Chambered Nautilus

nautilus means "sailor" in greek. thus, I suppose, the different chambers of this sailor are the memories and the ancestry and the dreams and thoughts and things.

The sky is dark.

I close my eyes and stand in the middle of the road. I have my arms out and I can feel the wind brush through my hair.

I breathe in; out.

And it's almost as if I don't exist.

I lower my arms, but still I stand there.

My feet are bare and they're straddling the double yellow line. The black asphalt almost shines, in the dark of the night.

I open my eyes again. Nothing has changed, but shadows still lay in every corner.
With a blink of my eyes it's gone again.

Instead I stand in a white box. Empty space, nothingness, but it's not bright or suffocating.

I lay down on a couch. It's old, red, high-backed and ornate. Victorian-aged. Antique.

I cough and settle more into the furniture. I fold my hands and blink twice.

Murmurs of voices. I can hear them far off in the distance. Stark. Spiteful. Snappy. Sharp.

I sigh heavily, the air forcing itself out my nostrils as my lungs compress.

I blink and then it's gone again.

An empty field. Rolling hills, green grass. I have my arms tucked beneath my head, and the sky over head is blue and cloudless.

I see the remnants of a battle in the dips and arcs of the hills. I see soldiers fighting, and a commander, and the second in command.

And in seconds, I am watching through their eyes, the fight goes on into the night, into the storms, into the dawn.

And when day comes and the sun rises, there are corpses.

The ghosts of the dead tug at the hems of my coattails.

By dreams, I drift back to when they were just children, when we all were, when a war was just a game. Where our swords were sticks and our shields our fists, and at the end of the day we went home safe.

I close my eyes again and I'm far away.

There's a beach somewhere, and the salty air, cool and crisp, feels good on my skin.
My clothes are white, and the air is bright, and I'm not afraid.

I stare into the icy blue; watch the waves as they tumble. I walk straight out into the sea as it crashes over me; a lover's Viking funeral.

Calling to me, I let the high tide pull. To lay me with the coral in the bottom of the ocean.

I close my eyes at long last.

Author's Note

I think it's rather interesting.
just me musing again.
rather rough, train of thought, almost stream of consciousness literally.
so tell me what you think.