content herself with monkeys.  Everywhere.  Sitting on village walls like old men.  Scavenging the rubbish like thieves.   Watching the taxi pass by with rude indifference. A lone sacred cow stood among the rubbish outside one of the towns, munching on a heavy-duty plastic bag as if it were toughened grass, oblivious maybe, of her impending death from a stomach full of plastic that was not food.

A baby monkey held tight to a plastic bag that once held cheap crisp snacks and tried to stuff the bag into his mouth while his older siblings and cousins chased him through the traffic to grab and claim his prize.  This one piece of trash, one in a million of the other pieces that were scattered around them.  A stray dog was pulling garbage from a larger rubbish bag, in the hopes of finding something to eat and leaving the contents strewn, for no one to clean up.  The trash wound its way up the mountain like an inanimate snake, all reverence to Mother Earth a parody to the poverty Sara could see from her window as she was driven past.  It galled on her.  Humans; cows; monkeys; dogs; living on the edge amongst this Armageddon of impending environmental collapse.  It was not what she thought the Himalayas would be like. 

Sara and the taxi driver began to communicate with gestures of the hands, the odd word, a smile.  They shared food - Sara breaking bits off her protein bars and passing the mangled chocolatey wedges to him.  He, breaking apart large bunches of grapes from a huge paper bag at his side and passing them to Sara.   She worried for a time about them not being washed but hunger won over hygiene.  They stopped again at lunchtime and this time Sara didn’t mind eating alone - a simple meal of chapati and lentils.  She was so much more relaxed than at breakfast chai and she watched the other diners animated in the act of eating, with their friends and families.   She was the only European.  She didn’t mind.  Everyone smiled at her.  Acknowledged her.  Left her in peace to eat.  She realised how much more relaxed she was than when travelling with the yoga group in Rishikesh.  She liked the freedom of it. 
 
Bloody hell!  I’m doing it.  Here I am, on my own, making my way through the foothills of Himalaya.   I feel so very much alive.
 
All Sara’s heaviness of heart was left behind in Rishikesh.  She was breathing freely as the layers of constraint of the previous two weeks fell away.  She had felt a mantel of judgement from the group she had been with and from the wannabe guru running the retreat.  Now she was free, and her spirit was learning how to dance again.  She could feel the change coming over her.  An expectancy niggling at her senses.  A waking up. 
They climbed higher into the mountains.   Traversing each hairpin bend gifted Sara with spectacular vistas.  The impossibility of nature caught in her breath, as trees grew fearlessly out of the rocks, horizontal to the road.  Bare roots clinging to the rocks in a desperate bid for nutrition; the mighty trunks, ninety degrees out of kilter and flourishing despite of it.   Each one a travesty of natural law.   The scenery was like Sara had never seen before as they wound up and down through the mountains.  Ragged peaks spread out ahead of her in a never-ending blue grey mantle which seemed to grace the heavens.   Her eye unable to ascertain where the earth stopped, and the sky began; the summer haze smudging the edges of shape and form as they drove.  Around one corner Sara saw ahead of her little more than dust and rock, held together by roots of trees, barely able to call itself a road, and somehow, it hung on and supported them.  Around the next corner came a myriad of colour as they passed a mountain farm.  Graduated terraces, hand dug hundreds, if not thousands of years before, with their irrigation canals snaking down amongst the crops, brought a life force and a green hue to the otherwise barren environment.  Terraces were covered in a rich diversity of their traditional crops, interspersed with green leafy vegetables that Sara could not identify.  Herbs, flowers, pea vines and blotches of root vegetables all worked themselves into a patchwork of texture and colour; a cow or two munching on the rough grasses framing the edges of the picture postcard view.    They passed families walking along the road.  Sara noticed a school in the middle of nowhere, smiling faces leaning out of glassless windows, all the children waving as they passed.  A herd of goats taking themselves to new pastures.  Stray dogs.  More monkeys.  A gasp uttered from Sara as they turned another bend, and Himalaya in her full glory was spread out before them.  The mountains reached lazily ahead.  Rearing up, challenging the sky, dominating the horizon.   The glistening sun reflected back from the bracelet of white from the higher peaks, just an eagle’s flight away.

Another corner and all colour faded back into greyness.   A single piece of corrugated tin, balanced on top of two large rocks right on the edge of what was supposed to be road, was a home.   To a family of mountain people.  The rusting corrugated tin, the roof.   The rocks, the walls, of this rudimentary home.   A mother squatted in the dust, with a baby swaddled on her back.  She was stirring whatever was in her singular pot, with a stick, over a sad looking fire.  Her husband, if there was one, was nowhere to be seen.  Two children played at the side of the road with a stick, a stone and an empty food tin.  Their torn clothing and grubby faces just a mask for the humanity within.  As Sara passed by, the mother and children looked up at her and smiles spread wide across their faces in genuine greeting.  They waved with an innocence that was unbearable to witness and Sara felt ashamed.    Too privileged to be alive.  For being witness to this level of poverty.  For doing nothing.  For passing on by.
 
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
See the woman squatting there,
three children, two at play;
one on her back, still fully trussed.
A rotten stick in hand to stir the single pot.
One silver piece of corrugated
their only shelter, propped on two large rocks. 
 
I see her too, as the wind blows through the land,
dust swirling like a dervish
in some sad demented dance.
Her eyes find mine and my heart disbands.
No meeting of our worlds can I comprehend,
No words can travel through.
The difference in our circumstance I simply can’t defend.
 
I close my eyes to blank out what I see
but no void rewards this impassivity.
I ask the driver of my shiny car,
chances of survival in these Himalayan wilds.
“Rockfalls are common and the leopard
hunts quite free.”  The sound of my anguish
echoes long, after losing sight of that wretched family.
 
There is not even silence in the mountains.
 
