Under the Watchful Eye of the Northern Sky

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.