Between Memory and Past.

With a gasping breath and cracking bones, the old man slid on the muddy terrain of the forest bed spilling a loud cry that shattered all the birds perching in the trees, his hiking techniques had landed him into a death trap.

“Oh no,” he clung to a nearly breaking oak root while still breathing heavily from the shock. Another tragedy followed suit before he could acclimatize. Leon descended as the root broke, sending with him half a piece as proof of a struggling death.

Mist and a cool breathe swept off his body as he dived deep the Tagliemento River, struggling between hitting his head on rocks and finding his way up the smoky filled surface.

As the fog cleared from the air, the strange smell of flowers once again touched his nostrils but still in suspense to which particular river he had fallen into for almost all rivers in the country had significant spiritual connections.

He emerged from the waters below shivering as he listened to a loud roar from the water fall that buzzed a few yards ahead of him.

 As he struggled to float, the Winking willow tree whistled a widow’s curse whose tune and timing reflected to what he last read in the ‘Chronicles of the Lost Son’ back at the Grand Cintera Library thirty years ago.

 He started recounting how he was to see his destiny before fate carried him off to the land of the silent, the tales of the secret powers of the river had just come to life after thirty years of dormancy.

“Come here boy, he reached for the floating violin that had fallen with him from high. Still silent and dismayed, he approached the nearest shallow end with difficulty, dragging his feet in a tone of mud making him loose lots of calories in the shimmering water reflections of silver.

Looking at the nearby rock with hope, a merging force of swirling water pangs clung to his feet with a mighty pressure that prevented him from going any further.

“Bloody waters; come on, “he yelled.

“You loved to sing, though the music never echoed back.” a 13 year old replica looked at him from beneath the waters, smiling. His mouth went loose in suspense as he smiled back at the young villain.

“Who are you boy,” the pair asked each other simultaneously.

“Why are you trying to question your past?”asked the boy as he glittered from beneath the waters.

“Am just curious”-he reached for his violin bow-“I have read a lot about this river.”

“Am only here to change that perception, look at me.” he instructed the old man with a wink at his left eye that suffered from cataracts.

‘Tong, tong, tong’ was the sound of church bells ringing a kilometer away from these mountain ranges; it was time for vespers at the Sundown Church as he recalled its name and the significant warning that it was getting late.

Inclining towards the nearby rusty rock, he leaned towards it slowly biting off small pieces of dead skin from his knuckles, an act of faking his self esteem.

“Carry on, am listening.” he mocked the face below. The waters drifted with an increasing pace as he clung to his violin and bow, though the pain of his arthritis on a broken toe could be evident in his face that constantly changed from a smile to a grin.

The pure colorless water print disappeared in a flick of a switch giving way to the grey matter that kept floating in which his legs were submerged, he never imagined that the experience would be so dramatic, episodes of muscle twitches ran down his spine as a 20 year old face of him abruptly landed on top of the grey matter looking straight to his eyes.

“What more should I expect?” he whispered. The silver shinny face floated with no smile but a glance of contempt at each word that came out of his mouth.

Looking nervous and helpless from a fear that haunted him, the replica finally said,

 “That was the problem, you always expected a lot, became possessed with the future and forgot to live the present.

“You turned faith into fear, tried to figure out the meaning of life, but you got stung by the fangs that finish every good man, Expectations.”

He paused from the memory race, folding his arms behind his back, face looking solid to the moving replica as he recounted every single time his efforts had been killed by dreams he shared with wolves in human skin.

The silence in the silver waters stretched throughout the river canal that his restraining cubes of ice broke loose, making him gait for a seat at a nearby rock to which his violin and bow rested.

“Am so sorry boy”- he supported his jaw with his lean hand-“I should have known.”

“We are always caught up by the illusions of our own making, but a pure motive shouldn’t be questioned by prevailing circumstances.”

“What else remains on my 20 year account boy?”he wondered cozily.

“It was a time of frost. The two of you sneaked to the woods to gather snowflakes-“

“I can hear wolves howling.” Old man reached for his violin and stretching his hand with the bow, he listened both to the wind and the story being told.

“You looked into her blue eyes, smiling at the one dimple that always hang from her right cheek, you said ‘perfect’.

