Freedom

Freedom

I sit at my window, gazing through the golden bars of my gilded cage. I have so many pretty things but my heart, my soul and my intellect are entwined with barbs of steel.As I watch, Freedom floats towards me, Freedom is a delicate purple balloon.

Twice, I’ve made a hungry grab for Freedom, but within my talon-intensive grip Freedom has burst and dissipated before me.

This time, as Freedom floats down in front of me. I take it gently, lovingly, nurturing it as I would nurture a tentative lover.

My cage dissolves, leaving me in a meadow of nature’s brilliance. I see grass, greener than any ever seen, a sun as yellow as churning buttermilk, casting rays of warmth and well being. The sky is so blue that it needs to be broken with white clouds. Colours never before seen by adult eyes, yet they are hidden in a cobwebbed trunk, in the attic of every grownup’s memory. These are the colours of childhood.

Freedom had taken on a new form. He’s a beautiful man-child. I grab him by the hand and we run, joyouslythrough a haze of paint-perfect buttercups, the gold dust splashing up my legs, and raining down such wealth upon me. As we run Freedom tells me that he's taking me to meet his good friend Life

But

The meadow is long and deep, we are but halfway across when Freedom sees Grey. Grey is not nice to Freedom and begins to sap his strength, Freedom slows. Grey comes in the form of North Wind. North Wind and Freedom have undergone many battles. North Wind is the stronger entity. He approaches fast and as he sweeps the meadow, he leaves a comet tail of Grey, which takes on the new form of Misty Rain.

Misty Rain is cold and unfriendly, she sinks over all of the colour in the meadow, diluting it and staining it until all in North Wind’s wake is drab. North Wind laughs.

We try to run, but how do you outrun the wind? He engulfs us and passes us by as though we were nothing more than two grains of sand on a beach.

I'm standing alone now on the silty, salt heaps.

Freedom has gone; and the buttercups have hung their heads in sorrow and wilted. The sun has wept and the sky has cried bitter tears. Frost came like a crisp Val Kyrie on the tail of North Wind. He laid on Sun and Sky, drawing all warmth and joy from their souls. The tears they cry are white and frozen.

I'm in awe as I see Blizzard. He watches me with eyes like the drifts of Antarctica.

He's coming for me. I know that and I realize that Freedom is not a person In his own right, but comes in many guises. I see him clearly now for the first time. He comes, riding on the back of Blizzard. I prepare to meet him. I recognise his true identity. I hang my head and prepare to be defeated by the friend I thought of as Freedom.

His new name is Loneliness.