Gold Dust in Dystopia

I can’t remember the first time I woke up to this world, the beginning is as blurry as the sandstorms of the end. The dust of them exhumed the planet, choice and resistance collapsed in to one. Oxygen became thin, now there are very few trees alive, reviving me with apples and fresh breath. I wouldn’t be, without them. Despite full lungs, everything that once sparked the love of my heart is gone.

The buzz of nerves as I tried something new, the brew of a morning coffee and the love of another’s touch, all gone. If I wasn’t still blinking, I’d think my heart was gone too. Yet, it does still beat. It’s weak and I don’t know how much longer it will go on.

I am alone here with the faint belief in the life of the trees. I no longer taste through the crunch of their apples, the juice that spills is dangerous enough to have me killed.

I’d have thought dystopia would be summoned by authority, a law I could not escape. At least that way I may not have been responsible, instead I am. We all are, those left and those returned. Why was a left behind? Surely someone of more use could be, someone with heart to go on and a spark of gold in their eye. Gold vanished as quickly as the sun that day. I don’t believe I even try anymore. I just wait and see what each dawn will bring, maybe my ending, my final sleep.

The days are the same, I lie on branches watching my chest rise and fall. Is it still in there, my heart, does it hold the love it once did or has that gone too? Magic replaced by disconnection.

So much time to think, but not space to love or even feel anymore. I’ve been wearing the same white vest and brown shorts for weeks now, maybe months or a year. I lost count after that day, when the magnetics of clocks faded away. Everything is browned by the dusts of the end, even the apples grow in taint of that day. The sky is gravelled and the true sun left time ago, stars flicker at night like tombs of the inorganic lights of that day.

Before that day I’d wear organic cotton, faux fur and velvet dresses, immersing in fine textures on my skin. I’d say my clothes smell, they should after the journey to get here, but I can’t be sure, the atmosphere is too thin to carry scents anymore. I am so numbed that I wonder if my skin could even sense another’s hand on my arm. Is this what it is to be feral? I doubt I’d even trust another soul if somehow, I was to find one. That day brought chaos and we chose carnage over peace. It’s easier to believe fear over love, I know. I like to dream that given the chance I’d still believe love.

Love. Does that have a place here anymore? My last grip on love was for the apples in the trees. Now, I barely feel grateful for them. Maybe if they weren’t here, I wouldn’t be either. But I know, that when nature leaves your heart to beat and offers nourishment in the streets, you must honour what you are here to be.

At that start my heart raced, in excitement for change, sometimes fearing but always with love. The rhythm of my heart hasn’t changed now for weeks, like an eternal limbo in beat that can no longer speak. The air is stagnant with barely a breeze, I sense that soon pollination will come to an end. Maybe then these ancient trees will give up bringing food and shelter.

At the start I knew which of my senses still spoke. Birds were tweeting so I knew my ears were okay. Since then, they’re all gone. I no longer hear sounds, tastes and can’t remember when I stopped smelling. If I ponder this for too long I fear I will go insane. Although sometimes insanity appears like a gateway that may bring a friend. I could drive myself so insane that I see people again. Or maybe reversed, perhaps I’d see a person and that would drive me insane. Sanity, it’s not really a concern anymore. There are no concerns anymore.

I can remember reaching the depth of my concern on that final day before the vanishings. I’d raced to my mothers holding, she grew vegetables and kept sheep, I knew that brought a certain risk. The car still had radio connection, although my internet was down by then, some talk of electromagnetics, I never stayed around school long enough to know what that word meant.

As I arrived she was gone, no sign of leaving and nothing since. That was the releasing of my final concern. A blessing or curse, who knows? But after that, I set in a sovereign direction and never looked back. Sovereignty, destiny alone? Me and the trees, is that how it was always going to be?

After the atmosphere here changed, the sun became a danger to me. It’s blazes are stronger than they’ve ever been, so I’ve kept within the shade of the leaves. That day, I saw burning skin. I’ve been afraid of mine becoming the same. I only really leave the tree, when apples fall. Eating them from the ground beneath the branch I lay on feels more truthful than picking from the tree. I am not here to take, just to receive. I sense when they’re loose, about to fall. I don’t know how, or which sense is used. It’s as if the tree talks, playing a game with me, where my next meal will come from. The next to drop, isn’t far from my left shoulder. So I wait and am thankful for natures consistency over change. Up here I am hidden enough to sleep, with a view that extends beyond the cliffs reach.

