Experiment With Destiny
Page 29
Her eyes followed the glass and concrete tower blocks that rose from the skyline into the dismal ceiling of grey, their upper reaches hazing at the fringes. They housed a maze of offices, shops and homes, miniature empires within a vast clunking machine of myriad empires stretched out as far as the eye can see. Where she was heading was nothing like this. Her decision to leave this all behind, everything behind, was like casting a stone into a pond and wondering where the ripples would spread…what would the consequences be? Whatever those consequences, she would have to own them…they were hers, and the responsibility scared her. The sight of the towers reminded her, reassuringly, that whatever was going to happen now, it was still better to cast the stone.
The coach passed through a tunnel beneath a cluster of high rises and they were instantly plunged into darkness. In the glow of the cabin lights she found herself staring at a mirror image of herself…hazel green eyes, thick dark hair and high cheek bones set in the paleness of her skin that she worried was too sickly and desperately needed country air. Her full red lips betrayed no smile and she could read the anxiety that lurked in her expression. Then the daylight returned and the reflection was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by the cruelness of the wintry world outside.
Susan watched the city shrink away and hoped for better things to come, the unspoken promise of a life in which she could once again taste fulfilment and joy rather than merely remember them…perhaps even feel the warmth of summer again, warming her weary bones. There was no turning back now. In her mind’s eye she watched this bridge burning.
She remembered a poem she’d learnt by heart in school…in a school so far away in time and place: ‘I’m flying home, on the wings of the morning. The soft breeze blows across the rim of this dawning. A golden fire lights up the sky. Autumn’s here, it’s time to go. Perhaps you’ll see the tears I cry, but then perhaps you’ll never know. As I whisper goodbye, a teardrop is falling. I’m on my way home, on the wings of the morning.’
He eyes clouded with tears, blurring the last of the concrete skyline. Susan remembered the name of that place she’d called home…a name she’d never forgotten. It was etched into the very fibres of her soul…Fabis!
And as the cityscape faded into the distance with a numbing finality and the coach began to pick up speed, Susan wondered if she would find a long lost summer there again. She could not be certain…nothing was ever certain…but she had no choice.
This would be her experiment with destiny.
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To be continued in…