Summer’s Day Dream  

Betaread: Cuthalion and Llinos

He looks silently over the wide landscape.

Silver pearls between green and shadow, singing their song. A gentle hand, gliding over smooth stone. An eternal caress. An eternal music. So lovely, like warm breath on sensitive skin.

A light summer breeze makes his ruddy brown curls dance. Like scraps of a far away time the wind blows memories into his heart. His eyes begin to see the Once upon a Time, his ears begin to hear it, his nostrils fill with it, and his skin feels the warming sunbeams of then.

Laughing.

Joyous shouting.

Untroubled.

Bare feet on fresh grass.

Little hands in refreshing water.

The smell of wild camomile floating in the air.

A composition of happiness.

He didn’t notice that he has been wandering. Sighing, he sits down at the edge of the little brook and leans over to watch the silvery mirror.

A smile plays around his lips when he looks into the sparkling, green eyes gazing back at him. The face of a child. He reaches out, but he is unable to keep it, to touch, to hold. Tiny waves shatter the image until nothing remains but the eyes of Now.

They have seen so much pain, so much fear and malice.

His soul hurts.

He feels the sand ... soft... golden... centuries old. How many things has it seen? Many feet must have walked over it. It has run through open hands, toes have dug into it… generations of life within the current of time.

The sand runs through his hands, like in the past. And still, it is not the same.

These hands have killed.

Still the sand runs until there is only a tiny grain left. Is this all that remains of his childhood? So far away, and yet it seems to be only yesterday.

He hears happy laughter, and his gaze turns to the opposite bank of the slowly flowing waters. His eyes seem to stare into space unseeing, and still colourful images fill his mind.

There they run and play. A blond, curly head, followed by a small lad. He lifts him up, whirls him around through the air. – Laughter, as clear as the burbling of the brook. Dancing sun upon their faces, softly stroking the perfect, youthful skin like a whispering of silk… light and shadow in joyous game.

Bright blue eyes full of loving warmth, full of joy and life are watching the lads. A hearty laughing mingles with their own.

He blinks a tear away.

The colours fade. The pictures pass away, vanishing into thin air…like the morning-dew, burned away by the first rays of the sun. The sound of laughter, the echoes of the past soften more and more until they fall silent.

He buries his face in both hands. Tears wash the last grain of sand away.

He feels an arm slip around his shoulders. Looking up, his eyes meet eyes so changed that he is not sure any longer if he knows them at all.

He looks deeper. Behind the shadow the past is alive. The love, the warmth, the care - it is still there.

A timeless smile, bound never to leave.

The End