The Long Walk
Image: Richard Manley-Tannis
He knew he was not conscious … but he also knew he was aware for the first time since his ‘transport.’ He wouldn’t lie to himself – had never been his thing – he was scared and knew he was way out of his depth. Wherever ‘here’ was, it wasn’t any place he should be. That realisation – confession – helped. He had always danced with fear: never from it. He knew that there was a lot wrong right now, the least of which is the extent of the damage he knew his body had endured in the snow. Since that memory was not giving up any revelation, he thought he would worry at the word he had heard more than once in his recent conscious moments: ‘Mirkle.’
It sounded … familiar? Like an old story that he had once overheard, a movie once spied during those first romances where the venue was the excuse to allow hormones to guide: in other words he was saying the word over and over, variation after variation …
“M’RKl!”
It blared in his unconscious process! No: really? A connexion? The implications … well at this point he realised that whatever they were made 3rd degree hypothermia look like a suntan after a great afternoon playing bball in the sun, when green used to be the predominate summer colour …
And as the key unlocked the memory, he heard the deep voice of the Elder begin one of the Tales …
At first – yes he knew it was rhetorical, it was sarcasm, it was denial – he thought, “really?” to himself. But he could not deny what he intuited. The Tales were pre-stories, truths coupled in rhyme and prose. Stories before the time of rendering fire from matter unseen. Whether elves or spaceships, fantastical or mundane, they were doors to inner wisdom and corporate meditation. They weren’t literal …
Snow Angel
Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
And thus it came to pass: the Walk staggered on. Though Sisters and Brothers were disappeared. Though tests and experiments unheard of were performed. The walkers walked the Walk. Balance was the goal: as it had been, as it was, as it always shall be. Through the M’RKl they had come. Their purpose unknown, their intention unspoken. But in their silent voices they spoke of Elsewhere, of unformed ether, of aeries and clouds. And all who listened knew that there truths always co-existed (even when contradictory) in spinning matter. And thus the Walkers stopped and protested. Neither with arms of might, nor fists of mail did they resist. This was the first Chant, the first time the song arose from those collectives spaces and places that bind us, yet which too often greed and ego obscure. But on that day – many torn tears later – the M’RKl was closed. And thus the walkers who perform the Walk had yet one more balance to maintain, one more chore to be ready to perform. This is but one Tale of the Chant and it begins with the time of wrenching: MRK’l
He was awake – for the first time since the snow had maimed him – he was awake. And there, through glass so thin, it seemed but a membrane akin to water’s edge upon which a bug might walk, was … he searched for the word … and resisted its uttering. But as he sat up, attached to and interwoven with strands of something akin to webs, he said, he asked, he challenged, he declared: “Angel?”
Your reflections are most welcome!