The Return

The Return The quietness spreads thickly, the atmosphere even thicker. Nature has lost its voice as the house glowers down at him caped in silent stillness; a muscle waiting to twitch! Side-stepping the house’s deafening glare, he slips into the secluded garden where nostalgia waits to ambush him with memories unfurled everywhere; hanging in the trees, draped across flower beds lounging on the wooden bench. He feels worryingly exposed and turning contemplates retreat, only to watch the road scamper the horizon as if returning to retrieve something lost, indeed, as he himself is about to attempt in resuscitating a father-son relationship. A tree’s heartbeat thumps an alert, a bird’s throat trembles a warning; he realises his pulse has disappeared borrowed by encircling shadows within his mind. Dark thoughts of the draconian oubliette(*); taut memories of his father’s cruelty. He may hold secrets in his fingertips; special spells in deep pockets of experience but perhaps returning home, to the cradle of his youth, after thirty stretched years is a miscalculation. The past has moved along; the house and his father, perhaps not! Ian Souter (* an oubliette is a type of dungeon with the only entrance being through the ceiling)