…and no birds sing.

By

Adam Parry

Jacob’s wanderings led him upon the withered path where black bare trees, rotted. Fallen leaves like a sickness and the ground about the trunks infected, putrid as a nightmare. Here the green he had been surrounded by each summer’s day was tinged and out of focus like a trick of the mind. He sighed deeply feeling danger ahead, the start of the path had been so inviting, a gateway of interlocking oaks, sunlight caught the dew upon the many spider’s webs, wild flowers and long grass at the side of path almost growing as high as Jacob. Looking back towards the Moor where he had set off from, but it was not there and grey clouds encompassed the Earth, he was afraid but also stubborn and went still along the withered way.

Clumsily he is tripped over by roots in the slime of the path and plunged into it. It stank and he thought he might throw up and as he struggled to stand he realised he was plastered in it. He should go back and then he sighed this will pass and I’ll find a way to the sunlight. Now he tested the path for trickster roots or buried rocks and his way forwards was slow. Soon he heard the trickling of a water nearby and brightened and headed for it to be repulsed as soon as he saw it, dead birds were slowly being swept away on the surface a wild dead pig was rotting at the water’s edge its surface clouds of insect dark flocks and swift clouds all drenched in disease.

Yet still he stank and was disgusted by himself so he stripped and tentatively immersed himself in the dark dank looking water, flies feasted on his face and encircled his head. He lowered his head to escape the assault lowered deeper in dank water soon he submerged his head and for a moment he lingered unwilling to return to the surface. He began to clean himself afraid of the water, later naked he washed his clothes, he built a small fire and dried his garments, as the fire raged up orange spears of flame, strange noises came from the forest other angrier noises jarring joined in the protesting cacophony. It moaned: it seemed the forest was weeping. He realized it was his fire that had set them off so he threw mud on the flames extinguishing it and soon the sounds of trees diminished. Startling him a panic of wood-pigeons rose like the morning sun hidden above the gloom of the clouds.

A voice called his name and he felt a hand-gloved gentle touch on his shoulder. He turned and he recognized her face but he couldn’t remember her name or who she was, she smiled at him as if he were someone else. He tried to remember who she was and suddenly the woman shrunk away and turned into nothing. He trudged on his feet sucked into the mud then he heard a voice coming from the forest, he knew it was the voice of woman he had loved.

‘Retrace your steps; go back to where you were, go to where is the sun is happy in the sky, the dog walkers and all their dogs where trees grew tall forever green here sickness sleepwalks, as if it were barred from that world where song birds delighted in the blue, Go back the way.’ She offered her hand and turned him from the way to the sick lands and he started to walk as the woman led him along.

‘This way,’ she pointed to where he longs to lay in the long grass this way homeward. He looked back at the withered path yearning to survey it’s dark terror he wanted to push on believing in all the rot and decay he could see the something imbued with light and it would grow brighter in the dark.

He turned back and followed behind the woman he had loved, as he watched the swish of her tied length of hair behind her back rocking from side to side its golden stands mesmerising him. He remembered that he had left the house this morning to gather rocks to line his garden path, and now his eyes strayed and a moss green stone was half-immersed in the stinking mud. He stopped the woman’s hand was on his shoulder but he ignored it and bent down to wrestle the rock for his garden from the clinging mud, he began to get frustrated and again he was covering himself in mud and stinking, he began to get angry, and once again felt her hand on his shoulder and he rose with her touch and she faced him and put a light finger over his lips.

‘Shh. Come on.’ She grabbed his hand and a thrill rushed through him, a thrill of the memory of the hand always in his and always in his in all their lives they’d always had her hand in his and his hand in hers, the truth of her touch him made him run faster to the Moor as if he were fleeing the sick lands, yet ahead he could still not see the greensward of the moor and the woods beyond. He thought all those ideal rocks that’d look great in his garden and even as he ran he looked back at the dark places he come, then a desire to wrest his hand from her grasp and a paranoia began to eat him. What if she is taking me somewhere worse? Jacob began to struggle with her, but her grip was stronger than his and he did not get away, she would let him pause to look at interesting rocks, she sought his freedom and only their fingers combined could free him.

They all of a sudden came to the start of the withered path and moonlight spread over the moor and hand in hand they traversed the many ways of the moor and came to the subtle, strange shadows in the half-light of the woods. After the fearful dark of the withered way by contrast he felt as he were in a wonderful dream and he were a joyful ghost seeing diamonds in moonlit air. Jacob looked back at the two oaks at the start of path and cruelty crept into his heart. He didn’t belong any more under moonlight and starlight and he believed deeply that at the end of withered way he would find light at the end, light enough to heal the land. Here in eaves of the woods he would go back, but she looked deeply in Jacob’s eyes and read the plan in his head. She told him to sit beside her beneath a pine tree, unwillingly he sat there, here golden hair reminded him of the sun and he struggled to stay seated.

‘You will see the sun soon, stay with me until the dawn.’

She seemed to fall asleep and as she lay there he put his arms around her and in his dreams he knew her name and all the things they’d done together, yet when he awoke it was as he had never dreamt at all.

With the sun the dogwalkers walked as if in another dream started along their chosen paths. A dog golden retriever came up to her and licked under her chin, she startled awake and the dog flew off, she looked up at Jacob who extended his hand to pull her up she grasped the hand and soon she stood beside him and at the golden grass of morning moor, some of it high as houses they walked a swift way and soon could see away in the distance hills gathering about themselves on the lightening horizon. She spoke then, her final words and he held those words, the sound of her voice deep in his heart.

‘Shy away from withered ways, my love, there are always new routes under the midday sun, fresh worlds with fruit in the bushes and crows laughing. Wander far and wide with fresh sunlight at its end, but please as you wander the surprises of the earth, forget the unlight of the withered ways you will find new ways into the morning.’ She paused, then pointed to the intertwined oak trees. ‘That way no birds sing.’ She smiled and said again as if she were praying. ‘That way no birds sing.’ And with the last word she seemed to fade and only her tentative smile remained. And he never saw her again.

He heard the birdsong and listened deeply as he walked the familiar way to home. So many songs serenading the land he walked around the hedgerow down the muddy path to the quiet road where his home lay sleeping.

The next day he took a new way across the moor; in his heart he knew this path was true and each step delighted him. As he wandered he heard the canticles of the day and spoke to the dogwalkers with a fresh, new born smile and watched as the dogs roll in the moor, sunlit and smiling.