I once was a king

‘Ssh’, I say to her, and close the tiny door behind the sink.

‘What?’ My roommates voice comes from the corner.

I shake my head in silence. My roommate doesn’t usually say much, but the sound of her chains clunking sometimes pierces through my eardrums and makes my head ache. I don’t have chains, but I still can’t move.

There’s a window, too. It’s small, just enough of a gap to see the world I once knew. Or was never quite allowed to. A wolf came by last night, she poked her nose through and looked at me as if to say she knows what it means to survive in the dark. I looked back and asked her if she could help. She didn’t agree, or disagree. She just skulked off into the moonlight and told me I’d never see her again.

That’s why I put the her there, behind the sink. Her gentle spirit brings me something I can never quite find with my eyes open. She climbs into the palm of my hand, she looks just like me, but she fits into my pocket. I’d like to show her the world, too, but she says she doesn’t mind. That’s why I like her; I want to keep her safe. If he finds her, she’ll be swallowed up whole in a second.

He lives downstairs in the corner. His shadows stretch to the far side of the quarters, his voice even further. I asked for water this morning. It will come, but I’ll have to wait until I can hardly survive without it anymore. I didn’t ask for food, but he keeps me alive, so I know it will be here just in time, every time.

My roommate eats the bugs from beneath the damp bricks sometimes, they gather where her chains anchor into the ground. I never asked how she got here, and she never asks why I don’t leave. Maybe neither of us would have the answer anyway.

The tiny angel could leave, but she said she prefers to be by my side. There’s nothing in the world for her if she doesn’t have me. That’s how I knew I was supposed to be here. In this world I mean. Like there’s something coming that hasn’t happened yet, but she won’t tell me what it is. She’s how I remember to smile too, it’s important, she says, never forget to smile, even if it’s only from the inside. I liked it when she said that, sometimes when I smile he gets more angry, so it’s better to keep it deep inside.

I didn’t give her a name, she said she didn’t need one, they don’t need the same things as us in her world. If nobody brought her water, she wouldn’t die. She told me about dreams, but she told me to keep it a secret. Not everybody likes to hear about dreams, she said, but if you keep them safe, some day you can touch them with your own hands. I smiled when she said it, but when I thought of what’s outside the window, I stopped breathing for a second too long. I squashed it and didn’t smile again for another 3 weeks.

That’s why she came out today, she had to tell me that there would be a miracle. But first I had to tell him what I knew. I don’t know what I know, but the water hasn’t come yet, and my belly aches with emptiness and dread.

He’s pacing up and down, I can hear him, but I’m too tired to move. The tiny angel creeps out from her door and sits on my quivering palm. She nods at me because we both know it’s time, so I drag my lifeless body across the damp floor. I cough and splutter when I pass my roommate who stares blankly back at me. I dare to venture down the stairs, I dare to look him in the eye and I tell him:

“I don’t think I belong here.”

I don’t know what I’m saying, I’ve left my body, but his menacing stare makes me jump back, and when I crash into the wall a glittering pile of dust lands in my hand. A piercing ray of sun breaks through the roof into the pile, and I realise the dust is made of hope, just like the angel is. Now I feel like smiling again, but he doesn’t like it. I laugh and run to the doorway, because I can see the dust falling, and soon every brick crumbles around us into a billion specks of hope and dust. I see him shrink into the corner that remains. As the sun I’ve long missed bears down on my fragile skin, a wind blows in from the East. The dust gathers, whirling fast as it forms an albatross with wings that span the scattered home. Its beak glows golden in the sunlight and my eyes water and burn. My roommate is on the floor beside its spreading wings, she drags her chains towards it with pleading eyes and the cuffs fly off her bruised and whittled wrists as if they were never there. I watch her from my sheltered gaze, my hand blistering as the heat penetrates through my skin to my bloodstream. She climbs onto the back of the albatross. Its feathers are jewelled with purple, green and blue; the sun bounces off each one as it moves. They wrap around her and hold her tight. The albatross looks at me and tells me what I already know. I accept my fate and turn to the mountain.

He is shaking in the corner. The albatross takes him in its claws and disappears into the skies, and now my angel is before me. She’s not tiny anymore, she grows taller than the mountaintop; she looks down at me and says:

‘Go, follow the wind. When the moon begins to wane, call for me.’

But the water never came. And my bones ache and my stomach is twisted with hunger. But she says:

‘Go, the mountain will take care of you now.’

