HUNTING SEASON
I am so elated to join hunting season on the beach. Quite unlike any other hunting season, this is for those that hunt the dead. As an archeologist, this is a prime hunt, a dig into the unknown; ancient bones and artifacts, uncovering secrets of an ancient world … I just can’t wait!
Quite an unusual place, this dig, never before have I experienced a dig on the shoreline.
It's beautiful here; soft spray and ocean breezes mingling with roaring waves… an ambiance of home that tugs at my heart and my curiosity peeks as to those long gone, how they must have loved their blissful life here … the simple joys …
I let my mind drift a while as I enter the cave mouth, my torch lighting the darkness with its warm glow, illuminating etches on the walls … catching my breath at the reflections … not what I was anticipating, these are not the simple sketches that I am accustomed to, these are refined and soo rich in colors that reflect and dance off the wall… the detail … a photograph in time … I am awed by the vision before me … and they call to me to run my hand along their ridges …
Slow, slow I stretch my fingers toward their surface, my brain screaming protocol, deafened by the sweet songs playing in my mind … slow, slow I succumb to the call, stretching my hand further and further, my fingertips only inches away … just one more step and instead of a rocky-solid, the surface mist breaks in swirls and my shaking hand is reflecting gentle sunlight from the other side …
Caution blinded by curiosity, I inch forward into the warm dapples of sunlight on the other side, soo green and lush, here too waters sing… but here it sings the gentle lullabies of bubbling brooks and merry ripples.
I wander in a dream-like state through thickets of wildflowers scenting the air with every movement, and for a second my mind reasons, I must have hit my head and am lying on the cold sandy floor of the cave, dark now, the only light the abandoned torch ray ebbing and flickering and finally, even the tiny red recharge glow blinks out… my mind quietens with the darkness and I am returned to the meadow I am wondering through under azure skies…
Growing accustomed to the scenic beauty before me I start to wonder at the absolute lack of life sounds … not a single buzzing bee or chirping bird, not even one fluttering butterfly or cricking branch or crunching leaves, only my footsteps sounding like a brass band playing to the tune of the whispering breeze caressing my neck, playfully lifting tendrils of hair twirling and dropping them back gently on my shoulders… I feel a type of life here … but it is not like my own … sentient yes, but living … not soo much … here in the quiet, the only beating heart is elemental …
Under darkening skies my way back is met with arduous resistance I do not remember having as I ambled my way in; the dense thickets of wildflowers tangling my feet with their stems, overhanging wispy willow branches soo picturesque in the sunlight ensnaring my arms in their web of fronds, all the while, the sweet scents of wildflowers on the breeze now cloying and stifling on stagnant air … I am suffocating in Eden, I lament whilst trying to make way back to freedom.
I am exhausted, and the way back is as far as it always was, the ground greedily grabbing my every step … tripping on yet another coil of verdure I fall to my knees defeated … maybe someone will find me in that dark cave, my mind rallies hope, after all, I wasn’t the only one invited to the dig … was I?
My mind races through the endless roll of memories to the electronic invite, mentally scanning through the sender and cc’s … I remember appreciating the unique style of the headline “Now Open Hunting Season of Elemental Antiquity” … what I didn’t understand was what they were hunting … was me.
The tow-truck slowly pulls out off of the lonely curb, onto the peaceful meandering cliff side road ... another long abandoned car in tow ...
30.06.2021
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