Author: Andrew R Duncan. Andrew is a watcher and writer from Edinburgh, Scotland. An observer of decline and decay; a witness to the end and rebirth. Writes the Stories of Winter.

Through moorland, they went, on their endless and frenzied descent, one always in front of the other. They slept swaddled in heather and waded through peat bogs and remote streams that giggled and whispered secrets only the two men knew. The waters spoke more than the fugitives as not a word was spoken between them in their headlong flight. Through the forest they went on their immeasurable and frantic journey, one always leading the other. Through unending days of pine and vast scenes of emerald with a horizon never more than twenty paces ahead of them. The leaves rustled and the branches shook and knowledge esoteric accompanied them, chiding them for their impropriety. Their voices still could be found in any of the realms of man. Through the meadow they went on their perpetual and frenetic pilgrimage, one always just out of reach of the other. Through verdant grasses that reached their waist and beds of flowers that filled the land with aromas rare and wonderful. The grasses sang of knowledge beyond the mind of man and wisdom divine. Still, the men would not, could not respond and the land received only silence. At the clifftop, they fell and brought their travels to an end.

They lay beneath a small tuft of grass where blue and purple flowers danced gaily in the morning breeze. The wind brought with it the scents of salt and buckthorn, heralding the sea that churned away at the foot of the cliffs, a lifetime’s fall away. Over the sea and beyond the horizon, the sun rose from his slumber and crowned the distant sky in red and gold as shadows fled and darkness was conquered. A sign inauspicious but in their weary and fallen state it was welcoming and promised.

“I didn’t kill her”

The words forlorn uttered in a faltering voice by a sagging figure were caught by the winds carrying them down the cliffs where they were lost forever in roaring tide and rushing waters. The thirsty land received these meagre offerings with exuberance. She cried as a mother witnessing the return of her babe. The accused had spoken. The halo of light from a land far beyond their sight crowned the two men from head to toe, drenching their threadbare clothes and soleless boots in a distant fire. Their chests rose and fell in time with the waves beating against the cliffs below, as both men drew struggled breath after struggled breath. He had caught up with him and all his flight was for naught. He had known he could not run from him but he tried nonetheless and it only brought him here. To die on a desolate clifftop at this new dawn.

“I wanted to. I truly did. I had hated her with all the powers hell could muster and not even my father himself was supposed to stop me. There I stood with the chill of death in my eyes, the gun in my hands, and the lady in my sights, but at the edge of prophecies and promises, I faltered. I couldn’t kill her”.

After the attempted impassioned speech, the speaker loosened an afflicted sign and shifted in his dying rest, clutching his side that oozed with dark blood and black pus. The spear had pierced him o-so-long-ago now, but the wound still festered and defiled as if it were only yesterday. And it may only have been yesterday. In the headlong rush and panic of his flight, time had become quite intangible. One obscure day faded into the next and the land faded away beneath him as he believed he could run forever. But then existence found him and predator and prey tumbled to the ground with a lifetime of reality crashing into them. And this was where they remained as they waited for the final death.

“She needed to die and you know that”. Though unable to get to his feet, the pursuer had found his voice. As a cloud passed before the sun, the two men felt warmth recede and a chill swell up through them, imparted by the land herself.

“She was the only one in your way. With her gone and your mind clear of distractions, your eyes would finally have been opened to destiny and your will would’ve carried us far. But you’ve chosen this fate for us, and we will die without knowledge of glory, doomed to return. This existence of yours is your legacy and when you return to your lower form it will only reflect the being you are.

“Everything I poured into you is but dust in the wind. The strings I pulled, the opportunities that were granted to you, you squandered them all and threw them to the swine alongside everything else you own. All you needed to do was to squeeze the trigger but even that was beyond your abilities. Your death brings me no sorrow. I regret only that you drag me down with you. These breaths, steps, and heartbeats I have spent chasing you to this end be a curse upon you.

“I had never seen one with such potential as you. A heart so obsessed and committed. A mind so ready to be emptied and refilled. Destiny was yours, child, ascendence just waiting for you to reach out and grasp her. But your passions betrayed you and emptiness evades you. You will continue to suffer as you always have and only you are to blame”.

The two men fell to silence once more.

She had dark brown hair, vibrant hazel eyes, and a face that appears only once a generation. She walked on sunshine and roses or so was proclaimed by the poets in a vain attempt to tell all the world of her elegance. The world did not need to be told and everywhere she went, she smiled, and the creation was unlocked before her. Most amazingly of all, the smile was real. When those lively eyes began to crease, the corners of those graceful lips curled up, and a simple giggle escaped her, she meant every part of it and truly wished to bless all those who humoured her. The unending beauty and joy of life was not, and could not be, lost on her. From the moment she left her home in the morning, wishing her dutiful parents a good day, until she lay down to sleep at night, creation and the providences displayed within her could only increase the love she felt throughout every ounce of her being. There was no cynic she could not reform, no pessimist she could not cheer, and no heart she could not soften. She had always been this way, surprising her much-troubled parents even at birth as the weight of fatherhood and the living flesh he had begotten turned a child into a man and set forth a story in its own right. She could do no wrong at school, being the highlight of every teacher and pupil. And of course, every boy wanted nothing more than a chance to claim her for his own. Moves were made, fights broke out in playgrounds, and friendships were destroyed, but she was not so easy to conquer. In maturity, her flourishing only continued, and the elation only spread.

One day she had gone out into the town to shop for the week when she stopped upon the bridge to gaze at the waters as they tumbled by with yells and blasts. The three deer that grazed the banks of the river did not mind her presence and continued to forage amongst the flowers of leaves with graceful vigilance, each dappled with the yellows and greens of the sunlight that passed through the trees. The warm breeze set nature to dancing and carried up the idyllic scents to the lady above. It pushed back her hair from her face and as she stood framed between grey stone, golden sunlight, and emerald trees her form belonged on canvas or marble. Eventually, she moved again and nature moved with her. She continued her journey, smiling politely at the young man who stood awkwardly as he waited for his passions to give him permission to continue. That is how she was first imprinted upon the mind of the young man who now lay dying upon a desolate clifftop.

“She did not deserve to die”

The young man grimaced, clutching at his side and turning to the old man. He did not look at him but beyond him to some great event only he saw. A revelation for only one man and an image of what should have been. The flowers continued their merriments, the wind its racing, and the waves their comings and goings.

“She was unaware I had a gun. I stood fifty feet away, aimed with all the care you had taught me, and thought of the nothingness that would consume me. But I paused for just a heartbeat to take a final look at my obsession, the last thing that kept me in this world, and I can only thank the divine I did. She smiled the way she had always smiled, her eyes as joyous as they always were. You claim she only keeps me here in my suffering. Keeps me trapped with desire. I suffer only because of myself, as do you. I am not a channel for your failings. Fail on your own but make me no part of it”.

This final rebuke used all his remaining energy and neither man spoke as they drew closer to death every moment. They no longer cared who might catch up with them nor whether death would arrive. Each had failed too many times to wish for this life to continue. Hope is a fickle thing. One lay cursing the failure he lay beside and lamenting the loss of his time of greatness. His freedom. His apotheosis. The other lay filled with guilt, images of the world he nearly created sending chills through his body and cries of remorse to his lips.

As both passed from the world, the clouds made their move from in front of the still nascent sun and hurried to follow his command. As the golden light fell upon the oozing black wound in the young man’s side it closed and let him die. The old remained in the shadow of clouds and died with endless spite upon his face, never to return.

By the cliffs, the wind, waves, and flowers sang for joy, as did the grass in the meadows, the trees of the forest, and the streams of the moorland.