I’d been walking for three days when I reached the river. I had been in another world for too long, one where my senses were impossible to reach. The sound of the water rushed through my ears first, the coolness almost touched my skin before I saw the gleaming blue sky reflected in its surface. When I brought it to my face, I felt the life I had lived fall past my shoulders and land amongst the torn rags at my feet. I bathed until the sun approached the horizon, I curled up naked beneath the tree. There was nothing I could have wanted more, only the sound of rushing water and the orange haze that settled over me. I look back to that moment, when I first began to think that things could be okay, but the moon still waxed, and I was still alone.

As the moon approaches its fullness I continue to walk; the air has shifted today. The momentary relief has worn away, the stark realisation of hunger and loneliness are creeping in, and tonight, if I could just hear the breath of another living soul, I could grieve for what I have left behind. Dark though it has been, I’m comfortable with what I know. I was used to the clanking chains, the odd exchange of words, the changing seasons from the tiny window. I was used to him. My body had longed for what I had lost, not knowing what it would now find. I have seen sheep tracks in the ground; they must be grazing nearby. I walk further, hoping for something more than the leaves and berries I survived on until now, but mostly just to know that something else is alive. I see her on the hillside, I know her flock are behind the brow, but I also know she belongs to somebody, and I don’t know that the somebody is safe. I turn to the West, and continue back down into the valley, where things are quiet and undisturbed and the land is still my friend.

That’s when I see him, his gold silks hanging over his horse who grazes beside the riverbed. He is tall, like me, and he is young too. His face is kind, and he is alone. I know he is not here for trouble, but I wonder where he is going. I want to ask, but I sit back and wait a while as he dips his clothes into the water and scrubs them clean. When they are hanging to dry, I see they are of a fine quality and notice too that his horse has been well fed and stands at his post with a rare elegance found only in the higher rankings of society. I sleep on the hill above him, listening to the crackle of his fire and the soft notes of the reed flute he plays to the horse before he lays to rest. I pray that he will be here in the morning, my loneliness seeps into the melody that sings from his heart, but I desire mostly to look into his eyes and see what lies beneath.

I wake up to his face peering over me, a look of amusement pasted on his face and a cup of water in his hand.

‘Are you alone?’ he whispers.

I nod and drink the water, he leads me to his horse and waits beside the simmering kettle as I bathe behind the reeds.

‘Your clothes are expensive,’ I say when I return. ‘Do you come from the city?’

‘I come from the palace,’ he says. ‘I once was a king.’

I smile and know it is the truth.

‘And what are you now?’ I ask him.

‘Free.’

‘Do you ever feel alone?’

‘Yes, but no more than I had done before.’

I want to touch him, his soft skin has started to glow golden like his silks as the sun rises over the mountain. He knows it from the look in my eyes and his face flushes with passion. He brings some silk fabric from the horse and drapes it over my shoulders. He puts his hand to my face. He kisses me softly and I melt into the soil. My body comes alive, the roots of the surrounding trees move and I lie between them, I feel at home. So does he, he says.

The sheep are jingling now, the bells around their necks bring me back to the surface and the sun is getting hotter. He lifts me onto his horse and we begin to ascend the mountain. The sharp wind cuts across my cheeks and I am suddenly so weary. I ask him to set me down, I tell him I’m a burden, I need to rest. He laughs and says:

‘I have nowhere to be.’

I tell him about the albatross and that he took my father away. He tells me about the servants in the palace, the plates of fruit he had wanted to throw at the walls. I tell him about the chains and how they dug into my roommates wrists. He tells me she was not my roommate, and that they dug into mine too. I tell him I don’t want to be alone. He tells me that I’m not.

When the sun begins to ease off, we walk beside the horse. He wants to tell stories, he says it is his destiny. I nod and agree, his voice tells more than his words and his eyes are like poetry unfolding from the stars. When he plays the flute I dance, and he watches me. I see him looking, but he doesn’t look away. He waits for me to come to him and again he shows me how to love. I never want to leave the mountain. Nor does he, he says.

The wind sweeps through the valley beneath us and calls my name, she reminds me of the angel and I fear her. The moon is beginning to wane, but I am afraid to call her. I am afraid I will return to the dark. I call her anyway and he says to me:

‘There’s an angel by your side.’

She smiles and says nothing. She points North-West and I ask him where it will lead.

‘The Silk Road,’ he says. ‘I will take you there.’

III

As we descend into the valley I feel my heart divide in two. There are three camels and five traders who wander the road to the East, I watch them and I find I cannot speak. I ask him to tie the horse and if we can spend one more night in the pleasant quiet that covers the side of the mountain. He stays silent but does as I say. To the West I see a great city, its walls are gigantic and swallow the horizon in their shimmering jewels. He is wary, but I am not. The albatross is flying now, swooping over the caravan to greet me. I nod and it shows me its empty claws. A rope flies down from its beak and my hand almost touches it. But I see beyond the empty claws, and see that its heart is broken. I see what I wish I hadn’t.