Sara had travelled to India and to many places around the world.  She’d watched the world pass by from train windows, over lands never visited from high up above in airplanes and out of bus and car windows.   She had swum in the azure waters of the Aegean Sea and skied down slopes of new white snow in the Alps.   She had flown in a four-seated plane across the southernmost mountains of New Zealand and sat in a steaming hot geyser in Iceland.   Sara had been alone, albeit only for a few minutes, with a brown bear and her cub in the Poconos mountains in the USA.   She had felt alone in the most crowded places in the world, yet Sara had never known the isolation that this woman must feel, alone with her children, against the backdrop of Himalaya.    Did the woman fear the loss of her children at any moment?   From a snake bite in the rainy seasons, or from an attack from the leopard who waited for his meal with an arrogance of a predator untamed.   She would have been born there and was destined to die there and her children would be no different.  She lived on the edge of the world under her single sheet of corrugated tin with her children and yet her smile had penetrated Sara’s heart, as she passed her by.   Sara doubted that she, or her children, would ever leave that place.  

She had met another mountain woman, who had sat next to her on a bus during a day trip from Rishikesh.  The bus driver was giving her a lift down to a hospital.  The woman was terrified and was clutching chest x-rays to her stomach.  She hunched beside Sara with tears running down her age and weather worn face.  They had held hands.   Sitting side by side in the bus.   Two women with a chasm between them, yet they managed to give each other comfort for a while.    Sara had squeezed the sick woman’s hand and leaned into her more closely as the woman’s tears had flowed freely.  She had hoped to give comfort, but found herself seeking absolution from the stranger, yet having no idea what she needed absolution from.   Maybe the absolution was for this moment.  For driving past this woman on this mountainside, who lived with a piece of corrugated tin as her home.  And she had driven past.  She had devoured her own humanity in a swallow of nothing more useless than shame.
​


“What’s that ahead?”  Sara mimed to the taxi driver, as around another corner they saw dense plumes of smoke ahead.  The driver just shrugged his shoulders and continued driving.  Sara did not think he had the words to explain.  The seeming smoke grew denser.  Covering the side of the mountain in a giant blanket of grey, the visibility deteriorated but the taxi continued to drive into it.  The driver started to wind up his window and pointed at Sara’s urgently.  She did the same.  She watched his face for signs of alarm, but he said nothing.   A dusty rather than acrid smell was invading the car.  It certainly had no sense of heat or fire.   Around another corner workmen were waving flags to signal them to stop.  To the left, a steep cavernous wall of rock reached up beyond Sara’s sight.  Shrubs and trees clinging as usual to the impervious greyness of their host.  Six feet, at a push, of sandy, sort of road.  To the right, a sheer drop to nothingness where Sara’s stomach found it difficult to return, from the looking.  Ahead?  Ahead was tens of thousands of tonnes of rock that had just avalanched down from above and was sitting on the road, blocking the travellers’ way.  The smoke?  There was no smoke.  They had been driving through a dust cloud created from the falling rock.  The side of the mountain was still smoking from the disaster, Sara’s and her driver’s eyes barely able to adjust between mountain, cloud, dust and rock.  The sun was no longer visible.

A low groan.  A scraping thudding sound.  More clouds of dust.  The driver handed Sara a cloth to protect her nose and mouth.  Men were running backwards, but towards the car.  A question rose in Sara’s mind as to whether it would be a good time to panic, but it stuck in her throat.  For out of the greyness, loomed a monster.  A machine giant awaking in their path.  Ahead of it, scraped and pushed along, was many tonnes of stone.  Heading Sara’s way.  The stone ripped and tore at the surface of the road.  And just as she wondered if the driver of the monster had actually seen them, the headlights of the yellow beast turned direction and headed straight for the edge of the road.  With a roar of freedom, the rock and stone went over the edge, tumbling, crashing, hurtling towards the valley.  The beast retreated behind the corner of obstinate rock and Sara could hear it revving up for another assault on the fallen stone.  She and her driver watched it for what seemed like hours.  It was as if half the mountain was being thrown over its own edge.  Crumbling in on itself.  Mother Earth continually in motion, never changing her nature.  The mountain will always exist, she thought.  This part of it, changing its form in a moment of time. 
Sara looked at her companion questioningly.  He smiled. 

“Many die.” 

His body language showed rocks falling, taking cars with them down into the valley. 

“Oh.  Right.”  Sara tried not to look.
​
Eyes watering and rock dust smothering their lungs, the road cleared after an hour of waiting and the road men waved them on their way.  Sara was about to ask if it was a frequent event in these mountains, but there was no need.  The road they were travelling was negotiating a pass right on the edge of a mountain and Sara could see miles of road ahead, snake like, winding its way down to the valley.  Two more clouds of rock fall were ahead of them.  Monster machines already working.  Men already waving flags.  Seeing it from a distance, the rocks fell like huge waterfalls off the sides of the vulnerable road as they were pushed.  Sara wondered about the lives of the animals, humans and plants below.  What about the people of the mountain, living under their flimsy corrugated roofs?   Would they be caught up in the rock fall?  What of the leopard and the tiger?  What of the other roads, lower down the mountain?  What of her, if another rock fall happened and she was underneath it?
 
I didn’t bring you all the way to Himalaya to fall off the side of a mountain.
 
Sara heard His voice strongly in her mind.  Her beloved guru, Babaji, whose Ashram she was heading to.  Babaji was with her.  In the car.  She felt his love and his strength wash through her.   All fear of being caught in a rock fall left her.  Instead, she watched the road ahead with fascination.  She got used to the stops they had to make as the machines continued to push the rubble off the road.  It would fall, to make new form below.  She got used to the bone shaking assault on her spine as they drove over the areas that had been cleared.  Shale and branches of trees, leftovers from the small natural disasters occurring regularly along their path.  If anyone ever questioned how alive Mother Earth really is – Sara would recommend a journey through Himalaya.
 
Because you can feel her heartbeat here.  Feel her breathe.  She stretches and moves her form.  Like a giant sleepy dragon, she flexes her muscles, turns, shifting boulders, shifting whole sides of mountains as she does so.  Her aliveness is contagious.
 
The cells of Sara’s body vibrated to the dragon energy around her.  She felt the essence of the dragon and felt a part of her.  She trusted her.  And she trusted Babaji to see her safely through the pass.  They did not fail her.

