Abandon

Surnaí Molloy

 

Solstice sunset holds horizon, rings the world. Trees are full of whispers, secrets. Sudden, silent, overhead, the mute flutter of moth’s flight. White owl. Púca. Shifts in air. Silhouette on summer sky. Cry of the banshee, fairy woman, wild wail. Hears heartbeat. One encounter and the world’s expansion is stunning. A new thread is woven, has been woven all along. Away she flies, silent as a spirit; another dimension.

Inside a small and silent house, light weaves through floating dust and illuminates depth within the air. The sun passes the window and the depth disappears. Shadows squat in the corners. There is dust on the glass of the picture frames, obscuring the faces of the people photographed. Two boys, a father, a mother, all monochrome. A middle-aged woman by a lake. An older woman at the top of a mountain, suspended laughter. Letters, folded, are sitting on the shelves, between the books and the edge. Creased, faded, ink spread into pools from spilled tea, spilled water, spilled tears. An electric clock blinks on the shelf, red, glowing.

Glowing eyes anchor darkness. The fox—she freezes, waits. One paw forward, presses against earth. Pointed, electric, ears hold, sound echoes inside: mice shiver, spiders weave, hearts beat. Eyes meet. Look. See. Blink. The fox is gone.

In the bedroom, the bed is not made; the duvet is in a ball, one pillow is on the floor and the sheets are ridged and rumpled. The window is closed and so the room is mummified. Trees, silent, tremble behind the glass. A phone lights up periodically on the bedside table, flashes like a beacon in the dim room. Above the window, a skeletal spider hangs motionless. There are clothes on the floor, on the chair and fallen in the wardrobe. On the dressing table, there is a diary with a date penned in the top right corner. The paper is dented, like braille on the other side of the page. Nothing else is written. A clay heron, his wings outstretched, hangs from a hook above the mirror.

Meditates, starts, rises. Lungs slow. Heartbeats, too. Breath is time. Her wings fold, unfold. Closer, she angles. Her white belly stretches, her wings beat air, stop movement, she turns. Drumbeats. Her wings the size of the sky. The sky is yellow. Away she flies, until bird and light and air are one.

Noise violates as a truck hurries along the main road, squashing concrete under its wheels. On the blurred glass of the bathroom window, ivy is climbing. An air vent allows in oxygen. Ivy creeps through the rectangles, slithers inside, hangs its heart-shaped leaves like a Valentine’s decoration within the white, sterile room. Shampoo and conditioner lie on the bottom of the bathtub. Wild berries, wild blossom. A razor is on the shelf. The mirror is empty of life. A slug oozes from the drain. Tablets that numb and pause and conceal are neatly separated in plastic tubs behind the mirror.

A stoat dances on the moss. Zigs and zags. Leaps and falls. He shakes, he twirls, he shakes. He dances as he waits for curiosity to overcome a prey’s caution. He dances. He waits. His body is consumed by movement. Zigs and zags. Leaps and falls in tune with an unnamed rhythm. Zigs and zags. Leaps and falls.

Mice have made their bed in the ashes of the fireplace. Shuffle and snuffle and squeak. One scuttles out onto the rotting carpet, hesitates, then scurries forward. Under the table, he finds crumbs. He feasts. There is a teapot on the table. Strayed inside the bottom of the cup are tea leaves, the pattern arbitrary, alive with mold. Muted wind bangs against the window as if trying to enter the house. A sliver has slipped inside and stirs the still air.

Pinned in sky, still, held, a kestrel hunts. Dark against blue. Carved her space within space, takes. No motion. Wings move. Stillness. Magnet. Balance. With the ease of an exhale, the kestrel drops, clutches, departs.

Broken glass is scattered within the house and wind rushes against the walls, rustles the ivy, streams between the legs of the furniture and up and out the chimney. The framed photos have fallen down. In the union of the wall and the roof, there is a nest. Two swallows swoop, to and from, often. Zip, swit, swip. White droppings stain the carpet. A line of ants flows like a river.

Blue electricity. A meteor above the water. Just a glimpse, a streak of blue. Too fast. Doubt. Wonder.

A bumble bee rests in the strands of the dandelion in the crack in the wall. The roof is broken in the bedroom; sun fills the hole. Ivy hangs from it. Sycamore rises beside the bedside table. Chattering comes from within the wardrobe. Pages of the diary are as lace, eaten by snails, slugs, yellowed and stained. The bedframe has broken and fallen to the floor. Rats sleep under the duvet.

Branches of bone—veins, fossils, lightning—become swords. Thunder cracks. Stags battle. Locking antlers, beating, bracing, breaking. Bare their anger. Back, forwards, meet. Bang, again. Again. Again. Action. Instinct. Thrust and twist and force. Focus.

Tiny spiders float like dust, creating depth within the air. They hang from keys, bulbs, leaves. Like dandelion seeds, they float through doorways, through windows, cracks, holes and openings.

They float by the eye of a falcon. Her eye is golden. By a ruin by a road, by trees and wilderness and the world’s expanse, she rests. Immensity of presence. Close enough to touch. A new thread is woven, has been woven all along. Peregrine: wanderer. To see, to feel, to listen; she breathes, she lifts, she flies, wandering in the freedom of a world of a myriad dimensions; free in the abandon of living.

 

Surnaí Molloy is a graduate of Creative Writing from the National University of Ireland, Galway. She was raised on the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland.