Each and everyone of the soaked onlookers, in a hauntingly unified gait, began a face-frozen tread toward the center of the sovereign circle where Allie and Zenobia maintained their unyielding clutch.
As a relentless rain pummeled the unfazed guests of this destined ceremony, the shiny spires of massive rock which surrounded the island audibly sighed, and the furious ocean flipped it’s rage to become calm as a mill pond.
Written by Edward Roads
Photo by Edward Roads
The rain began from an almost cloudless sky and Allie stood straight up and looked Zenobia directly in the eye.
(Baby Stella began to cry) Allie, shivering and without tense, reached out and hugged this person whom she never met… a cover was draped upon Allie, but her shivering didn’t stop… nor did Stella’s cry.
Written by Edward Roads
Whirlwind thoughts slammed hard… her disgusting father was dead, her loving, although distracted mother was dead, her baby was dead… she disembarked, actually fell, onto Brigadoon without the culture and grace of the bird who brought her there.
Zenobia slowly crept toward Allie, who was now facedown and unconscious; everything was about to begin.
Written by Edward Roads
Stave IV
The earth and the sea seemed to pause as Allie approached the cut off spectre of, well… where…. and for some reason she couldn’t shake the thought of something called Dock 19.
As the giant grey spotted sea bird circled Brigadoon to locate the drop point, Allie remembered a seated, cordial man when she first arrived at that mysterious shore… humungous table… yes, yes… Shill was his name.
Written by Edward Roads
Allie Carraig sat strong on the custodial sea bird, a peculiar and undigestable thought to be sure, as if she knew it was supposed to be beneath her… but how could that be?
In the glide of moments, she suddenly remembered the laborious harrow of the buckwheat, but it wasn’t like before, it was just a passing memory… then, for the first time since she woke, the fulcrum of the dizzying flight leveled.
Written by Edward Roads
…and suddenly there he was, the mystical and lost Buddy Bolden; cornet on lips, Boller slightly forward, yet upon you… and a sly, slick sound most couldn’t and would never be able to describe, until later… Allie’s dreaming eyes rolled beneath her wind burned lids and thoughts inevitably turned to that god forsaken beach table.
The enormous spotted gray sea bird continued cruising only inches above the ocean line toward the place that she, Zenobia, had long ago proclaimed Brigadoon… preparations had once again begun.
Written by Edward Roads
Abagail Adams… Harriet Tubman… spinney high and low… sleep thoughts; oh, awe… Allie’s eyes fluttered and focused into this love and life… arms engaged about.
The skies, abound… calamitous… Allie Carraig was close to her god in that moment, that waking moment, soaring…her eyes widened and she realized she was traveling, perhaps flying, perched upon a giant bird, well above that shitstorm of a planet…
Written by Edward Roads
“Why, phrwth, why, where, aaaahhth,”… Allie’s voice was loud in the cloudfilling nothingness… she spued up another lung cough and lay with misplaced experience returning… this beach bully, yes it was a bird, was lurking just to her left.
Allie wiped her mouth, turned, saw the gigantic bird 2 inches from her volatile soul, and screamed at the top of her lungs “Aaaaaahhhhhhhh”… that was when the air, for the final time in her crunching life, got quiet.
Written by Edward Roads
She hadn’t thought about it earlier, but her cough, in her retreat, returned… quite harsh, with an uncomfortable amount of crimson… then she jumped upon the table wearing worn jeans and a ripped cotton t-shirt, both completely dry from the wavy grass.
She put her tightened hands over her head, crouched to a fetal position, and scrunched her eyes closed, as tight as she knew, before she felt the beast breathing vomit into her ear.
Written by Edward Roads
The quiddity of Allie Carraig was apparently returning, or at least trying to, along with the unchartable beach tides and that enormous table which was more like an archeological tableau, complete with cryptic scrawl and unexplained epithets.
As the numinous gray spotted sea bird made imprint after imprint plodding forward up the beach, Allie finally got a solid look at her sunken boots, which were lying useless beyond the imposing bird near the waterline… she impulsively retreated back to the table with the monster closing. (Reeeeeeeaaaaarrrraaarrrreeeeeeaaaaarrrrr)
Written by Edward Roads
Allie instinctively crouched and did a bit of a spider walk up to the continuously waving grass, where her clothes, much to her astonishment, were not only dry but also sandless.
The large (that was an understatement Allie thought) bird landed without effort near the small bend in the beach… Allie cautiously slipped into her warm clothes and wondered, as sand spouted up between her toes, where her boots were.
Written by Edward Roads
Sticky and gooey smooth oozed down both sides of her shivering cheeks… she ate another gooseberry, then another… Allie’s strength was coming back.
She turned and ran down the beach to gather her clothes… then quickly back up to the top of the berm where she tossed her sandy, wet clothes into the warm, wavy grass to dry… that’s when she saw a huge spotted gray sea bird rapidly descending toward her.
Written by Edward Roads
The piebald colors of her favorite, at least that’s what she instinctively thought, snack were lined up very inviting, in a perfectly neat line… Allie had the yellow gooseberry in her left hand.
As the ocean insisted on splashing and pesky clouds continued to close about the moon, the emaciated Allie Carraig put the succulent berry into her mouth, and with eyes now closed, slowly bit down and savored the sour burst.
Written by Edward Roads
In a seeming trance, she slowly walked over her scrunched, sandy clothes, which were lying wet and limp on the beach… her shaking, nude body had been through enough… so she thought.
There were gooseberries on that table, she did recognize them, from yesterwhen… yes! From there, here… but how?… on the gigantic, unexplainable table directly in front of her, gooseberries… she reached…
Written by Edward Roads
Allie looked carefully around as she somehow (how?) knew to… foaming sea splashed in; moved out; then spun in tiny eddys about her shaking, deep planted heels… in/out/splash… in/out/splash.
She tilted her weary head and violently sneezed; then came a long armed, rather disgusting nose wipe… she knew she needed to move up the beach… Allie swallowed a harsh flinch… then suddenly fell straight to the sand when her shocked eyes saw what was on the table.
Written by Edward Roads
Mytwosentences 