‘There are people who need my help,’ I say to the king. But he says first I must help myself. I smile and know it is the truth.

‘I will go to the city,’ I say. He says he will take me there.

The earth shudders as the albatross takes its flight across the mountains.

‘What will I find?’ I ask him.

‘You will reap what you sow,’ he says, and bows into silence.

I sit beneath the cedar, alone before the setting sun. I think of all that I left behind and know that it is nothing. I think of all that I will never find if I choose the city of peace. My bones are heavy and my heart says yes, in peace you will find the moment, the moment that calls you home. I ask for the angel and she lifts my spirit, but is no more visible to my naked eyes.

‘We are too close to the West for magic,’ I say.

He laughs and says that never can be.

‘Then I am slipping away to something that is not real,’ I say.

He nods and says I must be careful.

‘The road to the city is paved with jewels, but without those you will surely fall’

‘I have fallen already while beholding its beauty, am I foolish to enter its gates?’

He shakes his head and invites me to come closer. He kisses my lips and reminds me of the dreamscape in my heart. He tells me that as long as I keep the dreamscape alive, no city nor fool could capture it. I look back in fear, I am young and wild, I have not seen the world as he has. I stare into his infinite eyes and search for a reason to run. I cannot find one, so he lets me go. I hold on tighter and feel the tension leave his body.

‘I will walk by your side,’ he says. I smile and know it is the truth.

What will I find in the city? I had asked myself, and now I am answered by the grey, flat walls of enormity and the persistent hum of doing. I had arrived at the gates in awe, the image presented from the outside brought a trace of hope and plentiful dust, but the angel was nowhere to be seen. I have called for her every morning since, my ears ache with the heavy silence that follows. I know she is back on the mountaintop, and I know she is waiting for something, but I cannot find the reach to ask her what it is.

He is turning grey like the flat wall maze. We are drifting away from each other, the thread that pulls on my heart from his is thinning because I cannot see him anymore. I wave to the king I knew and he tries to smile, but his lips are too heavy and the smile does not reach his eyes. I tell him he must return to the mountain. He says he will not.

I think of the albatross and wonder if I was mistaken. My heart bleeds for the poetry in the tiny grains of sand that shifted beneath my feet. My soul is too heavy to remain, but my body is too tired to return.

‘You must return to the mountain,’ I say.

‘I will not.’

The days pass by too quickly and the light fades behind the walls too soon, but I find something in the corner of the empty room we have acquired. It is a book without pictures and too many words. It is a language not my own and its poetry flows from the pages and lands across the fabrics of my newly woven dress. His silks are long forgotten, traded for a linen that kisses my skin with the earth. Its soft and textured surface blends into my body and I am a part of it. His cotton covers his hair and face and his eyes present a flicker of light. He asks me to read to him.

I do not know the meanings, but the meanings know me. The words wrap around my tongue like liquid gold and spill into the breathless air. He sits on the floor in silence and I watch them scatter across his bare chest. They sink into his skin and the king has returned. He tells me he had long forgotten the life of a king, but here it fills the desires of every aching heart. He speaks with melancholy and the horse whinnies beyond the door.

‘We must return to the mountain’ he says, and pulls me closer again.

‘You are back to me,’ I respond.

‘My soul wandered for a moment, this life is hard to bear.’

‘What have we found in the city?’ I ask him.

‘A language beyond words.’

‘And what of peace?’

‘It will come,’ he says, and smothers the candle’s flame.

We gather the little belongings we hold: soap from the markets, linens for our skin, one or two jewels for trade, tea and spices. I look sadly at the room where I found him again. I don’t want to leave, there is something.

‘The mountain,’ I say. ‘It does not call.’

He tells me there is another, beyond the far side of the city, but he does not know it well. I tell him that my heart is pulled towards it, he looks at me dubiously, but he nods and agrees. He says he does not know what we will find, but that peace has arrived in my eyes. I tell him it is because I know my soul will know the mountain beyond the city. He smiles, and knows it is the truth.

…my wings have snapped. Broken, torn in two, each feather plucked out with ferocity. Their malice pierced my fragile skin, their poison spread into my heart until I fell from grace and landed in a heap of tortured hell in the expanding abyss of the humanity. I cannot get to you, you must go on…

I hear her words penetrate my soul. I am frozen in the growing chasm in my chest, filled with darkness, the one I had recently escaped.

’My angel has fallen,’ I say.

‘She will rise again.’

