Thursday, March 28, 2024

Winds Remembered

April 15, 2010 by  
Filed under Prose

Walking up the valley thinking of the past, the old man walked steadily on until he reached the Heather covered slopes, before stopping to rest and look around the timeless landscape. Remembering how years ago he had lived on these slopes for fourteen days, whilst on Army training, living off the land, with some hundred or so young recruits trying to capture him.

Sitting in the Sun his imagination took over his mind, and he remembered that dreadful night, when the winds turned from a gentle breezt, to a wailing, howling raging storm, which seemed to try and blow him off his mountain.

However as a young strong Country lad, there was no need for concern, his hunters were already withdrawn back to base ., he would stay on knowing how to survive, just like the semiwild sheep that inhabited the heather clad slopes. These sheep knew of all the cavelike places occupied by their forebears, which were known locally as “Sheep Scrapes” . Reaching one such place, and unkindly turfing out a couple of complaining sheep, creeping in , and appreciating the already warmed interior, eating the emergency ration, falling asleep, allowing the howling banshie of a wind, blow itself out.

With the Sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing, he wondered how it was that that young man, despite wars and accidents, was now an old country chap, it seems that age was more harmful than wind, except on those days when the old digestive system refused to work properly.

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