​Barefoot, she is careful to pick her way across the ornamental tiles, vigilant not to tread on the flowers, or the offerings of fruits, sweets and incense.  A tiny bird flies in through the open doors and darts past her as she walks.  She desires only the obscurity of the shadows and keeps herself small against the cool marble walls of the temple.    With each step her senses are assaulted by the honeyed aromas of prasada; the consecrated sweetmeat offered and shared amongst the people after each ceremony.   The waft of clarified butter and condensed milk hangs heavy on the air but combined within their sweetness she knows the surprise of almonds and cashews, pistachio, coconut and rose water will await her.   Her mouth waters as she remembers the taste of it from yesterday’s puja.   It was the first thing she had tasted on arriving at the ashram; the over sweet nectar proving such contrast to the bland rice and unseasoned daal of the later evening meal.  Incense burning in every crevice of the walls makes her feel heady and somewhat nauseous.  She lowers her eyes as a plume of the aromatic smoke swims around her.  She is surprised at the calming effect it has on her, like a gentle hand stilling her nervous breath with its touch.  She sees an empty area near the flower offerings and settles on a cushion away from the other visitors, away from the local people and away from the watchful gaze of the monks.   Jasmine and marigolds interlock and entwine themselves around the rhododendron petals on the golden plates on the floor. Reflected hues of purples, blues, whites and yellows dance in the fragments of evening sunlight radiating from tiny cracks in the rafters high above her head.  She is here seeking solitude from her hectic life.   Yet she yearns for connection, for love, even for touch; a conundrum for her – a journey too complex for her to understand.   Solitude and connection are not usually sought after as companions.  For now, she will find some solace in the ancient wisdom of the sacred temple and pray, to whoever may be listening.   She closes her eyes against the recollection of the lonely footsteps that haunt her life, while the people around her breathe in a soothing rhythm, as silently as they can.
 
She sits there awhile, uncomfortable on the hard, cold marble floor that she can feel even through the cushion.  She’s never been one for sitting still and her lower back fights against sitting in any yogic position for more than a few minutes.  No one else is fidgeting, no one else uneasy in the pure act of sitting.  She notices that she is slightly ashamed.  Again.  Of her body.  Why does it have to embarrass her now?  Why can’t it just sit still?
 
She closes her eyes.  She breathes in slowly through her nose, just like she’s been taught.  She holds her breath for a heartbeat and then slowly exhales through her mouth.  She concentrates on her breath.  In and out.  In and out.  Her body begins to relax.  Her senses heightened by the way of breathing.  She hears a gentle padding of small footsteps approach.  And they stop beside her.  She doesn’t want any company and hopes this person walks past her.  She keeps her eyes closed to avoid unnecessary communication, like she always does.  Stay small, she thinks, and they won’t see me.  She hears the gentle breath of someone close beside her.  She feels them sit down, their warm gentle skin brushing hers, and something solid invades her being.  On opening her eyes, she finds, to her amazement, a little girl, no more than three years old has come to curl up on her lap.  A little Indian girl with sweet oak coloured skin and hair and eyes the colour of charcoal.   Barefoot like herself, in a simple dress and with flowers in her hair.  The little girl has no self-consciousness at all.  She smiles up at her and suddenly, wonderfully, reaches up with her little hand and touches the older face, wiping away a tear she didn’t even know was there.
 
She looks around, aware of her own presence in this foreign temple and sees a group of women looking at her questioningly.  They make to come and take the little girl away, signing with their looks of mortification and hand gestures, for there is no common language between them, asking if they should take the child away from her.  But she smiles back at the group of women in their colourful saris and their silk and woollen shawls.  She sees they have other babies and children to cope with and sees how laden they are with their gifts and offerings for the puja.  She holds up her hand and smiles, surrendering to the child still smiling on her lap.
 
Instinctively her hand goes to the child’s head and she starts stroking the rich black hair.  She begins tentatively, anxious the child might take fright and run, startled, back to the women.  She really wants this little girl to stay with her.  She has no idea why.  But the more she strokes her hair, the more peaceful the child becomes, and she feels the little one snuggle up, drawing up her knees until she is fully lying against her breasts and her womb space.  As if the space were meant for nothing less.  And she holds her there.  She picks up a flower that has escaped from the ceremonial gold plates and gently strokes the child’s face with it.  The orange yellow of the marigold making a golden shadow pass across the sun kissed skin.  It tickles the child and makes her giggle quietly.  She drops the flower, embarrassed that the child has made a noise in this sacred place, but the child mimes quickly that she wants more and puts her little finger to her lips, indicting she’ll stay quiet.   The child leans out over her lap and picks up her own flower from the floor.  And she begins to stroke the older face, in intimate parallel to what this woman is doing to her.  They mirror each other in their movements, the little one, staring up trustingly, searching deeply into her eyes.
 
 
She closes her eyes, the embrace of the child held strongly in her own.  She conjures the memories of embracing her own children.  The three with her.  The one who never took breath.  And she thinks of what her mother said to her, in the time of this deep sorrow.
“Why?” she had asked her mother, over and over again.  “Why?” 
She has never understood why her daughter had to die.  She still doesn’t understand.  The life within her womb simply went quiet one day.  A simple non movement that shattered her world.
  With no answer to give, her mother had asked a question in return.  “Why, when I plant four bulbs in the garden, do sometimes only three come up to flower?”  Her mother had no more to offer her in her desperate plea to understand.  But over time, the memory of her mother’s words had helped her.  She remembers the snowdrops that had magically appeared under the sleeping magnolia tree, the day of her daughter’s funeral.  It was late January.  She returned home after placing the tiny white coffin in the grave in that cold and desolate graveyard overlooking the winter sea.   Tiny white heads held on impossibly slender green stalks had pushed their way through the frozen earth while she had gone.  She remembers how she had longed for the world to just stop.  To stand still.  To stop revolving.  She could not comprehend why she was still breathing.  Not until her older daughter came and stood beside her to look at the snowdrops.   Her young pudgy hand pushed into hers and she looked down into the fathomless sad eyes of the one so young.  She’d leaned down and picked her up and tucked her inside her coat for warmth.  Both the child’s and her own.  And they had watched the snowdrops together.  The little white flowers dancing in the icy wind, refusing to bend or break even under the cruellest of squalls.   And she knew she had to keep going.  She had to keep breathing.  For the magnitude of the love she had for her little girl.  Held here in her arms, sheltered from the winter cold, within her arms.  Her eldest child.   And her love for the child blossomed stronger, even through the bitterest sorrow she had ever known.
 
