Imagination

Staring at the blank page

I sit in my room, pencil and notebook in hand

The sun is shining, the sky is blue

Perfect day for a walk.

But I have no desire to go outside right now

I try and try, time and time again

To write a decent thing, but nothing comes to mind.

Lying on my stomach, I close my eyes

And listen to the breeze coming from the window

It reminds me of a hot summer’s day

Or the wind rushing by in a winter’s storm.

Imagine a world all my own

Like the moment before a dream

My eyes close and, unknowingly, I sink into the depths of my memory

Wondering, concluding, finding a story within.

In my dream, vast fields spread before me

Lush, wild, unending,

The hills sing as if filled with a voice

The voice of long ago

Murmuring of elf-song, magic unearthed, dragons birthed from stone.

I follow the voice, craving to know what speaks to me

In this strange, soft tongue

The field changes and I freeze before a mountainous throne

It is empty, its stone body devoid of any life.

Draped across it is a silk banner

It blows lonely in the wind, the crest of a rearing lion spread, stitched, mournfully into its violet face

Something must’ve happened here, for there is no one around me but me

My eyes are drawn from the lion to the field

No longer alive, it is dead now

What has caused this?

Who?

My head is swimming, my body is still

Only my eyes move, dart to look around me

Suddenly, I look down and find a sword

I pick it up and it catches the light

The moment I hold it aloft is the moment I see

The answer is given.

The sword whispers of screams, of blood spilled and spared

The horrors of battle

Then never-ending silence.

Then around me, gravestones appear

Crumbling, dark, proclaiming the fate of those long gone

I turn and turn, trying to escape kismet’s calling.

Kismet. Destiny. Fate.

Whatever you call it, it still ends the same

I scream—can’t find my way out

Kismet still sounds, long and low

Like a great iron bell in my ear.

It says to me in a wind’s whisper:

“You’ve seen our end. Now write our beginning…”

The field disappears, fades away like a dying heartbeat.

And, with a start, I wake up

But beside me, my notebook is filled to the brim with toiled time spent

And words come to life upon the page

In that moment, I realize—

I wasn’t asleep after all.