Internal

Breathless I waited for the spasms in my soul to allow me to relax, how many times? At least four, four awesome climax's that reduced me to a limp sweaty rag doll. Yellow dots and rich creams starred back at me from behind the sheer curtain. I could hear nothing , my brain foggy with euphoria. The day had been boring as so many days have become. One after another of boring , dull mundaneness. She keeps me alive but she does not know I am here. She senses me, reacts to me. I become excited as I perceive an action that is new, a thought voiced anew but alas it filters away to be lost in the white noise of dull ordinary people. I want so much to hold her, penetrate her defences consume her fears . Why does she call my name if she will not willingly lay down and receive me? It started a long time ago, too long before my birthdate and will continue when I am dust. Attics are really no place for spirits. They can not flow, ebb or manifest in stuffy places. She dosen't know what stuffy places are , she always looks confused. Her smile is tainted with grim and rarely does a glint appear anymore. She is miserable and the barn owl hoots his disapproval, he's vigilance has been for naught they have come upon her and she is dying. Once magnificent as a mainsail full of the wind skimming the roaring oceans like a child skipping in the playground. She was a child, once. So long ago that the era of war and rations has left its burlap sacks strewed across the barns floor. Today she must grope for her underwear, tickled by the straw she is laying upon her hand finds her lose underclothes . It will be light soon and she must see to the masters meal. Her heavy steps are out of place as she is bone thin. She quietly sets about mixing up a brew and plate for the fiddler. Well that's what he is known as around here. The fiddler or Sir fiddler if you are after something. He has always been here. Dark , hairy and smells like wild animal. It is pleasant to smell the wild on him in the morning. Grunts and single word demands fall on the table as she keeps his plate full. Ten o clock lass, 10 o 'clock and not a minute later. I will met you around the back, close to the verandah. Have your basket with you. He grunts more. Food loosens from his beard and lands in patterns across the table. He does not notice, he is bleary eyed from the lashings of ale the previous night and he does not hear the hoot , hoot of the barn owl as it looks for a better perch to while away the day. Last night he came to her, heavy and foul. Sloppy, but oh so exquisite. He does not use her name. He knows it but from his tongue it sounds harsh, crone like instead of the the beautiful maiden she is. Mosmebel. He ran upon her lips, tumbled down into the unseen and she whimpered in her sleep. He had been so many times this last summer that the dawns just brought stillness. A repugnant deadness. At the back in her white gown she waited as the sounds of the horses feet made sucking noises in the mud. Excretment tangled in mattered tails the only visible sign that the ode of death was here too. Wednesday was the day we went into town, along the winding intestinal passageway to the source of that mornings spillage, cleaned but still present in that great room in which he had dined. Moving on to my next place of procurement I enjoyed a fizz fueled banter with the pharmacist as he concocted some potion said to relieve me of the bloat that drove me crazy most days. I sensed the Barn owl, I could not see it but I knew it was there. It would not show itself now, it was sleeping but its dreams filtered into my awareness as I sat legs crossed on the stool awaiting the inevitable expulsion from this place. Its dreams were filled with colours of the pastel kind. It was a girl, she twirled in the evening moon light re- splendid in her white paper dance. Her convulsions almost seemed normal , I watched as she cycled around her spots and streaks of her feathers beaded with water and she made her way to the gushing water. I wanted her to stop, I wanted her to move away to understand the danger but alas she was taken and the piercing screams and heart broken cries will stay with me to my dying days. I felt sweat. It ran down my neck and pooled in my breast. I could not disconnect from the barn owl no matter how hard I tried and I did not think I could ever go on. Abruptly the smell of the man filled my nostrils and I was able to get up and board the dray back to the confines of the hub like buildings that surrounded our fields. Hours of toil lay before me before once again the crawling sensation will wake me from my sleep. The red platelets have become so many , rarely are their white and the rhythmic beat of artery next door has become somewhat out of beat. I spoke with the branch family the other day they agreed with me that the nutrients that use to run past the place of the owl have diminished and what is left is black and tar like. It has frightened us for so long we almost forgot about the collapsed left airways and didn't connect it with the night crawlers or ode of death until the shaking started. It was minor at first and didn't impact the horses. They still trotted past regularly everyday as did the waterfall though it definitely was shades darker than when we first arrived. When the leaking started and the smell increased we were oh so reminded of the lethalness of not checking on the charges.Last night I fell, I thought it again was the penetrating thoughts of the owl that was disturbing my sleep but when I reached out to steady myself I realised I was no longer in my place but deep down in a place that only a few had dared to venture. I knew instinctively from the smell. I know love the smell and in fact welcome the viruses that the dementors ensnare, I do not name them for they are no more in this world but the Barn owl visits me every night to witness there demise and to record for the earth that they have passed and to remind us of the way it is.