The Siren Post

The Siren Post

Poppie, as he was affectionately deemed most endearing a grandfather, had a dream when on the farm which cannot go untold.
This, as he described, was really a nightmare, an ill-starred and luckless portent. He knew it then, and it confirmed itself in decidedly due time.
Nearly undecipherable a dreamscape, save for the aid of intuitive colour, feeling and sound. The dream-sequence of the underworld had presented to Brendan a very dark horse. Although it was brief, it was starkly real, creating a most malicious fright.

He was sitting in his bedroom, which he shared with his wife on the farm; and as he preferred most things in life to be, the room was small and humble.
The wallpaper was subtle ~ a spray of delicate violets over a cream background, and all else in the room matched and evoked the antiquity of a simpler time. The day was part sunny, part grey. The season was autumn, and cool air encompassed the farmland.  All was quiet in and out of doors, even by the barn where usually a muted call from one of the horses or cows could be heard. There wasn't a crowing from the rooster, and no light whispery bird songs were even faintly heard.  This peculiar ambiance brought disquiet to the man in deep dreaming, and the rapid eye movement began:

Out, as in a daydream, he saw himself walk so as to make a sound for himself ~ to break this silence, a silence often anticipating its opposite cry. In his stride further from the house, the panoramic view lent a reprieve from any dark feelings just then.  A conjured up sun broke light in and upon the gleaming golden wheat fields, waving lightly as if in the promise of peace when all is done.
Further out, his eyes caught glimpse of majestic pines that created a private and natural outline to the land, so reminiscent of the beloved summer home in Charlevoix, Michigan.  In aerial view, these furs created a gentle crown upon the homestead in regal glory.
It was here in this dreaming and sensory moment, there was the feeling his life had peaked, inciting a very bittersweet pang.
A perfect beauty, both in nature and familial spirit, had been achieved. There was nothing more for the wanting. This gentle soul was not clouded by desire nor plagued by the desperate sense of want; but for the love and welfare of his wife and children, this man yearned for nothing more in life.

Moving closer to the barn, focusing on the rusty red paint, he looked to cheer his heart into believing all was well and familiar. His step grew quicker, now, in hopes to get past the fearful inclination of the ominous.

Just then came a sound, at first somewhat distant ~ a sound not unlike the bleating of a lamb, but in a deeper, lower, raspy-throated tone. Brendan moved closer as the bleating grew louder and lower. Upon opening the barn door window from inside, there on a grey weather-beaten post was the head of "Highpony", the family's little donkey, cut from the neck and nailed to the post.
The head was belching out sufferable sounds from a low-bleating misery to a loud wide mouth, purging a contentious siren of agony.
Highpony's head was grotesque in near-death disfigurement, his mouth agape with a look matching his dark, belching cries.  His final aspect was an ugly combination of merciless infliction as was seen, first, in the cold knowing eyes above a mean tight lip stretched tight around a demonic display of ugly teeth… blood ran dripping down the grey wooden post and second, in the pathos reflected in the same eyes for this cruellest of afflictions, now
partly lidded in the great labouring acceptance of pain.

Too horrifying to endure a moment longer, the snap of sanity awoke our dear Brendan to daylight's relief. In time, it was easy to shake off the horror, but waking life now had an ill-fated shadow, an unwelcome companion carrying the sublime sense of a very certain and dreaded omen of doom.

Kathleen T. Wright © 2007