Father Sun, Daughter Moon

At the edge of the moonlit cliff a lone figure sat, dwarfed by the landscape.

He had climbed there in the early night, scaling the cliff with easy familiarity. Hands and feet had quickly found the ledges and crevices, etched in black and silver moonlight on the face of the rock. Reaching the flat top, he crouched and drew from his pouch a tightly wrapped bundle of herbs. Carefully gathered, dried and bound, he had prepared them especially for this night. With flint and steel, he sparked the bundle to smoulder and blowing gently, coaxed flame, until it flared into life before his eyes, transforming the moonlight to darkness. He wafted the flames out again, leaving the embers to glow like a tapestry of campfires, the scented smoke rising into the cool night air.

Next, he ran the smouldering bundle around the contours of his body, bathing himself in the cleansing smoke. The glow reflected dimly from skin still glistening from the exertion of the climb. He drew the smoke deeply into nose and mouth, the sweet aroma in his nostrils blending with the acrid taste on his tongue. Purified within and without, he offered the smoke to the air above and to the earth below, to the hot South and to the cold North, to the West of the setting Sun and to the East of its rising. Then, sitting cross legged by the cliff top, he placed the smouldering bundle beside him, the smoke drifting gently around him as he sat.

He reached for his waterskin, fashioned from the hide of his old dog. Toddler and puppy, they had grown and learned together, played and hunted and looked out for each other. Now he caressed the coarse fur, reflecting that his faithful friend was still his constant companion and protector. He poured a small offering of water on the flat rock before him. Like liquid silver, it picked its way slowly across the surface before running from the safety of the rock onto a patch of parched earth which drank it thirstily.

Rituals completed, he settled down to wait for sunrise. High above, the full moon shone brightly on the landscape. Before him, the plain spread out far below, stretching into the distance like a sea of molten silver. As the heat from his climb faded, the cool night air picked at the droplets of moisture on his skin and he shivered. Sinking into the familiar reverie, it seemed that he stood beneath an icy waterfall, cascading down across his dusty skin. In the silvery darkness, the water seemed liquid moonlight, gathering into a pool at his feet. He plunged his hand in the cool water and lifted it, dripping, to his lips. The roar of water filled his ears as he tasted the cool sweetness of the moonlight on his tongue. Gradually he became aware that he was being watched and, raising his eyes, saw a silvery maiden on the bank, eyes twinkling as she shared his pleasure. This, he somehow knew, was the guardian of the pool, Mistress of the Moonlight.

As he stood, uncertain, a fiery figure on a warhorse rode out of the shadows, casting light all around. Tall and powerful, with a feathered lance, it was an older man who greeted the maiden as a daughter. She greeted him in turn, then took her leave. As she left, he felt the shower of cool water turn to hot dust and the moonlit glade to a scorching dustbowl. He opened his eyes to see that dawn had broken and the Sun, Father of Day had replaced the Moon, Daughter of Night, as giver of light to the world. So the day had come at last.

As the sun rose in the sky, he slipped once more into reverie. Seated on the cliff top, he felt rooted to the strong earth. Tendrils reached down into the rock below as he grew high into the sky above his head. He felt he was a mighty tree, spanning soil and sky, bridging the divide between earth and air. Leaves reaching for the sun, plucking sustenance from fire, and roots burrowing deep into the earth sucking the precious water of life. Truly he was one with all things.

He gradually surfaced again, returning to his place on the edge of the cliff. The cool moonlit sea before him was now baking desert in the hot sun. It was time to go. Reaching for his water skin, he again poured water on the flat rock before him, but this time, the hungry air seized it and it evaporated from the hot surface before reaching the security of the dry earth.

He prepared to leave this place of sanctuary and enlightenment and as he rose, felt reality returning. As the bright blue sky faded, the same white ceiling tiles, with their familiar criss-cross grid of supporting metal, swam gradually into view. He dreaded this moment. He had explored every millimetre of those tiles. Mapped every nook and cranny as he crawled endlessly across their surfaces. Each fly speck, every blemish on the rough white tiles and their shining metal supports was filed and cross-referenced in his brain.

The morning nurse sat by his bedside. He could hear her breathing loudly as she flicked the pages of a romantic magazine, but could not turn to look. Since the accident that had taken his family and his freedom, he could do nothing but lie here and stare at that ceiling. They did not even seem to realise that, trapped in this unmoving carcass, was a living person. He was buried alive in his own flesh. As he prepared to wait out another interminable day, he thought with longing of the freedom approaching with night and imagined the sheet beneath his unfeeling fingers to be the familiar texture of his faithful friend’s fur.