The river is cut like pristine silver glass, all mirror reflection and light, winding round the lonesome path ahead, as the departing sun drops below the hill, waving good night and good riddance.
Nightfall is creeping slowly, stalking the countryside, coming round the corner bend of the day, as the commuter traffic hums aggressively in the background.
I am alone, save my in-laws dog Paddy, following the watercourse of the River Adur, following old footprints made a thousand times. Paddy is barking, lost in a cloud of midges.
I am tracing the lines of the swords in the dirt.
I am dealing with a plague of my mind, a tax on my heart, and a steal of the soul. I heard this morning from old friends from the City, of a dark family tragedy of epic Shakespearean proportions. It is haunting my day. No doubt my dreams. Drifting in and out of my thoughts.
I am sending out a telepathic telegram of hope, love, endurance, and survival. A message flat packed and delivered to the Big Smoke. Maybe it will get there, maybe it will not. Just an idea blowing in the wind.
It is a Swampy Water kind of day, on the sliding index scale of life. I rate my days on the elements of fire and water, but it’s got fuck all to do with Game of Thrones. It was an idea picked from the pockets of Labour crony Alistair Campbell, who suffers from hideous chronic depression, and rates his day on a sliding scale of one to ten. Maths never my strongest hand – and needing a tad more creativity – I opted for these elements when rolling the fortune dice of the day:
FIRE. Represents danger, usually at nightfall. And battling demons and ill meaning Voices, who seek to burn all the roses in the garden to black ash. Thankfully as rare as blue moons.
SWAMPY WATER. The roots of the day are diseased and perished. Risks and gambles do not pay off. Inertia creeps in. No river currents. Cut adrift in the marshy shallows and long shadows.
WATER. Life at an even pace. A steady swimmer. Unspectacular, but progress made in the deeper currents. My own natural element as a Piscean, following the winding path of the watercourse way.
ICE. The frozen king. The day of days. Hijacked from the Ice Cube hip-hop banger ‘It was a good day’ – when you feel like drinking neat proof vodka from a perfectly carved out Scandinavian ice sculpture. Roll out the red carpet, that leads to all tomorrow’s parties.
The Swampy Waters are beginning to recede, roots feel nourished, and slowly swimming out of the shallows, I feel a sense of balance and peace out here in the natural world. The shadows are lengthening, as this place on Earth enters dusk and the long night before the Sun smiles again.
The dog starts barking manically at his usual spot on ‘Bark-up Corner’, as I follow the homeward trail, turning my thoughts to the elemental shape of the tomorrow to come.