 Year on year, at the end of January, mother and daughter, then mother and children, would stand in silent wonder each time the snowdrops appeared.  Always the memory of the baby that could never be, etched on their faces.  Every year, when they appeared under the magnolia for the anniversary, she wondered how many bulbs had been planted to produce so many abundantly happy little flowers.  Had one, or some, never flowered?  How many bulbs decayed into the mulch and compost of the earth to give back nourishment, to offer life, to their family budding and flowering above?   Sustaining those above them, with all they had to offer in their own waning, back to the earth, as little flower heads above endured and thrived through the inclement weather of winter days.   There, in their existence, to offer the first joyfulness and cheer of Spring.  The innocence of young death so exquisitely represented by the beauty of the living. 
 
She feels it all, here in the temple.  Time no longer linear.  No then, no now, no coming.  She feels it all happening in this moment; the distinction between past, present and future no more than an obdurately determined illusion.   The birth of her children allegorically held by the child in her arms.  
 
 The explosion of joy as her first daughter was born.  The absolute and unconditional love, which had been there from the realisation of the pregnancy, finding form and nature, becoming tangible as her first born was placed in her arms.  The Maiden had become the Mother, in all teachings of the word. 
The breaking part of her life as her second daughter arrived without breath, without life.  The memory of that shatters her heart like shards of glass puncturing the essence of her.  The second expression of unconditional love. She had become the Wounded Healer but at the time had no understanding past the word wounded.
The relief, adoration, and celebration of her third daughter. The third expression of unconditional love to bless her.  She barred her teeth if anyone came near them; she had become the She-Wolf; had become Kali, had become the Protectress.  
Finally, the arrival of her son.  She remembers the gaze they held as he entered the world. With it came the understanding, the recognition of Spirit, the recognition of Souls.  An ending of desire.  A beginning of completeness.  The fourth and final experience of unconditional love to embody her life. 
Through the birth of her children, she had evolved from Maiden to Mother, from Wounded Healer and Protectress to Crone.
 
She opens her eyes.  The little Indian child is sleeping.  Her long eyelashes soft on her cheeks, too beautiful to witness; a smile playing on her face as she dreams.  Holding this child, and immersed in the memories of her own children, come the memories of her own childhood.  She breathes through the memories gently today, for fear of waking the sleeping child.  Some memories are happy.  Some sad.  Some fearful.  Some shameful.  Some black.   Her passage through these memories in recent years had led her here to India, for answers, for healing.  Maybe even for redemption; her own and others.  And a softness overpowers her.  A softness than is tangible; like the petals of the flower offerings, taking on a substance of their own in the subtlety of the temple prayer. A softness for herself.  For her story.  For the stories of all women.  She sits up a little taller, no longer desiring the obscurity of the shadows.  And she notices the connection she has with the child, and like the ripples of a pebble thrown, to the connection she has to the smiling women who sit nearby.
 
A rustling sound near a jumble of offerings, makes her look up.  The tiny bird is flitting from flowers to fruit and from fruit to flowers, stopping to look over to her and the child.  The bird’s plumage is caught in the fragments of the evening sunlight and for a heartbeat, the colours rebound around the walls like the silent prayers of the temple.  She feels the bird's essence in her own. 
"We are all connected.  The child, the prayer, the women, the bird and me."
As she watches the bird, a calm floods through her.  She notices she is sitting quietly still and has been for a long time.  Her body and her no longer at war.   The small child still sleeping.  She, softly alert.  And she allows the connections to permeate. The child, the prayer, the women, the bird.  And she allows the connection to herself, realising there is no difference between any of them.  The connection is real.  It is the connection and the tangibility of love.
 

Published December 2020 in Vessel of Voices, An Anthology of New Tipperary Writing

