Ian walks down the cellar stairs: As if ...

Shadowing awareness. Shadows on cellar windows, cellar walls, in the water lapping the stairway. Shadows from candlelight, shadows creeping under the closet door. Shrill laughter. Shadows inflame the water; a mirror congeals. Melting in a barren of cold. White. The door sweeps in ...

A raven at the window? Orange and green blood, the sun wounded, the moon wounded ... gaping ... groping toward richer blood. Grasping among shadows grasping ...

Shadows rising, cresting, crashing, crushing his skull. Grains from granite block ... the breakwater crumbles, the cottage sways in the rising wind ... A black slate wiped clean ...

Wet cold musty stone walls. Dripstones. Blunted flint. Undecipherable red and brown smears ...

And the radiance of idea, idea without ideas ... shadowing awareness ... annealing blue the mirror fire ....

Reeking of bourbon, Ian walks across the damp cellar floor. Reaches the corner where he has spread the sleeping bags, sits down. Wedges his candle in the stone. Leans his head back, 'God ....'

Passes out?

Outside, the hurricane rages. Here, the candle burns down, out. Rainwater on the floor. Ian comes to ... Dreams?

"Can you or can you not answer? Will you establish the border?"

"For who?"

"Yourself, himself, myself ... "

The walls of the room running with blood

How many have died here?

and red feathers a bird of indescribable beauty into the swirling black water. Ian gasps for breath.

The wind howls: a creature of fury released. A window breaks somewhere.The sea roars, springs into throatless whispers.

What will you do, Ian?

And Ian climbs a tall tree that grows through granite to measure the sea. A cold drenching wave. But still he ties the end of a rope around the limb, tests its strength, - Soul as resonance as freedom as the mirror of lost innocence - loops the other end around his feet, tightens it up, jumps, swings out over the waves. The wind whips at his face. He bleeds. The blood rains down

What is you see Ian?

"There are no words. No, to be honest, it's me. But it doesn't stay. It moves as I move. No. That's not true. There's no connection. I don't see what's ..."

What' is the wrong word. There is no word.

There are no words.

and out of his eyes a million million tiny filaments form a bridge across a great darkness. Ian walks onto the bridge. Grasping at filaments, gaping at shadows, groping toward the center ... Finally, he stands in the center, looks down ... Looks into the darkness and waits.

Waits until a ripping tearing mauling flitting clawing hissing biting begins

And waits until

'Finally!'

'Free at last!'

'At last!'

free despite the lies that are shadows through silences;

free from the fear that winter is endless;

free because a butterfly in the rainforest beats blueness with the thinnest of wings - and that wind fluttering north;

free as a leaf on that wind;

free to return to begin? again ....

Shadows into ashes drifting .... Ian follows them up. He finds the North star. Doesn't take his eyes off it as he walks toward an unknown ... back to beginnings ... And there are two, three, hundreds, thousands - a million million - stars in the sky.

Ian weaves a net from these stars. Casts it. - Many times he has cast it. - But this time, it tears as it leaves his hands. He lets the shredded net go. It drifts a long time ... And then, finally, it is gone.

He follows the stars as they fall as snow into the great darkness. He watches a wind ripple across. Sees his reflection, takes it in.

And as I see my reflection in Ian's reflection, I watch our reflection flow in a river through the valley, past villages, homes. The river flows north ... and east ...

Another window breaks. Ian jerks awake. Finds himself in the dark. Retches. Again retches. And again. Something cold slimes his arm. Slimes it again. Quicker than thought, Ian grabs at his arm. Feels the loose strands of an old rope in his trembling fingers. Cries and cries and cries.

An eternity later, arms out to the side, as if walking had yet? again? to be mastered, he goes upstairs. Showers. Listens to the storm burn out ... Sleep comes at dawn.

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