Lying quite prone, prostrate against a bed of brittle eider-down, ever plucked at by a spectral querysome niggling wind, tossing sepia hair hither and thither in its wake. His eyes staring languidly up, as if on their own accord, through high arching bald winter branches of a weeping willow near the banks of Scamhurst lake. Though to call it a lake gives inklings of grandeur, a vast body of water, whereas in actuality Scamhurst was something far more petite, elegant in its lacking, much bigger than any mere pond, but less endowed than one would assume a lake to be. A sickly sharp scent of water pecking icy holes in his sense of smell, adamant and most assured in its own crystalline verbosity, brought Basin out of frittered time, wasted on midday hallucinations.
Beyond pitiful wisps of indignant cloud, smearing the sky as fingerprints do on glass, leering over the half filigree mottle shadowed youth, a lecherous sun gave little warmth, only a mocking cold gaze in a dishevelled clear blue sky. The clouds fluttered between the bars of his cage, formed by the branches above, a natural desolate prison, with no walls, sterile in stark white, sealing him off from the vivid cool blue plain of ethereal butterflies, as they danced overhead.
A trickled sigh broke the quiet before being quickly hushed up by the snowy quilt that had enveloped most of the country, or so the wireless had regaled its listeners. A large fur lined coat kept the cold at bay with ease, so lying in the snow only afforded the possibility of getting a bit wet about the ankles, with much the same effect as if one had been plodding through a large puddle and neglected to notice until saturation point. Though the cold and the damp were of no concern, only the solitude mattered. Hiding in plain sight on a day no one would, could, be looking, come looking, or even care to. This is the assurance Basin needed. It is all well and good to lock oneself up in one’s room, but everyone knows where you are, and if you’re needed, or not, your sanctum can be invaded. Out by the lake, in mid-winter, no one would come looking. No one would trespass upon his private time.
With thoughts thick and fast, problems built up to the point of bubbling over, people and places and situations all melting together to make a globule of mind raking puss, it was this comfort in solace he had craved, needed, longed for, and now grasped, tightly, in one firm delicate slender hand, brought in from the sleeve, to keep the cold away. Basin’s mind wandered. To finer things, nicer things. The kind that burns at your insides like an intangible itch.
There was no breeze, so the only chill came from the snow and the current clearing in the sky, from which the brazen sun shone down meekly, like a pallid petty gem in a sea of nothing. His eyes squinting, curling up against inner throngs and throbbing. Shutting out the ceiling to his cell and its unseasonal clarity. Intent on platitudes and, sonnet inspired, hazy visuals flashing through his mind. Stoke upon stroke, wave upon wave, until, until, the very moment, of equal lucidity to the sky. A spark igniting spasms, then calm, and nothing else beyond the calm, though this point had not been reached when his intentional isolation was shattered by a familiar shadow. The intruding shade crawled up his body to match the exact shape Basin made lying on the ground, as if he’d been coated in a layer of dark yet translucent dust.
“Nice to see you’re happy to see me, even if you won’t be when you open your eyes!”, smirked the long-familiar voice, dimmed by the passing of a few years.
“It’s nice to know you do still think of me!”
Basin scurried against the base of the willow, pulling the great coat open enough to slip his arm back down the sleeve, though adversely inviting a slice of cold to penetrate his body, causing him to shudder. This Gedral took as a sign of reinvigorated hatred and recoiled a little in case of any swift retribution for his untimely intrusion. Words failed the pair for a few moments, which was enough time for Basin to warm and snuggle into his coat for protection, and become offended by Gedral’s presence. Conversely, Gedral simply shifted his weight a little in his stance, rocking on his heels, and whipping up a lexical storm upon his tongue’s tip to trip out in a tirade against Basin if he made an effort to cause a ruckus.
“As you obviously noticed me, and what I was doing, why did you feel a need to then interrupt! Why did you have to start talking to me again now?”, breathed Basin, unconvinced of his own words as usual.
“Has your mother never told you to not stay out too long in the cold? “You know you’ll catch your death if you do!””, spat Gedral, the second half of his retort high-pitched and crackled like a crone’s.
Basin just looked at the floor in humiliation, timidness, and frustration. He knew nothing he could say would make any difference. Standing slowly, purposefully to leave, he found himself pressed hard against the tree which had until that moment been a safe prison, against the outside, now felt like a cell in which he was unpleasantly trapped with Gedral. For a moment their eyes and steaming breath met, causing a mist between them, making his intruder appear like a phantasm from his imagination. He closed his eyes to form his words, gaping his lips ever so to begin forming his words, when his face was met with pressure and warmth. Gedral was kissing him. A deep hard long kiss. The kind used to shut someone up, when you know their words will hurt you, but they won’t resist your actions.
As quickly as it had happened it was over, this time no words would come, and he could not move. Basin stood frozen by a frozen lake on frozen land, all until his swooning head could contain itself again. Upon the very moment he regained control of his functions he ran, back to his family home, not looking back to where Gedral remained standing, hands in pockets, then eventually kicking the snow while he walked solemnly round the lake to his own destination. It was already too late to run, the seed had been planted, and Basin knew as soon as he fell into his bed, after carving his path straight there from the front door, shedding shoes and coat, leaving soaked socked feet hanging over the end of the bed, that he was already Gedral’s. All over again.
Just Another Adult 