​Awake, in the dark where no one sees, she wonders if the sound has been turned down.  The silence is deafening.   Other women say they’d cherish that silence.  Of being alone.  The women on the TV shows.  They say their lives are too noisy.  Too much going on.  Too much interference.  She listens to them moan about their lives.  Their kids too difficult.  Their husbands too insecure.  Their houses no longer sanctuaries in which to crawl and hide.  They hate going to the gym, but they have to.  To keep their bodies in good shape.  For who?  For them?  For their husbands?  Or for the grand scheme of things?  They spend all their money on hairdos and hair waxes; silicone and collagen.  And clothes to fit their gym slim bodies.  And all of them seem to hate their kids.  The women on the TV shows.  Not the women that she knows.  There is a rift between the two.  The women on the TV shows hurt so bad from the pressures to be perfect, they have lost sight of what perfect means.  The women that she knows, hurt so bad from being imperfect, they light beacons just from getting up each morning and facing into the day, heads held high.  They are the ones that inspire her.  But they all hurt.  The women on the TV shows and the real ones and her.   She has to remind herself of that. 
            She gets out of bed, in the middle of night.  Turns on a small light, to see.  The mirror is easier this way, than in day light.  She pulls off her t-shirt and stands.  Staring.  Not an easy thing to do.  The cellulite reflects back at her.  Like the bogey man who hides behind the enemy lines.   A double whammy, hatred and fear.  She sucks in her stomach.  Turns sideways.  It doesn’t make any difference.  It’s all there.  She can’t hide.  The lumps and the saggy bits.  The scars.  Both inside and out.  The internal ones hurt more.
            She passes her hands down gently, across her loose, flopping breasts.  She picks one up and lets it fall with a flop and notices it makes a sort of thwacking sound, skin against skin.  And she remembers softly the feel of them.  Pink mouths, puckering up at the smell of the milk.  The pull and surge of the let-down, as her mother’s love gave way to a constant flow of whitish cream nectar, sweet nourishment, guzzled keenly.  Three of her four babies held close.  Little hands clasped around her own.  She touches her lips and remembers the kisses and the breath of each one as she held them close; drunk from her breasts and from her love.  So many years ago.  One of the four she couldn’t feed.  Kissed, only once.   Although her breasts and her lips ached with it, the still and lifeless little body had no need for the nourishment that was hers to give.  The baby’s spirit soared free at the same moment that her own spirit broke.   Her breasts remained hot and heavy for days, screaming at the lack of use.   At the horror of it.   The milk’s refusal to stop flowing, even when her heart had, was an injustice she could never understand.  But she pushes away that memory and returns to the mirror.
            She passes her hands down along the heavy arms, the ones that embarrass her now as they make the sleeve of the blood pressure monitor pop open every time.  She can no longer wear those sleeveless dresses in summertime.  And she remembers what love and toil these limbs have seen and done.  The tapping of keys for the writing of stories.  The holding of a pen.  The massages given.   The meals cooked.   The holes dug; for flowers, potatoes and dead things.  The holding of those babies, as they continued to grow.  The hugs.  The wiping of bottoms, tears and cut knees.  The tracing of their smiles with her fingertips as she kissed each one good night.   She remembers too the stickiness of the blood on her fingers and halfway up her arms, when she helped the mare they once had, in her foalings.  The hard work of it.  The joy of her strong muscles holding the foals’ front legs, as they came.  Holding them gently in her grasp with each contraction as the mare pushed them into life. The feel of the warmth and the wetness of blood, fluids and silky hair as the foals landed with a splosh at their mother’s side.  The digging of the deep grave that time when twin foals died.   Memories of her own baby that didn’t make it, recalled too vividly for her sanity’s sake.  But she pushes away that memory and returns her gaze to the mirror.
            She passes her hands down across the folds and heaviness of her flabby stomach and smiles at the laugh life has made of her.  When she was young, she’d push out her flat tummy, to see what she would look like if she was ever with child.  Craving the look of it.  Longing for the feel of it.  Big and round and as comforting as any goddess should be.  Now she does everything to suck it all back in.  The sagginess, no longer in vogue.  Not now it hasn’t got a baby inside of it.  How fickle we are with the fashion of size.  How judgemental.  Especially when the size is our own.  So conflicted.  And she smiles at the idea of how many lives have grown from within this saggy, soggy flesh that she is holding in both her hands.  Four souls took life within her womb.   Three earth angels here; one set free.  With thoughts of womb, she stumbles in her recollections.  Always troubled, never gentle in its beingness, her womb was finally taken from her.  No one offered an alternative.  She was too naïve to argue or inquire.  “You’ll be better off without it” echoed in her ears for years after, as she grieved that part of her that was sacred.  That part of her that was taken from her by a male doctor, who didn’t understand.  Her womb space still an integral part of her; buried now, with her baby in the grave.  But she pushes away that memory and returns once more to the relentless mirror in the night.
            Finally, she passes her hands down, to sit gently over her sacral parts.  Her hands shaped like Eve’s fig leaf.  To protect or to hide?  This place she is embarrassed to explore.  Even in the dark.   Even on her own.  An intimate place that holds the divinity of the feminine.  Or should do.  Without it she could not have birthed her children.  That’s true.  But without it she wouldn’t have suffered so much shame and pain.  Without it she wouldn’t have been an instrument of desire or lust.  Or a temptress to those who didn’t honour their own humanity, let alone hers.  The priest with probing fingers and a penchant for the vulnerable, who made her head spin with cream liqueurs and promises.  And she wonders how she survived at all.  Worse came before, and after too, but the priest left his indelible mark and became the personification of them all.  Women are now encouraged to write and sing and paint about the beauty of this place.  In modern times we try to honour the sanctity of it.  The intimacy and sacredness and feminine beauty of it.  To give it name; to stop calling it, it.  It’s hard though, she thinks, when you are older and alone, to remember any kindness here, although certainly those memories must be there.  Somewhere.    But she’s pushed away those memories, because the loss of kindness is the worst.  She’s had to get over it.  And she walks away from the mirror.
            She turns off the light and goes back to bed.  The silence alleviated by the pounding memories in her chest.  She takes her hands and begins to stroke and soothe; her face and her eye lids, and her lips too.  Gently she strokes her face as if she were her own child.  Or someone she’s loved.  Or loves still.  She breathes in deeply and allows herself to sink into kinder memories.  Of sand and sun and Aegean seas.  Of horses’ breath rising in the cold air, warm in their stables; that smell and the velvet softness of their noses.  Of her grown children.  They have lives of their own now but are still her kids.  Still the loves of her life.  And she remembers the touch of a man – he has no face now – but she’s sure she loved him once.  Allowed her fortress walls down, once or twice.  For someone.  A long time ago.  And thinks that it’s ok to remember the softness of him.  Whoever he was.  And she’s proud of the cellulite and of the lumps and the bumps.  Proud of the scars, both inside and out.  She lies in the bed and knows she’ll be ok.  Her body is a warrior and deserves its battle scars.  She’s ok with that.  And she stops pushing away the memories because they are what have given her this life.  And tomorrow, she’ll look again in the mirror.  If she’s brave enough.  And honestly, she’s beginning to enjoy the silence.

Published by the Blue Nib journal on 28th June 2020
​https://thebluenib.com/autumn-leaves-short-fiction-by-pippa-slattery/