No, it cannot be. Today the apple has gone way beyond the shade, this hasn’t happened for months. The apple is still rolling, the direction is making no sense. Maybe the atmosphere is changing again. The last time this happened something froze in me. I can’t hear inside whether I should stay or run. I’m tracing it’s trail with my eyes, I’ll do this and then I’ll decide. Maybe a final 24 hours without food will send me away from here. Is that what I want? But how, how can I be so ungrateful of nature to decline this fruit.

It’s stopped as if again time has paused, the change has almost aroused senses, something feels different, maybe I’ll leave it there, it’s beyond my premise and I don’t know what eyes I could be exposed to from there. I know I’m safe by the tree.

If I had a watch I’d say a few hours have passed. My tummy is rumbling, as if to tell me it’s time. I don’t want to leave the tree. The excitement has passed, I no longer wish to take risks. Though my peripheral, the vision is glowing in the direction of the apple. I can see flashing lights. Maybe this is it, the final strain of sanity has left as I begin to ignore the golden apple in the corner of my eye, in spite of the hunger in my body. Sense. None of this makes sense. Okay I’ll look again.

I don’t know what to think. Usually when I look in the direction of the flashing lights they fade. This time they’re stronger. It’s not the apple glowing, it’s something beside it. Flashing and flickering, it’s calling to me. My toes pierce the edge of the shade, will I burst out to chase the light. I feel some kind of rush changing through my body. Something I’d been craving. It’s here. But, is it a trick? In starvation I lack clarity. It’ll be dark soon, and then I will surely be returned to the branches of the tree. I have a small window, a decision to make.

Out. I’m in the sunlight, I can’t remember the last time I risked this, but the flashing is calling me. Following the faint markings in the sand I’m reaching closer to the apple and beside it a bright light is flickering. Emotions are rushing through me, like before. Anything could happen here, but still no sound or smell, no taste or sense of another. The surface of my palms have known nothing but branches and apples for weeks. Yet here, in the centre of my hand, shines a golden locket in the sun. it’s locked, still with a chain, in the shape of a heart, reminding me of my own. I look down at my chest in rising and fall. The rhythm, however, is different, maybe it’s a dream or maybe it’s just the angle, but my heart it feels different. Why do I feel watched? It’s cold, gosh I forgot what temperature felt like. Closing and then opening my hand, it’s not vanishing, still there. This isn’t a dream. The chain is long enough to fit over my head. My chest deflates.

The cold metal is touching my chest, central to my heart, is the golden heart locket. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been in the sun, it does this. It’s beginning to get dark, I must have been gazing for hours. The apple, the apple is gone. Now I’m afraid. As I run back to the shaded tree, the locket is pounding up and down on my bones. It’s drumming, could this be possible my heart, it’s synchronising to the drumming of the chain hitting my skin. My heart hasn’t changed rhythm for weeks. It almost hurts, my skin has been untouched for so long, I’m no longer used to this pressure of change. I can see my tree, my home again. If I run past the tree I feel the pounding of my heart and the gold will create an earthquake and I might fall in. I’ve gone mad. What is that I see.

On the very safe branch of the tree, there’s a man. No. My home, it has been taken, I’ve risked it with change and now I must pay the price. Why can’t I stop running. I’m in a trance to the rise and fall of this doubling heartbeat.

3. 3 more crashes it says. 3 more pounds on your chest, 3 more steps and this locket will break. Is that true? 3.2.1 I’ve reached the roots of the tree. Is this my final breath, the ending of me? The golden locket hits down on my heart one final time, cracking open in a warm glow, as my own beat races as if it will never stop. Inside, a picture of a man, the same man. He’s climbing down, he’s glowing, I fear I may faint. The stars are flickering with more life than before, they’re glowing in a golden awe at us.

He climbs down and reveals a golden heart locket upon his chest with a picture of me. Placing two shining green apples at my feet. Neither of our lips or eyes move, again frozen in time; “Eternal beloved, come and rest your loving heart with me”. My cold palm turns warm as he places it inside of his. The precious element of Gold was the first destroyed on that day, yet somehow here we are chests glistening like a heart shaped sun of the night. They’re magnetising one another, mimicking our own in a cosmic play. I can feel his beat synchronising with mine. Still our lips and eyes, unmoving. Sound, I can hear you, but not through my ears. You’re telling me it’s time, for our earth transforming love to begin. Beyond the cliffs the moon is rising and the golden lockets glow is uniting.