Lauren--Part Thirty-Five

Splog # 125

Thirty-Five

   Lauren found the breeze refreshing and shook her head a little as it played with her hair in passing. It was gone after a few brief moments and Lauren was thinking that she wouldn't mind another when the deep and rich tone of a bell sounded from somewhere up ahead. Lauren's eyes roamed over the entire landscape, expecting to see a tower of some sort but found nothing that resembled one in the least. She did notice that they were approaching the wall of the next ledge or step that led up to the cliff and wondered how one ascended it. The wall was in shadow and presented a rather cliff-like appearance itself. And then another breeze swept over her and she lifted her arms on both sides to let it more fully access her whole body. It too was gone sooner than she would have wished. And in its wake she again heard the sound of the bell. Or rather, most likely a different bell. Where the first had produced a low and hollow bong, this second bell struck her ear with a slightly higher, but equally pleasant, clang. No, she thought, not so much a clang as a...she searched her mind for the correct onomatapoetic word. Walking along beside King, she found the depository of her memory lacking the necessary appelation. so she plucked it from her imagination.

   "A plung," she said out loud and looked over at King. "That second bell sounded more of a plung, where the first was a bong, or maybe a gong." She examined the words for a moment while chewing on her lower lip. "Definitely a bong. Bong. Plung." She was imitating the bell tones when the breeze caressed her for the third time. In delight, she raised her arms again and executed a few exuberant spins.

   Suddenly, the breeze stopped as though a door had been slammed shut. In fact, it seemed to her that she had heard a loud bang of some kind that was followed immediately by a dead silence. She stood still and looked all around her. She found that she had stopped her spin facing back the way she had come. She was about half-way from the ridge she'd climbed to the ledge she was approaching. On the ridge, a long thin pole was standing. It reminded her of...Yes! She'd seen the snake standing in just that way when she'd ridden around the schoolhouse on King. Was the snake following them? Captain...Captain...She wanted to say Captain Razor but was sure it had been a word of only one syllable. She looked over at King. He had lowered his head on his long neck and seemed to be gazing at the ground around her feet. She looked down and found that her left foot was outside of the path of flowers and her right heel also was no longer within the borders she and King had been following. Her right toes were still on the path but the arch of her foot was pressing down some of the flowers.