Oh, how I wish I couldn’t see this tragically bleak graveyard of derelict industrial warehouses and factories, once heaving with life and work and the collective human struggle for survival, now desolate and empty, like a haggard old man’s gummy mouth with only one solitary tooth left inside. And oh, the tragic gloom of the dull brown moors stretching out endlessly beneath overcast grey skies above, littered with festering rubbish heaps, like old crucifixion crosses on the desecrated fields of Golgotha. And oh, the wintry sorrow of cold evenings spent huddled around sad fires and pathetically sizzling damp logs; such a pitiful sight to behold, as one grips the grim coats ever tighter around their trembling bodies and shiver violently, until finally the angels of exhaustion drag their weary minds into the peace and tranquillity of sleep, ah beautiful sleep, to dream and rest like a child cosily cooing in a comfortable crib beside the fireplace. And oh, the archaic cottages sparsely littered upon the brooding landscape, with little streams of smoke blowing out of their black charred chimneys and old bridges of crumbling stone reaching over brown stagnant streams, the dark inky waters utterly lifeless and forlorn.
No pretty wildflowers peeking out of the hedge rows, no cheeky mice scampering about, no line of fluffy white ducklings paddling around playfully in fairy tale ponds. Just the dreary gloom of winter cloaking the land in clouds of grief, overcast like a vast bedsheet of gloom draped upon the once lively countryside. Even the trees naked and barren, their emaciated, skeletal limbs unprotected by the fertile foliage of summer; kept company in their sorrow by only the occasional discarded broken-down tractor, caked in thick layers of dried, cracked mud and cow pats, it’s once bright red bonnet now rusty and sad – its only use is but to be perched upon by a cawing crow or sneaky magpie – with a dense layer of fog and mist hovering just above the ground, shackling the dreary landscape to its mournful atmospheric quality. And so, no tweeting birdies to be heard, no lovely rays of sunshine or cheerful beams of colourful light to lift one’s depressed mood. No moles merrily scuttling about with flickering whiskers and sniffling snouts. No new-born lambs tenderly nuzzling their mother’s warm bosom, searching for a soft teat to suckle. No proud roosters or vibrant technicolour peacocks strutting about confidently, chests puffed out and heads held high, surveying the land for a suitable mate or a tasty meal.
Oh, how I wish I couldn’t see the miserable horizon, ominously shrouded by a haze of moist low-lying cloud, dampening everything it touches with droplets of dew that soon freeze into glassy icicles in the bitter cold. And oh, the rows of rotting cottages once beautiful and rustic, now degraded into hellish holes of sordid squalor and sorrow where wandering drifters squat beneath dusty dining tables or lie tragically on a bed of syringes, dreaming of Eden: that great vegetable kingdom fantasised about by poet and junky alike, by king and clown, by Saint and sinner, by lover and war-mongerer, by all strange souls adrift on this earth. And oh, the eternal rain pouring down in torrential droves like an endless nightmare of misery.
No holy sunlight to paint a whimsical rainbow in the dark abyss of cloudy sky above. No wise old badgers burrowing in the clotted earth. Nor playful families of squirrels daintily darting up trees, leaping daringly between branches, hastily gripping fragile twigs or crusty leaves as their footing slightly slips, before gracefully regaining their balance and bounding further up the perilous oak tree trunk, cheekily angling a glance towards their chuckling siblings. Nor solemn owls with keen piercing eyes resting their sombre gaze upon the world.
Alas, this dark vision of landscape is coloured with naught but the sullen sense of a vacuum, a bizarre void; not brimming with cascades of life, nor utterly artificial or inanimate or utterly devoid of life – as if it were some peculiar no man’s land stuck between those two polar realms, neither alive nor dead, neither full nor empty – a land of weary spirits cursed to roam this disquieting realm of purgatory, until the climactic moment the flickering flame of their souls either burst into a raging fire, like the phoenix of old, and beam away into the unknown dimensions of the afterlife, or flicker ever fainter until finally the flame is no more and recoils like the smoky wick of a burnt-out candle.
Short Story by Stamos Mardou