Somewhere in the distance a siren sounded, wailing into the
night like an agitated animal, impatient and frenzied. It distracted me from my
attempt to rest where I still sat slung back against the armchair as creeping
shadows played about me with the darkening of the hour.
I resettled with head resting at an angle, exploring the
bitter aftertaste in my mouth with probing tongue as mind drifted aimlessly,
almost back to desired nothingness until the sound pierced into the stillness
again. It was closer this time, louder and soon separated with an echo as
another emergency truck perhaps came flying down the streets after the first.
Somewhere down in the evening urban chaos was fate spinning some disaster or
another.
Fidgeting irritably in my seat I eventually pushed up to
stand, striding to where the window lay. It was a floor to ceiling affair,
bathing the room in an odd light reflected from those of the city beyond. Being
so high in the block I was told rewarded magnificent views and I could not
disagree even if my view was entirely different from that of others. I leaned
against it, palm pressed and fingers splayed, caught in the allure of what
could only be described as a theatre of light panning the horizon below.
The blanket of buildings below was lost to me as was every
yard of tarmac and every curbed street corner. I saw neither flickering street
lights nor zooming taxi cabs. No ten foot billboards with their plastered
smiles and catchy slogans or any sparkly shop-fronts with their festive
offerings and enticing displays. Instead of concrete high rises, winding
traffic and gaping subway holes waiting to swallow up or spit out teeming
commuter crowds, I saw only life. And oh how beautiful it was, enough to have me
forget about all I was blind to. Touching my head against the cool glass I
drank in the view.
Shiloh had asked me once what I saw when I looked down,
curious as to how my special gifts translated such a spectrum of energy all at
once. It had been hard to explain and I’d mused on it a while before speaking.
It was like looking at a spark, I’d eventually explained, a spark of life
erupting from a void of darkness where the emptiness suddenly became consumed
by everything it wasn’t. Vivacious and vibrant as an array of different colours
and experimental tones and hues of each and every one splashed theatrically
across a stagnant bleak backdrop. From the fiery smouldering pinpoints of the
frustrated and wrathful depicted in bright crimsons and dark tainted mauves to
the fresher yet clinical mind frames of the cool peppermints and frosty corn
blues, each soul emanated energy like an artist’s brush stoke upon canvas of
darkest night.
Yet what made it truly a breath stealing sight was not just
the burst of colours but their fluidity. The motion for the scene was never
static, never still, never repetitive but always moving, always changing as the
will and mood of every single soul below entwined and parted, meandered and
morphed like a spectrum of animated snakes writhing in a tank, each as
individual as a fingerprint. It could be at times hypnotic and though she’d
nodded softly to my reply, an agreeable awed sigh lilting off her lips, I’d
known Shiloh could never really have a true perception of what I witnessed
every time I gazed down in my own way. To her it was just an inspired notion of
an image; to me it was far, far more.
For me it was not in the initial wonder of such an
alternative insight but rather in the gradual noticed detail, the honing in
upon one element of that overall spark, reading the story there to be told
and knowing I would never look down upon the same view twice. A ‘Window to
Souls’ she’d aptly named the glass I gazed through now. Simple yet true.
Sometimes it made me lonely, feeling I was apart from them
all whilst standing at the glass, able to observe and to judge yet without an
audience to witness and even with Shiloh’s occasional interest never anyone to
validate what I saw or appreciate it as I did. When I did appreciate it of
course. Other times it made me frantic, eager to feed, eager to steal and
convert what I saw, so much going to waste every minute with them all so
oblivious. Yet other times it drew me in, captivated as I watched the mood and
sway of a city seep and swirl, projecting the mood of a populace when I focused
upon the view as a whole.
Still the sirens sounded, screeching in crescendo as what
must be a major incident brought them chasing the pavements one after the other.
Trailing my gaze back and forth I found I could pinpoint where likely tragedy
had struck for out to the east side there swarmed fury of anger and panic-swollen richness to the scene, every moment its depth intensifying as news
broke and crowds gathered, emotions stacking and running high. I witnessed such
often and would make note to have Shiloh read from the early morning newspaper
upon her return to satisfy my curiosity for the truth of the matter.
A thought occurred to me as I squinted behind my blindfold,
colours merging and blurring before glittering back into focus. What price
would the mayor and his council pay to see what I saw? What insight I could
give those that strove to understand? What sage perception I could offer?
Pulling my chair closer to the glass I slowly sat back down, my arms extended
along the arms as fingertips drummed accompanying beat to my contemplation. There
were surveys, polls, statistics and speculation upon the mood of a populace yet
how much worth was the word of one who could see the Truth laid out before him
like a snapshot? And what if that one was gifted in more ways than one?
“Interesting…” I murmured to myself and settled in to spend the witching hours
observing the city like a god from his throne.
-----
© Rachel Ellen, 2012
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