I relaxed and prepared to wait, sitting now with my elbows resting on my knees, gazing lochwards, away from the retreating figures. And gradually my mind had discovered its own concentration. I remembered Miller’s tale of the loch wherein lies an island and on that island is a loch wherein lies an island and on that island is a loch wherein lies an island and so on and so forth to that ultimate island. And I envisaged the ancient female seer on that ultimate island’s throne squinting at the world with — yes, her irreverent twinkle but also a coldness there too, for the fallibility, the presumption. When I arrived in the glade an elderly woman was there amongst us who did remind me of the ancient seer for she too had a coldness about her that might well have taken my breath away on a different occasion; and lurking there too was an amused expression which I did not like, I could not have liked. This elderly woman was a person set back a pace from the main body, preferring to allow others to take the floor.
But take the floor we did. There was a beautiful girl to the side, modest, her gaze downcast, to the grassy mounds on the edge of the area. She would be mine. Her hair had the sheen and her breasts the concealed manner I knew so well, her body lightly lined beneath the loose cotton dress, and the breeze to her, the lines of her knees and thighs. I could hold her so gently, my hands touching the small of her back, her forehead to my shoulder, dampening my shoulder. There is a life there, a life strong and not to be spent. I put my hands to the small of her back, my palms flatly now to her kidneys, a body of flesh and blood, the warmth of her breasts and the warmth of her breath through my shirt onto my shoulder. And too the others, the others being there too — for now she was thrusting me back from her and laughing quietly; but as excited a laugh as could ever be imagined, as ever could be imagined; and in the laughter a mischievousness there for me, a mischief, I would try to be catching her and always be missing her by a hairsbreadth. And the others dancing now, the figures of humans, men and women, from the young to the old, all dependent on such as myself and the elderly woman whom I could see seated beside an old man with a brosy complexion, his fine head of pure white hair, listening to her animated chatter with great attention, his hand to the crook of her elbow as though to steady her, to pacify her. Was the elderly woman like me?
But the girl wanted me. She urged me on, urged me on. And I was dancing her on a circle, a reel; and our laughter amidst the laughter of the others, the couples, indistinguishable. It was a rage. It was a fire. We were on fire. We were clinging together. I was holding her so tightly, to keep her now, to keep her safe forever. For it was time, it was the time. And my memory is of a total rapture: the memory of such a moment but without the moment’s memory for I cannot recollect that moment, only of having had such a moment, of our total rapture, the girl with the dark hair and myself.
We were apart now, inches, inches and feet and then yards, and her hands upraised in a question, her frown being followed by a look of an almost sickening resignation; uncomprehending, she cannot comprehend why this is to be, why they are to be in this way, that she is here for this one day, this only day, forever, this poor Red Cockatoo. And I can stare and stare at her, the tears tucked behind my eyes now as they seem always to have been since first I glimpsed the troop at sunrise, my chest and throat of an acidulous dryness.
The others were with her. They were standing to the rear of us in their own grouping, fidgeting, muttering unintelligibly. But soon they were become silent and those who had been staring at the ground now raised their heads. We humans were the interlopers, myself and the elderly woman, the others. And we were having to stand there in our own isolation, watching this heartbreak, these poor Red Cockatoos, their moment having come and now gone, concealing nought from each other, not now, not any longer. And we must continue our watching as this further stage advanced, their thin arms stretching out to one another; and they cling hand to hand in a curious, orchestrated fashion, not looking to one another, as though a certain form of mutual recognition might destroy some very remote possibility of staying the process. And the process cannot be stayed. Even then were their hands tearing from each other as they fought to control their faces, and I searched for my girl but could not distinguish her, for the faces were now all of the uniform red circles, this bodily transformation seeming to induce a mental calm; but even so, there was an air of bewilderment amongst them, and a vague self-consciousness, their feet twitching uneasily, twitching uneasily. I had to turn my face away, glimpsing only the hurried movement of the elderly woman as she did likewise. But for an instant were we looking into the other’s eyes? I do not know, for the screeching had begun and it was all to be over, within a brief few seconds these poor Red Cockatoos would cease to exist.
The Failure
Whereas the drop appeared to recede into black nothingness I deduced each side of the chasm to taper until they merged. Each falling object would eventually land. And if footholes were to exist then discovering them could scarcely be avoided. The black of the nothingness was only so from the top: light would be perceived at the bottom, a position from where even the tiniest of specks would enable the black to be quashed. And should a problem arise, groping an ascent via the footholes would be fairly certain.
I jumped.
The sensation of the fall is indescribable.
Much later upon landing I faced black nothingness. I had been mistaken about the light. That speck was insufficient. I could distinguish nothing whatsoever. But it was impossible to concentrate for my boots were wedged into the sides and my knees were twisted unnaturally. My arms had been forced round onto my back, with my shoulders pressed forward. The entire position of my body was reminiscent of what the adept yogi may accomplish. I ached all over. Then I had become aware of how irresponsibly conceived my planning had been. It was as if somehow I had expected the bottom to be large enough to accommodate an average-sized, fully grown male.
For a lengthy period I attempted to dislodge myself but to no avail. I panicked. I clawed and clawed at the backs of my thighs in an effort to hoist up my legs until finally I was obliged to halt through sheer fatigue at the wrists and finger-joints. Sweat dripped from my every pore; and the echo consequent upon this was resounding. Beginning from the drips the noise developed into one continuous roar that increased as it rose and rose and rose before dying away out of the top. An awful realization was presenting itself to me: the more I tried and tried to dislodge my body the more firmly entrenched I would become. Think of the manner whereby a mouse seals its own fate within that most iniquitous of adhesives it has entered to search out that last scrap of food. Yes, an immediate reaction to a desperate situation may well be normal but it is rarely other than misguided. My own had resulted in a position of utter hopelessness. And the magnitude of my miscalculations seemed destined to overwhelm me. That failure to anticipate the absurdity of bottom.
No, not a mouse, nor yet a flea, could enter into that. Total nothingness. A space so minute only nothing gains entry. Not even the most supremely infinitesimal of organisms as witnessed through the finest of powerful microscopes can disturb the bottom, for here absolutely nothing exists but the point in itself, the vertex.