Shiloh - A Long Way Home
The night was cool, the brooding late-spring heat driven into the shadows by a lofty breeze. The trees had come out of hiding, their arms and legs shuffling towards and behind the whispering wind--it was telling them things. Telling them of the journeys it had been on since they’d last met, of the people that it had seen, namely those who had been appreciative of the repose it had gifted them. To the trees, the wind was in as high regard as any human’s God. It wasn’t wind, it was Wind.
The sky was ablaze with the colors of May. The salmons, corals, roseates, and the deep indigos blended together in a mosaic of hues. Lighter, darker, lighter, darker. No artist could ever create such a color, the radiance of perfect design emitted from the limitless atmosphere. The deep indigos and violets formed clouds, fanning the sun with great splendor, bowing to her beauty. From beyond, the stars twinkled, their eyes shining with great radiance. I love when we get to be seen, an infant star said to its superior. Now, now, stay still, a grandmotherly star answered from miles across the sky. It wasn’t miles for them, though, only for the eyes of those who looked on from the temporary place. Nobody is in need of a wish tonight, darling.
But, Grandmother Star, what about her?
In a stoic state of contemplation, the girl faced the cities, the countries, the plains, the deserts. They shined almost as bright as the sky, as if a reflection on a cow pond lit by fireflies. She pushed into the rock she was resting her left ankle on, watching as it gained traction, stumbling down the steep decline, still manufacturing a shallow, rocky clunk, clunk, clunk sound long after it left her watchful vision, echoing through the surrounding peaks for even longer.
Maybe that’s how our lives are lived, maybe people remember us long after they see us, and our lives still echo and are seen, even in the darkness. The girl adjusted her ragged black rucksack against her cadaverous frame, a stockpile of carabiners giving it its twentieth or thirtieth life. But not mine, not ever. Even if I returned home, nobody would be glad to see me, nobody would want anything to do with me, not even my family.
Her eyes scanned the deeper, darker blues in the foreground, tracing them back to the reflection on the canal which illustrated the final moments before the wild, unbroken sunset once again resigned from its’ position, allowing the tranquil and placid night to sign on for the evening.
Where does it go? Shiloh pondered, her untamed, unclean tresses pushed behind a fragmented ear, a reminder of lives she should hardly have survived.
Home, the wind whispered, a gentle breeze enveloping the girl and the population below, as it always did when answering the question of an ignorant mammal, sometimes the people, sometimes the four-leggeds. As you should do.
Its wispy breath tickled her soul and her physical body, from the follicles in her head to the blisters on her feet. Its’ tone was cool, like the night, the flow more sinuous than the canals below. She always knew the voice was there, even when she couldn’t see it, just like the lifeless, sterile lamppost on the street where she grew up.
Go home, Shiloh.
With a compliant, deep nod, the figment of nature descended the peak, taking one last look at the vast, profound nothingness. But a girl, the queen of nature--the image of harmony within the forest. The one the trees bow to and the rocks cry out to, also the one who would be sleeping on a park bench for the remainder of her short life. It would be a long way home.
(the image, if it suits you to view it: Image :) I do not own the art or anything to do with it, just the writing. Thankful for the cool people who spit out images like such, because I can’t draw to save my life, loooll.)
Sunny
