silence

The world is so big I seem to have no words for it.
Having been out there in it, I feel strangely silenced.

I journeyed forth and found myself in places I would never have expected, l
it with lights I never knew were burning,
whipped by wind I never knew could blow.

To travel so far and find my own self standing on some quiet shore, to hear my own footsteps clatter along the streets of unknown places, to gaze at the universe within a Victorian glass perfume bottle in a dusty vitrine: these things need to settle in my head.

I opened my mouth, and all my words have blown away.


For the time being.

in THIS life

In a wonderful adventure, somewhat like a chapter from the magic faraway tree, this fish found itself adventuring to the real-life home of the Life family. Tis an amazing thing to do, for certain.
People have asked me what have been the highlights of my trip, and I would have to say my encounterings of people, really.
Scotland is the most wonderful place, it is like a place only ever imagined, except that it is real and all around you. the Scots folk are extraordinary, really. Ones you know, and ones you don't. Folk in the street, in homes, in places. My visit to the home of dear Isabelle was one of my highlights.
Interesting how you can tell almost exactly what a person is like: Isabelle is as sweet and lovely as I had imagined.
Sometimes too, there is a surprise that one does not expect. In this case, I encountered a person so beautiful that I have thought of her often since, and she has made me smile, this Daughter Life. She is one of those characters from literature and history who would be described as pure and good. Her face shines with the passion of her beliefs, and her pathos and kindness, it is lit with her goodness.
I know instinctively that she would shy away from attention of this sort, but I was so impressed with her that my thoughts keep returning to the lives of the cold and poor in eastern Europe, those for whom she has done much. I felt the world was a nicer place for me having discovered her in it.
Cassie and Sirius, the most loved cats in Scotland, appeared to love her almost as much as they loved Mr life and Isabelle. And so grown up they are getting. (next thing they will be off for university before you know it, clever and cute they are.)

Sometimes you read about a family so lovely they seem too perfect.
I am happy to report that everything about the Life residence is even nicer in real life: Thanks for you wonderful hospitality you gorgeous persons and catlets!

So, now to plot and plan my return. Edinburgh a fine and beautiful place by moonlight, Glasgow wild and wicked: somehow, I have to get back.

So when the water became dark enough, the fish headed right down to the bottom where it could no longer see.

I told you, said the ocean, that I would be here all along, just blacker in this form.
Its embrace was like ice.

Armed with new scales the colour of winter, the fish curved its body into an arc and shot to the surface, flew in to the sky and with an immense flick of the tail turned into a bright hard point of light which settled on the surface of the sea.


We shall love each other for ever, the water and the fish could be heard to say, wherever we are on the globe.