​She woke during the night. Her sweat-drenched nightie stuck to her skin, chilling her bones. Her head foggy and distanced. Whatever had made her wake was important. She knew that. But chasing a dream never worked. She knew that too. It was like running after a mist in the forest, that only rises faster, the nearer you get. 
Her sleepy fingers searched for her pen and notepad under her pillow, and she vowed not to open her eyes, lest the shadows steal what little of the memory she had left. She scribbled something but sleep overpowered her. Not healthy normal sleep. The kind imposed upon the mind from a night of disturbance – leaving her hung over and irritable in the morning. A smell of sweet tobacco on the autumn wind invaded the rest of her dreams.
Multiverses, where souls live in many dimensions at the same time. Not linear. I wait for you.
In the morning, over coffee and a tasteless piece of toast, she read the scribbled words on her pad from the night’s intrusion. She had no idea what it all meant and had no true recollection of writing it. She could still smell the tobacco yet could not place it. 
Her mind still murky, she rubbed at her eyes and temples hoping to return to some kind of normality. She was bothered by her scribblings. And the tasteless toast. 
She showered. She scrubbed at her face and pulled a brush through her greying hair. She applied some lipstick. Not that she was going to see anyone today. But it made her look less haggard. It did make her feel better and she dressed for the day, went and sat by the computer, notebook in hand.
Multiverses, where souls live in many dimensions at the same time. Not linear. I wait for you.
She stared at the words. And she began to write.
I’ve seen these multiverses. Not just in my dreams. I’ve seen them when I walk in the woods. When I sit quietly in meditation or listen to the beat of the shamanic drum. I’ve talked to people about the possibility of past lives and the premise is always that past lives happen in a linear fashion. That we keep coming back to learn the song, or the dance, or the poetry of what it is to be human. Each life a reflection of the life before, bearing the scars and the accolades of what we’ve been and done and the choices that we’ve made. 
But what if those lives have not been linear? What if there is no beginning and no end, no before or after? If we can see those lifetimes from where we sit, what if it’s happening all at the same time?  What if our soul is born into the universe as a simple expression of energy? An expression of energy that wants to understand itself. Not judge. It has no ability to do that. It just experiences itself. Maybe our soul expands out, till it breaks into parts. It breaks into so many parts until it learns all of life’s lessons and then comes back to itself in the fullness of time. And only then can it bring back the song and the dance and the poetry of what it is to be human.
I’ve seen these multiverses. Not just in my dreams. But in the reflection of rain on the windowpane on a dull winter’s day. In the refracted light of a rainbow high above the trees. In the blue orange flames of a fire in the evening. The longings and yearnings that we endure. The if onlys. The what ifs. Maybe we are feeling close to another aspect of our soul that has what we want, what we long for, in another dimension? Can we not feel those other lifetimes in our bones? The lover that we know in our heart exists, but we just can’t find, however many frogs and princes that we kiss. The place we can paint with our eyes closed, because in someplace we walk its earth, taste its fruits, swim in its seas? But we just can’t discover it, however far we travel across the seas.
She stared out of the window at the damp grey skies. The wind was getting up and she huddled closer to the radiator, knowing that its heat could not calm the tide of desire surging inside her. Desire for what? For whom? She’d known this desire since she was a young girl. It was her familiar. A desire for another human being, as though half of her was missing. An ache every morning that she woke, wondering where that part of her could be. She called deep into the night – crying. Pleading. Sometimes pretending gratitude that her wishes had already come true. That was the New Age way to manifest one’s desires. Sit in gratitude for ever and a day and all the gurus and teachers would applaud your mindfulness. 
Well, she wasn’t feeling at all mindful today. And gratitude could go to hell. All she wanted was that part of her that she’d been searching for. Since the day she was born.
She was restless. Her hazy dream from the night before kept nudging at her but her recall was dwindling with each hour. She pulled on her warm coat and stuffed her feet into her walking boots and headed outside. She always thought better when out in the fresh air. Her little corner of the world was beautiful, in all weathers. Surrounded by ancient hills, holding the memories of kings and queens. They’d loved and fought and vanquished for so many years, that the land abounded with the history of them all held in the wind that pushed and pulled at her as she headed for the woods. 
It was calling her, as it always did, when she felt like this. The wind. Its own disquiet mirroring her own. Once amongst the trees, she kicked at the autumn leaves and they swirled around her in concentric circles, herself the centre of their chaos. Burnt oranges and yellow hues rose up around her, teasing her mood. 
The watery sunshine bounced childlike off each leaf and she half imagined faces of the sidhe, the wood nymphs and the fairies, in each reflection; fallen twigs crunching underfoot as she walked. She thought she heard her name, called from a long way away. She walked faster, the colours of the trees moving with her, as she headed for the lake.
When she reached the water, she found her favourite rock and sat, curled up to keep herself warm. The old fairy tree sheltering her back from the pursuit of the wind. The flat weathered stone was surprisingly warm, laid out as it was, catching rays of the sun. 
She wondered how many people had sat here over the millenniums of time. Who else had taken shelter from the weather here? Who else had laid their hands bare upon its ancient skin over the calling of the years?  
‘I have,’ she heard the chattering of the birds around her say. And then she heard his voice, ‘and me too. Before, and now again, today.’ 
His voice rang through her in a resonance that spoke to every cell she owned. She would have held her breath until she realised it was already still. Each sense she had swelled in natural echo to that voice she knew as his. She tasted the memory of him on her lips. She heard his gentle whisper in the quietening of the wind and felt his touch raise hairs along her neck. And then she smelt the lingering sweet tobacco smoke, honeyed on his breath and her recollections from the night before came back to her. 
Her heartbeat flapped its tiny wings inside her chest. She looked down then onto the surface of the lake, hardly daring to believe the shadows there. The ripples on the water did not obscure what she knew she saw. The rock she sat on, rose up in deep reflection of itself, and there she sat staring down, with the old weathered tree at her back. 
But beside her, instead of empty space, there he was, in deepest contemplation of her face. His features just as she remembered them, the squareness of his jaw. The deep brown eyes that always bore deep into her soul, and his tender arms embracing her, in reverence; just like before. 
She closed her eyes and yielded to his familiar touch. She laid her head upon his chest and listened to the beating of his heart; the twin to what lay in her own breast. For a while, all was quiet and still, except the rhythm of the two. She felt as young and as beautiful as she had ever known herself to be.
But as with all things from this world, life’s experiences are short-lived. Neither of them had any cognizance of how much time they had embraced. Everything, including the hours themselves, had stood still in honour of the meeting. In reverence of the holy wooded place. 
They had talked long and deep into the shadows of the day. And danced. And sang. The poetry of their lives enfolded in the beauty of the woods. Somehow, through their love, they had managed to tear a doorway into both their present worlds; hers and his. Both worlds, where the other did not exist. 
And someone, somewhere had allowed this consummation to take place. And for the fullest day they had shown each other glimpses and remembrances of other times and other places. Other worlds and distant lands, where their love still takes place. Lifetimes of togetherness. And times of loneliness – like this one, where they’d failed to meet. One part of both their souls entered these places, alone and sad. Leaving an eternal cry inside them both. 
But as they talked, they also laughed and slowly realised that, without the experiences of the longing, the experiences of their love would not be as exquisite nor profound.
‘I feel nothing here without you, except deep emptiness.’
He held her close, his voice ringing like a song thrush.
‘I feel the same way too. But, remember the love we share throughout those other times. Throughout those other spaces. It won’t be long, my love, my heart, until we’ll join at the fulness of the day. Then each part of each of us will come back together, returning to our whole.’
With those words of his, the world began to dim. The ripples grew more vibrant on the lake yet the trees around her stood unearthly still. The wind lifted its voice again and beat against her face and the doorway made between the worlds, consumed him. His reflection gone. Her senses with him. 
She sat, feeling the pathos of all things. Feeling the heartbreak and the longing, still. 
But she smiled as she rose to walk back through the woods. Tobacco smoke suspended in the air. The autumn leaves still played around her, then fell, leaving a carpet of gold at her feet. The woods were her blessing, the trees her friends. 
She could feel them beginning to settle for winters coming. The sap had fallen, and the fungi round their roots had let go their spores and dug their heads back down into the soil. The lichen wrapped liked woollen blankets around their bark, for warmth. 
She would visit daily, leaving nuts out for the squirrels before their hibernation and collect a few sweet chestnuts for her fire. She loved this slowing of the year.  
Her grumpy demeanour of the morning, full departed, and with a memory to cherish dearly, she found herself back home. Back over to the woods she took a final look. She had met somebody today, of that she knew.

