Chapter 10. Swamp
I lifted my hand to brush a flower petal with my fingertips. A large oval yellow petal that narrowed towards a drooping seed pod in the center. I stood thigh deep in crystal clear swamp with a slight fog onsought near the leafy banks. The water was cool, like mid Spring or early Summer and the sky was clear, the sun about to disappear over the horizon. The sky changed from Egyptian blue to a bleeding royal purple, a crimson ring surrounding the bright pale yellow sphere. I felt drawn towards the sunset, as if it held some deep secret I needed to know. I applied force to my heels to lunge forward, to run through the swamps towards the sun before it would vanish. But my feet were stuck to the silty soil beneath.
Of course. That's when I realized I was dreaming. The tiny moments like these when an impossible scenario occurs, like being totally stone-still when I should move easily. I took a breath and forced control into my dream.
"Move!" I mentally shouted. With a grunt my leg lifted and I took a heavy step forward. I started a slow, troublesome pace towards the sunset, wading in the shallows of the large swamp. My white cotton dress flowed behind me and caught a few circle leafy pads in its raggedy edges. Within a minute I was suddenly dragging an entire horde of these pads and flowers behind me, like I had turned into a Siberian dog pulling a sled full of these exotic flowers.
I stopped my ascent as a bird appeared in the sun. The silhouette of the bird, a large eagle like bird but with smaller wings and a larger fan-out tail. I could not tell the colour from afar, but the bird flapped its wings and flew towards the sun. It reminded me of Icarus and the wax wings.
"Birdie, take me with you!" I shouted.
The bird seemed to hear, as it made a loopy de loop and U-turned, changing its course away from the sun to fly towards me. I smiled and spread out my arms, waiting for its large talons to grab me and pull me out of the leaden water. As the bird flew closer it grew bigger, now revealing itself to be at least double my height in wing span. All the better. I wanted to be carried by this bird and flown to the sun, to see the mystery inside the blood circle surrounding.
CAWWW.
The bird's shrill call was beautiful and rumbled the water. My whole body vibrated with the rippling tidal wave that shook the swamp. Now the bird wasn't a few hundred yards away. Its large yellow beak aimed towards me, diving and swirling to make its descent, about ready to take me with him.
The bird flew closer... only a hundred yards away.
Now only a hundred feet away.
Just a few more seconds.
Twenty feet away, its wings outspread, its talons ready to grab my arms and lift me into the sky!
KKRRRKJKJ PSHHH TTNNCHH.
I gasped softly as a small explosion burst dark crimson red feathers right in front of me. Like a humongous pillow had just burst in my face. I held out my hands and felt the feathers fall onto me, the bird nowhere to be found, those silky feathers the only remains. As the last feather fell into the water they suddenly caught fire. I shrieked, throwing the feathers off me before I could be burned. Within seconds all the feathers burnt up and coated the swamp with a layer of ashes. I made a full circle and stared at the once crystal clear aqua, now tainted with a blanket of black ashes.
SWWWSSSH. GSGSHH.
The sound of water gurgling and splashing jerked me around. I spotted a disturbance in the ashes, in between a pile of flowers and large, once green, now grey pads. One particular spot a dozen feet away from me the ashes were moving by themselves, or by some invisible being underneath the water. I took a tiny step forward and watched the ashes move. Within seconds tiny pronounced lines were formed in the ashes, leaving crystal clear lines in between an ashy surface. Kind of like erasing a pattern of lead off clean paper, creating a picture. I could now see an outline of a face in the ashes. A familiar outline of a man I know very well. I have memories of this man being my fiancee.
Mr. Ghost my fiancee?!
That type of memory implanted in a dream woke me up with a startled gasp.