Skip to main content

The Necklace

It is on me.  Around my neck and on my bones.  If I breathe in deeply I can feel it tightening warm fingers around my throat.  It is there and I’m always aware of it.  I know that people look at it.  They want to touch it with their own warm hands but it won’t let them.  It belongs to me and no-one else.  Sitting in this glade of purple fox gloves and shy daisies I feel it radiating in the space around me.  Light pulsating against the beams of sun and if I watch the grass and moss and trees they seem to bend towards the metal against my neck. 

A huge bumblebee sways his large body from side to side with the help of undersized frantic wings.  He wants to fly to the orange globe burning in the sky but it’s out of reach.  A smaller but no less powerful gravity is forcing him into a section of the forest and he just flies and flies and pushes himself to find the warmth and energy coming from this glade.

She sits and stares at the sun and the flowers and feels safe with her hands buried in clumps of grass at her feet.  A bumblebee flies into the glade and heads straight for her.  Unblinking she watches it advance until it is too close to change it’s direction and it has hit the necklace around her delicate throat.

Dazed and stupefied.  Stars circle its head and it lies on the ground contemplating the sky and trying to remember how he ended up in this position.  The giant hand of a human scoops down, picks him up and launches him into the sky where his wings kick in and he is back to swaying out of the glade in total confusion as to what just occurred.

It is on me and it hums.  I swear if I listen hard enough I can hear the earth humming back.  That bee just almost broke its neck trying to get closer to the metal at my neck and I know exactly how it feels. 

I once tried to take it off.  Left it right here beside the old oak trees bordering this glade.  I managed to take three steps away from it and the sky fell in, thunder rumbled and birds cried out.  At least that’s what it felt like.  I crawled back to the metal and placed it round my neck and sat feeling strength fill my bones and the usual feeling of weight returned.  I’ve tried a few times to ‘lose it’.  But I always know where it is and it knows where I am so I have no choice but to return to it fast with a migraine or sickness and now I know it will always be around my neck.  And fastened to my skin.  And my blood and veins and arteries.  It is part of me and I must have it near me.       

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving Goalposts

Some days you can feel as though you're on top of everything and it all makes completes sense.  The goalposts to a job being completed are clearly signposted and you can tick them off as you progress. Other days you can feel as though you're sinking and no matter how many goals you tick off a few more appear on the horizon and nobody warned you they'd be there. I set myself goals and these are added to what everyone else has decided I need to do.  So they multiply and the list gets longer and falls off one page onto two and suddenly you're staring at a tunnel of objectives and no light to shine on them for clarity. It's deeply frustrating and I'm the sort of person who needs set targets to reach.  If you change the targets it's like you've personally attacked me and ruined my day for fun.  I know that's not what actually happens but it definitely feels personal sometimes. I have 2 new pieces of work to hand in on Monday that weren't menti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Crystal Clear Views

It's frustrating when all you can see are the problems in a situation.  No matter how hard you try, the short term worries and panic end up clouding the view... (Photo by me, 2009) But if you risk a few crows feet and squint the bigger picture can appear.  A more positive longer term.  You breathe deeply, reassure yourself that eventually the problem will make sense and hunker down to make it all work out okay.  (Photo by me, 2009)
Post a Comment
Read more

Disconnect

There is a feeling of being lost which has been creeping up on me more and more over the past few weeks. It makes me feel as though I am a different person to the one I was a month ago. Different thoughts, different priorities. Even so far as saying different voice, different body, different face I see in the mirror. I do not feel like I am me and the more I try to reach myself or sift back over old conversations and emotions to find myself the less graspable 'I' am. I can hear my voice talking at people. Sense me ears listening and my brain nodding along happily inside my skull. But there is a disconnect. And in that gap I do not like the situation. I don't feel comfortable and I don't know how to get up and be even remotely okay about where I might end up. It may simply be a bad Monday or a bad week about to start. When the disconnected fog descends, as it certainly will again and again and tomorrow and the next day again and again, I will try to be ready to ...
Post a Comment
Read more