Fear of flying

Today, our challenge was to write a surreal prose poem. For inspiration, we were given Franz Kafka’s collection of short parables – my favourite turned out to be “My Destination”.

I’ve always struggled with the concept of prose poetry; isn’t it just a very well told and illustrated story?

I’ve been a fan of surrealism for many years so lunged at this with gusto and took inspiration from a recurring childhood dream. I’ve not had this one in aeons of sleep; maybe my mind has finally rested on this one? Anyway, I hope I did it justice and you enjoyed the journey.

Through closed eyes she could see the depth below her and the height of her danger; her mouth tasted the weight of her fears. From the blazing horizon to the cliff’s base, an ocean of perfectly lawned glossed-green grass swayed in unison, its surface as perfectly groomed and clipped as a snooker table, among its roots, impatient bull elephants stalked and voracious sharks tied silken napkins in anticipation, solid silver utensils clasped in their sweaty fins.
Still fresh of its long journey from the arctic tundra, where it licked the shrivelled leaves of wizened willows and ruffled the dark, deep, double coats of Muskox, the wind rolled from the verdant shore, up the two-mile-high cliff wall and sailed like a high-speed schooner between her tiny pink toes. Ice seeped into her bones. The torture of exposure pummelled her senses as every ounce of her strength pushed from the core of her body outward in what she knew to be a fruitless endeavour to stave off falling. Her fruits on display for all to savour.
Called to that stage again, a delirium dancer in distress, she drove her heels into the ledge on which she stood – barely stood.
The slippery soles of her feet sifted the sand grains of the cliff edge between their fingers, counting and sliding them like an ancient Arab on an abacus. They had been there for millennia; she knew they would crumble at any instant – it was only a matter of time.
Behind her, exquisitely uniform rectangles of red clay brick pressed into every inch of flesh on her back, legs and head. Elemental units laid by the purple hands of men, they throbbed, swelled and pushed without moving. Each pulse forcing her fingernails to dig deeper into the wall that held back the mountains of damp, brown earth from which gargantuan black spider trees grew, they, throwing a canopy of shade that blocked out the sun which never shone. There was now no trace of the steps she had climbed, each one having melted like chocolate by a fire and seeped, slowly into the river to coat fishes which became cakes that smiled at her from below the water.

Her closed mind wandered, wondering;

“What more can they do to me?”

“If birds can fly; can I?”

Maybe she could. Maybe she would never know.

Image copyright of Sad Girl DP