Thanking the Galway Review for publishing this story on 6th June 2020

This little story was published in the wonderful journal Tiny Seeds in April 2020.  Please take a look at their journal - they plant trees for every story published.  Such a good cause and such a lovely publication that is read in 95 countries world wide.
​https://tinyseedjournal.com/

There was a day when my pen alone captured an exceptionally visual experience and I realised then that a pen could offer as profound a memory as any photograph. I was in a boat. On a river. And he hovered, about to dive. Iridescent blue plumage reflected in the waters below. Prey in sight, the hungry bird pulled in his feathers, in anticipation of his next move.
A gentle hum interrupted his gaze and with a flip of his stubby tail, he darted to the riverbank, all thoughts of his meal deserted. A wooden boat came into view. With its engine barely audible, it rounded the bend in the river almost indiscernible against the untidy woodland at the river’s edge. A woman sat tranquilly in the bow, hand trailing through the blueish grey water, leaving traces of memories trickling from her fingertips, in the boat’s wake. Reflections of green from the beech trees and wisps of silvery bark from the birch wavered on her face like shadows. The man at the helm gently guided the fisherman’s boat through the river’s meanderings; his eyes gazing along the banks; the tall reeds and yellow iris reflected in his
expectant, silent eyes.
The man’s faint intake of breathe made the woman and the bird both look up. The warm breeze whispered as time froze. The tableau in front of them came into view through mottled light. A majestic stag stood, head raised, nostrils quivering. The splendid prongs of his gilded antlers bronzed in the sunshine. A beautiful doe stood beside him, her flanks twitching slightly in rhythm with her breath; her gentle eyes alert, watching. Their fawn, almost imperceptible in the camouflage of his dappled young coat, as transfixed in time, as his parents. Humans, deer and bird were vividly suspended; the universe holding its breath from the absolute beauty of it.
With a snort, the stag raised his head and with the fluidity of one in flight, he, his doe and their young fawn, leapt and turned as one. The white of their tails dazzling, tantalizingly, as they ran. They were gone. The clearing seemed strangely silent and with a sigh, the boat traversed the corner and disappeared too, from sight.
With no more distractions the bird ruffled his spectacular feathers, raised himself off his stubby little legs and with the speed and grace of one so proficient in his hunt, he soared into the air. Watching, elongating his body into a streamlined lethal weapon, he dived. As he emerged again through the surface of the water, spangled droplets glistened on the scaly skin of a fish as it thrashed in its final death throws within the bird’s beak. Rainbows of colour, in seeming communion between water, scale and lustrous blue of the bird’s feathers, fell across the water as he rose. Belabored slightly by his prey, he flew slowly to the protection of the river bank and the kingfisher, in all his brilliance, silently relaxed and began to eat his meal.

​Doone felt the life-force ebbing slowly from her, like the wake from a boat disappearing back into the dark waters.  She was getting old.  She was terrified of death; yet it loomed ever closer.         As the chugging engines of the train belched clouds of smoke past her window, Doone strained to see the old familiar landmarks of her childhood.  Shadow towns loomed and disappeared through the grey of a Scottish evening.  She pulled at the collar of her tweed coat, hoping to gather some warmth around her tired bones.
         She had buried her husband decades ago.   His grave now silent and cold.   The idea of her own interment seemed bleak and terrible in its finality and her faith was in tatters.   Taking her last journey to Scotland, to say goodbye, fashioned an urgency within her.  With yellowed leather suitcase duly packed, she had left her daughter’s home, the grandchildren watching as she left,
“Love you all.”  She had waved her hand, absentmindedly.
 
