Two figures make their way across the pine-needled ground of a dark, dark evergreen wood.
Shadow-like they go. They flow as ghosts and move as spirits move; like spectres, yet they breathe.
And with each breath they breathe, they’re filled with the earthy essence of the evergreen.
Musty mildew on bits of bark, and fungus covered fallen firs, fused with perfumed pine.
And the woodland softly sleeps. Its slumber split by the screechy scream of a distant fox
and the haunting hoot of a hunting owl, flying phantom-like, from bough to bough.
The two press on with perfect purpose, tramping tough terrain. Slowly through the dark they move.
A light appears in another time, and then, it’s gone. At the very time it goes, it glows, above the wood.
The figures halt and through the trees they gaze and raise their eyes perplexed.
Transfixed towards the sky they stare and dare not move, stricken beneath this foreign orb.
The moon, wrapped in drapes of darkened cloud now wakes while stars keep watch and yield.
Wolves howl then whimper and flocks of wakened birds take fright and flap in frantic fear.
The light grows bigger, brighter, bolder as it moves mute across the sky. It flashes thrice and then,
as though a switch were flicked it’s gone. The dim draped moon resumes its sleep as darkness now descends.
They wonder what it is they’ve seen and where it went and why and sense they’re not alone.
In the shadows stands a figure and they, first bewildered then bewitched, hear what it has to say.
Without speech it speaks and without speech they listen. No voice disturbs the dormant wood.
It steals into their minds and makes them see the mysteries of the stars and suns revealed.
How man one day will tame light’s speed and tether thought and by that tether conquer time.
It speaks of distant planets, of other worlds and far-flung moons just a dream, a thought away.
At the speed of thought the light returned turns night to day. They watch. They wait. They wait.
For this descendent demi-god they wait. In vain they look for more from this enlightened erudite.
Darkness falls again. They search the shadows, seeking, sensing and sense this time they are alone.
The night settles into slumber. The moon and stars from cloudy cover creep and sleep no more.
The wood whiff drifts on the dank breeze. Musky mould and pungent pine permeate the twilight.
A fox-shriek mingles with the hoot-hooting of a hunting owl slipping swiftly tree to tree.
Shadows grow in the undraped moonlight. Ghost-like they grow in the glow of meandering stars.
Two figures make their way across the pine-needled ground of the dark, dark evergreen wood.