It is under the watchful eye of the northern sky that the
thoughts began to flow. Mark sat at the window staring into the empty space
created by the black on black contrast of Loch and forest. The clouds covered
all the stars, but looking up Mark could imagine them watching him silently,
lonely figure sat at an empty window and the three people whose shallow
breathing rhythmed the pattern of his thoughts. Averting his gaze from the
glacial stare of the clouded sky Mark surveyed the bodies around him. Andrew
curled in a ball beside him, brow furrowed in the thoughts that populated his
dreams. Beyond him on the floor, with Carol’s arm casually slung across her,
Aude slept peacefully. What fateful circumstance of nature had brought these
two pairs of friends to share together, for that one night, and the one after,
the same room, the same roof, the same breath of life?
The power of emotions took Mark’s breath away as he sat in
silence, conscious that even the slightest noise could dissipate forever the
raw power of the scene. Etching it conscientiously into his mind, Mark promised
himself to transcribe the moment onto paper. A reminder to those that came
after that sometimes camaraderie, love, were born out of nothing. Out of chance
meeting in Scotland quite independent of one’s will and desire. Feelings that
snuck up on you, silent, deadly, unrepressed. And then that never went away, forever laying heavy on one’s heart. Mark’s, despite the acute consciousness of
being in the present moment, already started to grow heavy. Both with the
knowledge that this could only last for so long and with the obsessive desire
that it should happen again.
“Can I trick fate into making this what happens every time?”
And on this thought he lay his head back on the pillow, his
thoughts retreated back into the solitary confinement from whence they came,
and matching the beating of his heart to the breathing of his companions Mark
fell back into a lifeless sleep.