Sitting on the dark blue waters of the bay, Oban town reached out from her childhood and reflected back at her.  The islands, standing in timeless motion in the dusky sea glinted a watery orange hue with the setting of the autumn sun.  Sail boats bobbed and the echo of their tinkling masts seemed somehow disconcerting.  Street lights made phantoms of the evening strollers.   
         The old stream train wheezed and spluttered into Oban station.  Doone climbed down on to the familiar platform; unfamiliar faces pushing past her.  She picked up her battered suitcase and headed for the exit.  An uncanny sense of fate encouraging her as she headed towards the town.
       Across the road from the harbour, Doone recognised an old building with a crooked front door.  Her destination?  Or her destiny?  Breath wedged in her throat as she put her hand on the stiff latch and pushed the door ajar.  It was five minutes to six.  Nearly closing time.
       “Doone Robertson !  Why I do believe it’s you !”
Alarmed at the sound of her own name, Doone felt a prickling sensation spread through her, leaving goose bumps on her skin.
“But it IS you, Doone.  I would recognise you anywhere, even after all these years !  Why it must be fifty years since I saw you last.  I could never mistake those mysterious eyes of yours.  It’s me, Doone.  It’s me, Morag.  Your old friend.”
Doone looked at her childhood friend in wonder.   Morag Campbell!  Frail, like herself and slightly ethereal but there was no mistaking her.  The women silently embraced.  They stood for a while holding hands, gazing into each other’s wrinkled and time worn faces.  The clocks stopped their ticking.   The world stood still.  Fifty years of stories and of lives lived, passed by them and for a moment the two old friends were children again.  Doone saw reflected in Morag’s eyes the years of her own youth and Morag saw her own, reflected back.  What could these two old women say that could ebb away the years with more wisdom than the gaze they held now?
“I can’t stay with you Doone.  I have to leave now.  I need to be, …. … elsewhere.”
Doone felt her newly awakened heart tremble.
“But before I go, I want to buy you something.  To remember me by.  Please, don’t stop me.  Please.  I want to buy you a gift.”
Not listening to Doone’s protestations, Morag chose a bottle of perfume from the shelves nearby,
“If my memory isn’t playing tricks, Doone, this one was your favourite when we were young!  I remember spilling it once on your bed.”
Taking Doone’s wrist, Morag  sprayed musty cologne on to her old friend’s skin.  Remembrances of heather and deer; tartan and bagpipes wafted between the two women.  A tear found its way down Doone’s cheek and was wiped gently away by an age-weathered hand that was not her own.
“No tears my dearest.  Not today.  Only celebration of old friendships.  Of lifetimes.  Of things to come.  Trust me.  Always”.
Morag paid for the purchase, handed it to Doone and left the shop without another word.
 
Sitting in rays of sunlight, Doone stared out across the Bay.  Her landlady brought her morning porridge and placed the local newspaper on the table as she left.  One glance and Doone was repeating the words of the headlines over and over, her head spinning.
‘Morag Campbell, aged 76 years, formerly from Oban, lately of Paris, France, died peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by her family in her home in Rue Scribe, last evening at 6pm.  Madame Morag was the founder of Musee du Parfu, the famous perfumery in the centre of the city. ‘
 
Doone was smiling, raising her wrist occasionally and inhaling deeply.  The sun was shining out from behind opaque clouds over the highlands.  And the train belched it’s smoke as before.   A bottle of perfume lay gently on her lap.
After the shock of reading the newspaper, Doone had raced back to the pharmacy where she had met Morag.  Without ceremony and holding onto the counter to steady her nerves, she spoke,
“Excuse me, but was I in here yesterday evening with a friend of mine?  Did you see us?  Did she buy me a bottle of perfume?”
“Yes Madam.  You were with Morag Campbell.   We knew her well.  Are you ok Madam?  You’ve gone very white.”
 
With something indiscernible healed in her heart, Doone was ready to leave Scotland.  All fear diminished.  Death, dying, a cold silent grave, all gone.  The gift  Morag’s apparition had given her had come in the disguise of a bottle of perfume.   But it was so much more.  Morag had given her the gift of life.  A life without fear. 
As the clouds smiled and the train chugged along its tracks,  Doone’s Soul awoke.  She was saying her goodbyes to Scotland.  With a passion she had not felt for years, she was going home to enjoy what life she had left with her family.    Death, she decided, could wait.
            

He hovered, about to dive.  His iridescent blue plumage caught in the cool warmth of the spring sunlight and reflected in the waters below.  Prey in sight, under the pale rippled surface of the river, the hungry bird pulled his feathers in tightly in anticipation of his next move. A gentle hum interrupted his rapt gaze and with a flip of his stubby tail, he darted to the river bank, all thoughts of his tasty meal deserted.  An old low wooden boat came into his view.  With its engine barely audible, the slow moving boat rounded the bend in the river almost indiscernible against the untidy woodland at the river’s edge.  A woman sat tranquilly in the bow, hand trailing through the blueish grey water, leaving memories like shadows from her fingertips in the boat’s wake.  Reflections of bright green from the new Spring leaves of the beech trees and wisps of silvery bark from the birch wavered ghostlike in the ripples around her, dancing on her face like shadows.  The man at the helm gently guided the fisherman’s boat through the river’s meanderings; his eyes gazing along the banks either side of him; the tall reeds and yellow iris reflected in his expectant, silent eyes. 
The man’s faint intake of breathe made the woman and the bird both look up.  The warm breeze whispered as time froze.  The tableau in front of them came into view through the mottled light.  A majestic stag stood, head raised, nostrils quivering. The splendid prongs of his gilded antlers bronzed in the sunshine.  A beautiful doe stood beside him, her flanks twitching slightly in rhythm with her breath; her gentle eyes alert, watching.  Their fawn, almost imperceptible in the camouflage of his dappled young coat, as transfixed in time, as his parents.  Humans, deer and bird were vividly suspended; the universe holding its breath from the absolute beauty of it.
With a snort, the stag raised his head and with the fluidity of one in flight, he, his doe and their young fawn, leapt and turned as one.  The white of their tails dazzling, tantalizingly, as they ran.  They were gone.  The clearing, where they had stood, seemed suddenly silent.  With a sigh, the boat traversed the corner and disappeared too, from sight.
With no more distractions the bird ruffled his spectacular feathers, raised himself off his stubby little legs and with the speed and grace of one so proficient in his hunt, he soared into the air above the river once again.  Watching, elongating his body into a streamlined lethal weapon, he finally dived.  As he emerged again through the surface of the water, spangled droplets glistened on the scaly skin of a fish as it thrashed in its final death throws within the bird’s beak.  Rainbows of colour, in seeming communion between water, scale and lustrous blue of the bird’s feathers, fell across the water as he rose.  Belabored slightly by his prey, he flew slowly to the protection of the river bank and the kingfisher, in all his brilliance, silently relaxed and began to eat his meal.