“The petals on your face drew into a magnetic cog that nearly lasted for two minutes.”

O mio babbino caro, the melancholy sound escaped from the three violin strings that remained intact after the fall, Leon was a master of his music and a tamer of emotions.

The young replica listened carefully to the music, as the old man recalled how Rachel’s father wanted him not to marry her daughter all attributed to political - social security of the Langstone family and future.

“I remember church bells ringing,”

“Well said boy, the moments we make are the ones that shape our legacies.“ He reached for his coat pocket removing a tainted red hip flask of rum.

”Cheers mate. “He looked to the wide blue sky decorated with speckles of vast clouds and drank his last share of the rum as the silver boy in the grey waters faded away into the sleazy rocking small waves.

Leon looked down at the water to share a drink with his young self but only fate had control of the agenda then.

“oh no, God forbid“ Leon shook his head as he secured his position firm to the rock that stood a few meters from land ,withdrawing his legs from the grey waters that had popped into a dazzling red flow, pure red wine flowed before his eyes as molten plum-like 35 year old face of himself floated.

His scar in the middle of his two eyes emerged as flesh and deep like it was yesterday, beards covering from jaw to jaw, eyes fixed and blatant like a steel prison bar and ears stunted like a plant deprived of fresh air, the face looked through him scanning for past grave mistakes that lay behind his trail.

Still hesitant to talk to the scary figure, he scanned around the trees for an escape route as sun’s dusk flashed on his skin in the dead silence echoing through the mountain ranges.

“Why would you do that?”the lean bloody face asked the old man who was struggling not to slide from the edge of the rock into a red river.

“Why, why would I do what, what you are talking about," he stammered from his rocky castle.

“You gave that pregnant lady ephedra leaves for her wheezing, she bled to death, two lives were lost.”

His imagination stopped for a moment as flashes of Mrs. Goldstein who visited his Chemist Chamber two weeks before she died of a miscarriage and excessive bleeding. He again gasped for breath as a hidden memory that was long shunned ushered in.

Every muscle in his body crushed upon each other at the thought of his legacy being a cloud with no rain. Leonardo Blackstone the renowned Chemist sat in deep despair and doubt.

Still sobbing from the aftermath of the reveled memory, his pale face grew colder each moment he looked at the bloody face accusing him.

“I should have known it.”-He lifted his eyes to the heavens that glowed with a few stars-“I am sorry ma'am.”

Darkness was closing in from all sides of the river, the neighborhood forest forming curtains made from black rags assembled by perfect embroidery masters ,the fire flies.

After an episode of remorse as the stars twinkled from high above, he returned his face to the waters only to find that they had miraculously cleared the bloody paint but now a more dark horror awaited.

He looked at the waters and immediately turned his eyes back to the sky in a flash and alas, the appearance, tone and all the setting that glittered up the canvas

of the sky was a perfect mirage reflected in the river.

Old man got hold of his bow and slowly passed it into the water, moving celestial bodies in whatever direction he wanted. His love for space grew stronger as he kept on dislocating stars from their courses on the water and like a child, he laughed about it relentlessly.

“Oh God, they are moving. “he chuckled on his rock refuge and looked to the skies allowing his left hand to wander below in distorting various courses of the stars.

“I wouldn’t do that.” spoke a face covered with a white sheet with no flesh but only the bones that protruded as the sheet kept swirling east to west. Its voice

that cracked under the blowing wind which made every hair on his body stand up like it were in his nightmares at four years old, the nightmares from which he always woke up dizzy.

He quickly retracted his whole body out of the water letting loose of his bow because of its electrocuting effect that developed the longer he held unto it.

“So this is the end of it all. “ Old man crossed his arms touching both his shoulders in comfort and self courage.

“We never choose our fate, that’s why history is never written from our point of, but from those that remain to examine the footsteps.

“You have a few years to rewrite all the mayhem, make your footsteps worthy and credible because you are a good man with an imperfect trail.” the cracking sound finally froze and with it came a startling noise of many waters filling the shallow end where he sat.

Leon felt life being squeezed out of him as the waters drove the half conscious old man down the river.