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HOME >> Fiction >> Life

Venus Rising

by Scott Rogers

A simple smile formed on my lips that instant, where the tranquil surrounds finally pervaded my consciousness. The sound of soft winds whistling past my ears and the taste of early morning dew still forming tickled my senses like nothing I could remember. I felt giddy, just experiencing these few things, that even my knees quivered in delight.
My eyes flutter open with the sound of the ocean beneath, the waves rolling on the beach shore below in a wash of foam, invisible in the fog that has made its home, however temporary, on the faded yellow sands. I look down, with a calmness that I never experience with heights, and watch as drift wood and other articles of nature that were claimed by the ocean slowly nudge off the ground and settle back down, in beat with the rhythmic patterns of the swell.

I shiver slightly, as the brisk morning air finds its way under my coat, and turn my gaze along the shoreline, moving from sharp, plain view of dull greens and crimson amber to pale white, as I follow its jutted and man-influenced form until, like all things, it disappears from view into the eery blanket of nature's fog...

A pre-dawn filter of light sparkles upon the sands, shimmering and twinkling within my mind's eye and I feel like a door is opening in my head, the snap and groan of rotted wood parting way as a new wave of emotions fills me. I can't see the fear that has enveloped me all my life, can't sense the urgency to back away from the cliff face like I normally would have... I don't recognise these new emotions. Without a name that I can call them, I can't imagine... but I sense an inner peace settling over my heart, like the sands far below covering the desolate beach.

Above me, a seagull caws, its ringing voice sharp and clear on the winds as it circles the beach, eyeing off potential food sources. A flap of its wings, its powerful muscles keeping it aloft on the warm air currents reminds me of a spectacle I once enjoyed watching as a child. The seagull settling in a gentle arc, gliding down ever so slowly as its almost colourless eyes lock onto a morsel of food below and moves in for the grab.
I watch the seagull with curious intent, unable to take my eyes off the creature for some unknown reason. Its freedom, without restraint from a world controlled by money and power, never worrying about the cruelty of its kin but for procreation and food... I sigh with a feeling of warm contentment, seeing my warm breath passing over my lips and into the cold air with a thin vapour of mist.

Time passes before my eyes on this hallowed ground, where miniscule life flutters by without my knowledge, and the ocean seeps up, over the sands gently as the rays of the distant sun creak through the pale clouds, trying to break the stranglehold that the fog has over the land. A soft surge of raw power being carried in the wind reaches my ears, tickling the tiny hairs within my canal. I shake my head at the display below me.

As I cast my glance down the walls of the cliff, I can sense an impenetrable feeling of foreboding, as if the sharp inclinces of rock were an ancient enemy of mine and that we had battled throughout the ages just waiting to start the battle anew, and either claim its dominance over me, or succumb in defeat.
Such thoughts, even for something that posesses no soul, can think or feel emotions is beyond what I can understand where this massive clump of sand, rock, grass and jutted sporadically with tree limbs is nearer to God than ever I could imagine.

From whence it came, it can choose to slip back into the darkness with the mere faint of the lapping water below, without a sound. Envious of a lifeless form, I cannot tell what has gotten to me these days, as I climb to my feet to watch the sun rise day after day, here, atop the precipice of rock known as The Gap. Why have I never thought of such things before today?

Why now?

Perhaps this is the thought, the spiritual awakening of all those who worship the life in which surrounds them, letting go of all their past desires to work unselfishly for the greater good of the Motherland.

Who am I to cast judgement over something I can't even comprehend?
The sky above me brightens in intensity as the sun's warm rays break away the low lying clouds, dissipating the fog-drenched beach, and I can now see the moment in which the beauty of this planet shines into existence for the creatures of the day. A breath-taking array of sights and sounds that I have scarsely experienced before in the jumble of the steel capped cities and throng of human flesh opens up freely before me now, allowing me an audience with God through a voiceless, thoughtless sense of passion that makes my lips curve upward in a grin.

I cast my hands out to the winds, and breath in the crisp air that brings life to my old bones, and close my eyes once more. There's nothing but a gentle relief of passion that I can feel now and I will embrace the feeling for the remainder of my years, knowing that, with this one day of out-look on all things I have lived with in the world, there can never be a match for the utopia that I see before me now.

) Leif Tanner

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