by Shaun Lawton
The meaning of a fist was different back then. In those ancient and long gone days, to curl one's fingers locked in by curled back thumbs and to hold this fist up in the air was intended to symbolize maintaining peace throughout all sovereign nations, in that the fingers curled back inward was an indication of a defensive posture, in other words a deliberate invocation of peaceful intent. Holding this symbolic human glyph up into the pure blinding blue of the sky was only meant to exalt pacifism forever.
The great mountain range lay spread out across the eastern horizon before us like a looming shadow wall, ever guarding us from whatever lurking horrors lay on the other side. The feeling of comfort derived from this line of thought was limited, considering the predators skulking about on their random nocturnal courses that we were already accustomed to. Nevermind what lay in wait on the other side of those mountains. What concerns us at the moment are the turbulent forces still flowing throughout the endemic mountain system itself.
A coruscating platform where a conflagration of opposing elemental forces are captured in mid collision, headlong flung on their flight into the unknown. At night when we rested and fell asleep only to slip into a dreamscape based on the mountain surrounding us, yet limned with an elaborate tracing of spectral shades of blue light phasing into aqua tinged luminosities shot with ultraviolet amid deep dark yawning pits of blackness, following a contortionist pattern of twisted roots from a tree trunk sunken amid a patch of buried turquoise and azurite malachite.
The stone of the mountain itself seemed wrought with an intermeshed series of flowing entanglements as of undersea weeds and trellises swept in a churning undercurrent. The patterns in the stone late at night when just enough moonlight shone down to paint the shadows into strange cursive shapes suddenly took on the appearance of other organic aspects of the animal kingdom. The mountain easily transforms before the eye of the beholder on a night when the moon's only half bright into a smooth, moving landscape calling out from its hidden pockets of darkness in half formed whispers for anyone listening to follow along.
That's exactly how we were summoned to fall into place on the path winding into the forest and up the mountain itself, we responded to a silent calling felt within our bones and the very soul of the mountain which we all shared in common. It even appeared that we could each hear a whispering coming out of the wind. We tilted our heads and exchanged a look that captured everything unsaid.
The paranormal forces at work that were famed throughout these foothills described a course of events so powerful that none who entered the region at night could escape the repercussions of its torrential dynamic flow. As spirit hunters of the wild night ourselves, we were already adept at certain necessary maneuvers of both defense and offense. Our weapons were our hearts who both carried us into the storm and shielded us from harm in a blazing path of glory we could not fathom for the trees we fought in alliance with against the realm of the interlopers.
The spirit of this mountain contained the self same essence possessing all mountain ranges and planets formed along the widening rims of the expanding universe, which remains the identical substance comprising us all, the animus within being a darker view shared by any of the multifaceted viewpoints our panoramic cornucopia of life may propose to perceive. The undermining and provocative presence of the eternal mother spirit was felt on a level which preceded all the rest, and informed it, and rendered it mere shreds of shadow pieces fallen in the wake of darkness's creation from the womb of light itself which spawned it.
They arrive with many names including bringers and takers of luminous splendors embroiled in a saga so complicated as to remain an unfathomable labyrinth to traverse. This becomes the object of our quest to which we, the challengers of the unknown, are sworn. The ceremonies of accolade which permanently bond us to our dream were completed so many decades ago they linger in memory on the power of the event alone. For this reason among many others these dreams will never fade so long as we remain alive. Even the brightly traced shades of our fallen sisters and brothers remain today to fight by our side against the age old enemy which stalked and persecuted us back in the day.
We who remain after surviving the plagues and calamities that befell us throughout the intervening years are here to fight the immortal demon with all our might and every shred of energy we have left in our weathered and aging selves. Transformed into phantom Lich Kings by the sheer rabid intensity with which we believe in each other, our enemies cannot possibly see the invisible curved fractal blade of circumstance we provide when we strike of a sudden from the silence of night. Our years together facing adventure late at night deep in the wilderness taught us how to cultivate the belief that we're invincible. Now that you've been claimed by death, it's been proven and revealed to me.
Now I can see how over the past many decades and even generations before mine, the symbolic gesture of the upraised fist gradually transformed over time into a twisted parody of what it originally was intended to be and meant to represent, I know with reassuring finality that my great grand mother's spirit resides eternally within my own heart and the beating hearts of all living creatures for as long as time itself remains flowing across the face of eternity.
By lowering my eyelids and descending into the darkness of sleep every night before I wake I dream about the things my own mind conjures, and sometimes after I awaken to face the daily routines of my day, I remember a portion of a dream I had the night before, but can already tell its fading from memory. Most of the time I don't recall my dreams. On those occasions I try to remember what I dreamed, I remind myself that it's okay, after all I'm still in the process of living my dream, and smile. I grin far and wide thinking of all of our great grand mothers of pearl with their upraised fists to the sky.
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