I nod, fear settling between my narrow hips, something is missing. When I wander I feel empty, we are heading to the edges of the city, but my eyes can only rest within. I do not know my name, I do not know who I am. Each minute passes by unnoticed, the thread between us thins once again. He walks by my side steadily and does not seek to know what goes on inside my mind. I am safe, but I am emptying. Something is missing.

When we reach the corner of the city, the gates open into a desert. He tells me the mountain is beyond the desert plains, I nod with relief. The open landscape mirrors the empty space in my heart and tells me that to be empty is okay. I look for her in the sky and see that the colours are not bright like before. I notice I cannot see beyond the horizon, the skies are too low, the sand is too thick around my swollen feet. He walks by my side steadily and does not seek to know what goes on inside my mind. I am safe, but I am tiring.

When we reach the acacia grove he stops. He lays a cotton shawl on the shaded sand and I lie down quietly. When I close my eyes it is not empty, it is full of thought and chaos. I open them again and stare into the vast. My body is tensed and my head is aching. He wanders around me, gathering sticks and placing them into a pile. He sits beside it and watches me intently as he sparks the fire. The first moments are full with blazing intensity, but soon as the flames calm and settle, the heart of the fire reaches out and touches my spirit. I feel it alight, I am not empty any longer. I look at him and see that his face is attentive to the fire and is heart is attentive to mine. I feel strength in my bones that travels through the warmth and into my body. The fire is alive, the fire is talking to me. I ask her what she knows of my angel.

… each day I return to the place I have fallen and call to your name. My wings have repaired, but I am afraid. They are chasing me, they are looking to bring me down again. I am coming, but I cannot reveal myself to you yet. You must go on…

I find strength knowing she gathers hers. I find power in knowing that she will return. She must protect herself so that she can protect me. He remains attentive to the fire with his heart attentive to me. I am grateful for the company and relieved with the silence. I say thank you with my next breath, and he returns it by laying his head on the sand beside me.

There is nothing to do, he tells me. We will go on, and she will return, he has seen it in the fire.

I climb and climb and climb. My bare feet are torn as I struggle to ascend the mountain. Nothing matters anymore, I know she will meet me at the top. He wanders behind me with the mule. The horse lives in the city now, with a fine owner and a fine stable. The mule is soft and strong. He makes me smile, resilient and perseverant he drags our belongings to the top of the mountain and because of the King I reach the top by his side.

I ascend to the peak and know it is done. The darkness lies in a pool in the valley beneath us, and we find a shaded grove to tether the mule. I walk to the river alone and dip my burning feet into the cold water, I have travelled in a circle but the things around me have transformed. I see her light shining through the trees and I know she has risen again. She arrives with the albatross that night, its feathers now shine white and gold and nobody rides upon his back. It offers its wing and I climb up towards her, it lifts me to her hand and places me gently inside it. She is gigantic again, I am tiny. She says she will never leave my side, that she had not fallen but was ordered to show me myself. I smile and know that is what he was keeping from me.

She tells me it is time to fly with the albatross, that it will show me a land where I can feel alive.

He nods with the mule by his side and says:

We will meet you there.

I slide down the wings of the albatross and take his hands in mine.

‘I will not leave your side.”

He smiles and says he is glad, because in the sky he cannot protect me from the dark. I ask him what he means, but he has already started to walk towards the albatross. He sits beside its great wings and brings the flute to his parted lips. The sweetest melody that poured from his heart and into the wind circled around the albatross, the dust gathers around his claws and he lifts into the sky once more. He begins to spread his wings while clouds form on the dusty pink horizon. Their colours merge and the sky is a picture of painted gold while the sun rests and the heat lifts from the air and takes with it the long, arduous journey.

The albatross flaps its wings, the wind hurries and gathers and the world begins to transform. The angel is small again. She hovers above his shoulder, basking in the song. I watch as life sprouts from the barren lands. Green reeds burst from the earth; a deep line carves into its solid ground and fills with flowing water. A great river is formed and the albatross soars beside it, its lines curve and meander through the land and life is born on either side. The animals arrive to drink, the birds fly down to eat, and I stand beside the mule and know the king has returned. When the song reaches its natural sleep, the animals quiet and lay down beside him. A snake has coiled around his staff, dozy and content. A camel has wandered by, chewing on the leaves of the newly grown branches. A wolf like the one I saw from the window has skulked past, looking for company and finding it in him.

I walk to him and he stands to meet me and says:

‘I once was a king’

I smile and ask him what it means to be a king.

He laughs and his weary eyes pour youth into my spirit. He looks around at the life born of his song and understands my question beyond an answer. He says I have grown since we left the desert. I tell him I remembered myself in the fire and he nods and says he remembered me too;

‘And what of peace?’ I smile.

‘It has come.’