Beyond Language pv lera

Nature was Archer's open canvas and the world was his paint set. And the palette? That was his mind’s work entirely.

Often did he take his journal, blue pen in hand, not just to observe, but to become a part with its haunting beauty. His eyes searched his vision, not to write down aesthetic prose or to draw upon his page elegant sketches, but rather to find any inkling of a latch he could cling onto, any anchor that would secure his place in the liminal between humanity and beyond. Since childhood, he had always wanted more; he had just never known that it would arrive to him in such a manner. One day, he would be a member of its cogs, and forsaking the human experience, join the workings of this world in all the glory of its dirt and grime.

Today there was something especially grey about the overcast sky, how the sun barely peaked through the blinds of the clouds. There was no surprise the sky was in such a temperament, considering the usual disposition of the Scottish Highlands, where the shrouded castle sat in its imposing glory. Today, wisps of white slipped into its high rising towers, and from the distance of the grounds, Archer watched with subtle fascination as the owls took off from their perches, letters clutched in their claws, set for distant destinations. The distance of their trajectories was barely visible amidst the fog, the low hum of impending rainfall leaving the air a heavy humid. It was only April, yet today the atmosphere carried an impending promise of summer. It was particularly sultry in his sweater.

He took his regular seat under a familiar tree, and it was as if the grooves and edges of that particular trunk had been made for the curve of his back. It bent over just above him, as if sheltering him fro the cruelties of the world. The bark, uneven and coarse, dug through his shirt and into his skin, yet he found an inexplicable solace pressed against the hard, grounding reality of life. The long branches of willow swept down, just barely caressing his hair. If the wind blew in the right direction, it would tickle the very tops of his locks, its leaves falling just onto his scalp, as if claiming him as part of their territory, the same way he had claimed the tree as a second home. There was already a dent in the ground where he had found comfort in sitting, dirt worn away by days of pressure against it. Those hazel eyes, sparkling with the curiosity of a boy who had seen too much yet not enough, traversed the horizon line.

His fingers twirled the soft branches, entwining it in his grip. He played with it the same way someone might play with their own hair.

There was no doubt Archer had always been an observant child. Blessed with naturally keen eyesight, his observatory nature put it to good use. Often found scanning rooms or scrutinising peers, it was the watercolours of the natural world, however, that he truly deigned to lay eyes upon. The deliberate rise and fall of the sculpted mountains, the meticulous ripples of the chiselled lakes, everything you would not quite expect to happen, whether it be the odd rays of sun on a day that should have been overcast. Under the rays of the bathing Sol, his vision caught a distant goshawk, sweeping across the sky in long arcs, and bringing up his notebook on drawn up knees, he sketched the creature’s gorgeous wings as they spread in the flickers of sunlight.

In that moment, they were golden.

@Valeriy Viktorovna Reznikov | banner by Adeline Spinks