Halcyon Days – Jason Winn

I can feel it all, pulsating its tremendous soul beneath me. I breathe in the icy air; it swells in my chest as I find vigour in my step. I run. My bare feet flatten dew-kissed blades of grass. The scent of flowering plants fills my nostrils with fragrant aromas. It has been too long.

The surroundings blur, melding into patches of subdued umber, mottled with flashes of chartreuse. Silhouettes of distant mountains line the horizon, like a giant’s serrated teeth. A robin tenderly nestles with her chicks, gently brushing their heads with her sable beak. Shadows from colossal trees frolic across the ground. I lavish in this feeling of liberation.

I continue to sprint, throwing myself into the ever-changing scenery. A sudden drop chills my cheek as it streaks down. Rain begins to fall, dampening my clothes. No. I can’t go back now. I sprint to get away. The undergrowth tears up as my feet shred through soddened moss. My heart catches in my throat. The rain pelts harder. No escape. There never has been.

I swiftly bolt and hide under a low hanging bough shrouded in foliage. My breath escapes in hurried gasps. I cover my mouth with my hands, trying to stifle whimpers. It mustn’t find me. Something lands on my shoulder. I dare not to look, but more start to drape my back. Dread seeps in. My sanity slips. It’s too late. Swarms of coal feathers envelop me. They pierce like barbs, scorching my skin, forcing me to howl shrilly into the air. I plunge my fingertips into the earth, grasping onto primordial roots. I feel the forest’s spirit dim to a faltering resonance.

The world is cast high above me as I sink into blackness.

*** I am thrust awake. My headphones clatter to the ground. I catch Dad’s Walkman before it follows suit. I’m coated in sweat. Why does this always happen? Such ambient echoes of a better yesterday never failed to cheer me up. Yet all they do now is remind me of what I have lost. A carousel of fond memories flares up. Tears descend, moistening my pillow.

Dad gave me his Walkman before he passed away. He was an environmental scientist and was obsessed with recording the sounds of nature. He persisted that it was important to catalogue such things, because the world would eventually miss such simplicities. He was right.

I rub away the tears and in doing so I entomb the past. I notice the neon of my clock. 10 am. I’m late to work. It’s my turn to operate the machinery. I take out the cassette from the Walkman and change it to the one labelled Rainforest in early June. I change, get my belongings, don my headphones and put on my gas mask.

The industrious smog instantly hits as I heave open the door. It lightly sears my eyes, causing small fissures of red to web. Miniscule orange lights smear through the thick haze as horns blare, followed by screams of frustration. A symphony of drumming bird calls ring through my ears. A couple of emaciated dogs mangle each other in a darkened alley. A man under a streetlamp puffs a cigarette, its own smoke coiling and twisting, momentarily becoming discernible from the toxic fog cocooning the city. He violently coughs and retches on the ground, coating a part of his worn-out shoes with coagulated blood and fetid phlegm.

I reach my work and stare at the building. Its two defiant smoke stacks jut out, their apex unfathomable like the Tower of Babylon. Earl, the elderly man who does his shift before me, leaves. His eyes are downcast, the once piercing irises mute to a perished grey. His right hand is bound by blood-stained bandages, something metal protrudes from the scarlet cloth. With a nail in his hand and a chasm in his heart, he limps into downtown’s murky depths.

I dodge a raven’s corpse, its skin flayed by voracious rats. Its beak is agape, as if screeching in eternal disquiet. The tape finishes. I take my headphones off and enter, back into pestilent stagnation.