The voice says, ‘Come.’
He stands up quickly. Is dizzy. Squints into bright sunlight. Sees a dark figure silhouetted there. Then, nothing but long shadows across the pebbles of his garden. He breathes away the dizziness. Returns to his weeding.
The afterimage of the figure dances before him. ‘Come.’
He looks up. The sun’s halo glare blots out the figure’s face. A hand beckons, as if from mist.
‘Come.’
He blinks. The figure turns away. He follows, garden fork clattering on the pebbles. With each step, all suburban sounds fade, in their place the moan of a breeze. Left, a child on a skateboard in a nearby street stops squealing. Right, a dog stops barking. Left, the lawn mower next door stops. And somewhere, someone is whispering.
With each step, the sunlight fades and a mist of fractured colours, like strips of Christmas foil in bile, swirls about him. Right, he becomes conscious of others. Left, they also follow. Right, he grows numb. And everywhere, the mist beats with the rhythm of his heartbeat.
‘Come.’
Someone else joins the company. A warrior dressed in oriental armour, long sword held slackly. From somewhere in the gap that is now his memory, a title from a story he read long ago surfaces. ‘Dark Blessing’. It is here, now. The company of strangers from all epochs. The mist that brings visions. The breeze carrying a whisper that has no mouth. But the dark figure was not of that story. Not of any he has read.
