warm welcomes.

returning from my hiatus with a tidbit that i wrote a while back. enjoy =)

trying my hand at short fiction…got as far as a few paragraphs and gave up. it’s harder than it looks!

Fide’s feet were covered in brown dirt. He stopped and looked around him in wonder at the stark picture before him that had moments before only been a spot on the horizon. It was the thundering presence of mountains and the fascinating patterns of green sprinkled on them that had held Fide’s notice. He had been looking at the periphery and blearing what was in front of him. Now he approached the stretch of a wide open gate, uncertain what to think. His pace slowed to an amble, his eyes told the wrens who were watching him what he couldn’t say. Where is everyone going?

Something jostled Fide to the side of the road making him drop his bag. An Andalusian snorted as it tottered past. Its long neck and glistening hide whispered of a proud lineage, its tight belly agreeing with the sumptuousness of the fat man sitting on its leather saddle. Move boy.

Fide slung his burlap tote more tightly over his shoulder. There was a manner of souls walking past him through the gate. A priest dressed in simple black caught his eye. From underneath his cap, his wrinkles spoke of a kindly face. Fide halted just before he approached the priest. A soft breeze swept through his ears and carried in its fingertips a skeletal droning: Labor omnia vincit. He let the priest pass him by and walk through the gate. Once the priest passed the gate, he turned and lifted his head to gaze at the young boy. Fide wept as he saw that the priest looked but could not see him; nay, the priest could not see a thing. Where his sight was supposed to be, buzzards had laid their filthy nests. Gaping holes searched Fide, and Fide turned away.

A filigree atop the gate glinted under the falling sun. Fide looked at the sky. The heavens had been white not long before, not swept by cumulous clouds, but by sunlight. Now they were a thick, velvety grey and dawdled into deeper shadows. Something in the air shimmered and Fide felt his heart begin to sing a song that had existed for eternity: Excelsior! Ever upwards! He was where he was meant to be. Pressing against the stillness of the air, Fide walked towards a smaller gate.