2
I had so much to ask Lightning. I was sure my understanding of him and our time together was once much better. My working memory was greatly improved. Months of rehab saw to that. My cognitive abilities were un-damaged. Wading around in peoples dirty washing made me intensely self critical, but in truth my facility for intuitive thinking was un-diminished. However, standing in front of this great beast, brimful to bursting with obscured memories semi-conscious representations and illusory connections, all jumbled up together in a densely packed hay bale brain it was a struggle to select the words to give voice to my questions. Although I knew it was an experience familiar to a lot of my clients, such knowledge did little to ease my frustration.
A clumsy noise scrambled out from behind the shrubbery. It was the approach of the costumed dramatists. Lightning needed to move. After all he was a stunning pure white stallion and had suddenly appeared out of thin air in the middle of Victoria Park. How could I explain that away? I took a step back. Something else knocked on the door, insistent, nagging at the back of my head: Between the lines.
Many parts of my brain were tightly sealed: Access denied. Distant memories in stubborn isolation separated and screened off one from the other. Important details hidden, buried deep inside. Another gift wrapped secret; a babushka. It was hard to develop an overall picture of anything. For months I glimpsed tiny snippets, the next in line. Self contained pockets: Self-serving neurons. They fired in ritualised rhythms, sending their private correspondence round and round: The same old route: A continuous loop with no deviation. No jumping the rails. No new connections. Not today. My brain was stuck on the circle line; buried deep. My brain the onion: Layer upon layer waiting to be peeled away, the living embodiment of the matryoshka principle.
Suddenly I remember the powerful sensation of flying through the air, a bitingly cold wind in my face, the sound of powerful wings beating a slow and steady rhythm. Like so much else this flashback just bubbled up of its own accord and I waited a beat for it to wrap itself around me. Carry me away please.
Lightning was more than just a horse.
‘Listen Dobro, we need to hide and you are right, I am hard to explain.’ He paused, giving me a chance to catch up with his mind reading skills. ‘There is definitely more to me than a poke in the eye Dude. Step further back. Take in the view. But while you waste time trying to locate your woolly brain let us amble over to those bushes and get wrapped up out of sight.’
He was right, the movie makers were almost upon us and we needed to hurry. Lightning shouldered past and I gasped in amazement as one tiny piece of dislocated memory slotted into its rightful place. Previously obscured by the shear size of his imposing presence, inches from my face, I saw Lightning’s enormous white wings.
Covered in feathers they were the wings of a giant mute swan. They sprouted above his front legs and were attached to formidably powerful ball joints on either side of his muscular shoulders. The wings were in repose: Elegantly folded. They arched and curved over his broad back and brushed up together at the very tip of the last long white feather. Some ten feet from shoulder to tip the soft, smooth looking white silken plumage over lapped all along the powerful wing and ruffled in the chilly breeze as we walked slowly between the shadows.
