Grass Underfoot

In far away dungeon, world of naught but blasphemers of society, were the thoughts of a man conquered in body by the ever ready cruelness of those around him. The dankness of his cell was marred only by the small window of light and the outside, which was freedom, that had been carved into one lonely corner, high into the wall. For hours on end, the man had stared at that space, yet not for the reasons that others would have thought of one condemned to a fate such as his. He did not yearn for the freedom held so tantalisingly close. He did not while away the hours willing the impossible to happen. He did not try vainly to lift himself up to the wall, the window, to let a glimmer of failing sunlight to warm his pale face. Not even forlorn melancholy troubled his soul.
From dusk the previous day, the betrayer of angelic light, he had watched. The sun had started its slow death, unseen by him, yet he could close his eyes and see it. The blood of the sun, spilled across the horizons. The sky, burning in orange fire, the chorus of crickets singing the hymn, sending it on its way. The streaks of multihued blues that would suddenly steal their way across the heavens. Cold daggers that were sent flying in their arc to end the last struggles of man, beast and the strength of the heavenly body that bathed in rage and blazed with righteous anger. He closed his eyes and saw it all. There was nothing that escaped his mind’s gaze.
Soon the stars had twinkled their first. Giants opening their eyes, rousing themselves from their slumber. The man opened his eyes, his eyes sweeping around his chamber, the dark shadows assailing him from every angle. They spoke of demons hiding in the dark, welcoming him to their home.  In times past, he would have disregarded the notion of such things. Yet now, he found himself contemplating the nature of nature with a detached air and began to think that it may just be that magic and faerie tales were true. If only in the dreams of men and in nature where Man’s ever hungry gaze could not penetrate.
Why is it, he thought without any conscious emotion. That the true beauty of anything has to be hidden from Mankind in order to preserve it? Is it that we are the demons before which everything quakes?
He tried to eliminate his train of thought but could not. He realised that he was no longer ashamed to be of the human race which had destroyed so much. He got the distinct feeling that he was no longer what others called man.
Transcendence into something of a higher order?
He snorted in derision, though no conscious mind could have noted it. For all the world that was not there, he was a man shackled to a wall, his face a mask that betrayed no emotion, only the glint of an eye that peered at the night outside through a small square.
The night passed and with it the countless memories that played before his eye. He looked on with the utmost alertness and with droopy eye at what had passed before him.
Some things just do not change for some. Or it may be that he just never made the effort. Perhaps he tried to become better by becoming worse.
Only in their dreams can men be truly happy, it was always thus and always thus shall be.
He remembered the words, though not the one who said them. It could easily have been him, but quite as easily not. It was confusion to his mind that was split by clarity of what had been done.
The man had always considered himself to be an aesthete. Never once having doubted it. Not through childhood, his prime or even the last years of misery before his crimes finally caught up with him.
It was only now, with his crimes sitting beside him in companionable silence that he realised that all he found as beautiful as a man racing against death and the tick-tock of the clock, was in fact what had set him to losing the race.
He closed his eyes once more, conviction at his foolishness finally playing its hand of shame. The very moment his eyes closed, however, brought with it the coming of something new. He could see the end of the long night, an eternity of darkness, and the dawn was risen. Like the flags of a monarchy rising in an easterly wind. He saw the colours, so very different to those of the dying sun, as bright and without fault. Beauty was a word that could not encompass all of it. Its light, never marred by streaks of oily night, suffused everything in its warm glow, even him, hidden from valiant efforts of chivalry. He saw it as the babe sees it for the first time.
A world unfettered by any design that would have it otherwise.
He saw it as beauty even though its coming meant certain death for him. With the light shining within him, his eyes still closed, he heard the heavy grating of the barred door being opened and pulled aside. The murky candlelight and smoke from tainting pipes hung in the air and drifted slowly towards him. The shadows, heavy from their creators filled the light of the dim fake lights. The barking voices of the jailers followed the smoke. He felt their arms hook beneath his and lift him to his feet. Soon, he found himself led down a hallway with cold stones, ripped from the earth, freezing his bare feet. It was a disconcerting feeling, but he held onto the light within him that spoke of revelation. Another door was pulled aside and he was pushed roughly through. The air that was sweet and clean of the foulness within the dungeon, breathed life into him again. He opened his eyes once again, strength lending him aid.
He opened his eyes to a new world. The dawn had indeed come, the land was bright with it. The silver shadows of the now failing night fought against the golden figures of sunlight only to perish within fire. The trees and the hills whispered their secrets to him as nothing had ever done before. He spied the birds flying high overhead, their wings no longer clipped by any folly. They were free and soared high above.
The man wished then to be one of them. Not to be free as they were, but to know what it was like to feel wind underneath him and nothing else.
He looked down again, spotting the crowd that circled the gallows and looked on with offending glances. He walked towards them now, his head held high, immune to their abuse. He looked down only once more to stare at the green grass that he felt prickling his soles. It summed up many things for him and a smile spread across his face.
He was filled with regret that he had not noticed sooner, but more than happy to have noticed it now, his fear of never having done so now vanquished.
So he smiled and mounted the gallows, no longer encumbered by meaningless sadness. He felt the noose go around his neck and he saluted the new world with a “Fare thee well!”
He was suffered of everything that had happened in the past. He was conquered Persian, Roman Christian, Germanic Jew and African. He was Alexander, Caesar, Brutus, Attila, Genghis, Cortez, Hitler, Wallace, Biko, Longshanks and Mandela.
He was Man.