A Pen y ffrwd Love Story Part Two

We stand, handfast, smiling at each other.  Then I hear voices behind me.  A woman screaming. A man shouting.  I turn and see Brian and Jen, my neighbours from lower down the hill.  Jen is screaming and pointing at the me on the ground.  Brian is shaking her shoulders.  He gets out a phone.  I hear the words ambulance and unconscious and hurry.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. I suddenly realize I have a choice.  I look at his face and see fear.  He tugs my hand. The hand I can see the grass and the tiny blue flowers through.  I am rooted to the spot and feel sick. Am I ready to go ?

Time distorts and I have no idea how long I have frozen.  I hear a siren and look down to see a tiny ambulance race into the tourist car park at the foot of the hill.  A man and a woman in dark green overalls get out.  They jump over the stile and start running up Pen y ffrwd, their cross body satchels bouncing.  The man carries a bag like a small suitcase.

I look back at my lover, knowing that the despair I see on his face must be mirrored on mine. Again he tugs my hand.  Again I cannot decide, my mind is just a vortex, I cannot stop it spinning and take the leap.

The green people throw their bags on the ground.  The woman straddles me and starts to pump my chest, and breathe into my mouth.  Something stirs in me and I look down to see my hand is becoming opaque.  The grass and tiny blue flowers fading beneath it.

I look into his face and see despair and disappointment.  He knows what I will do before I know it myself.  Fifty of your years I waited, his face says to me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m just not ready, I say, but there is no sound.  Look, her lips are moving ! cries Jen.

The me on the ground gives a gasping, shuddering breath, as if I were coming up from great depths of water.  My hand slides out from his.  He disintegrates in front of me, becoming more and more translucent, until I can see through where he was to the shadows of the clouds racing over the  hillside beyond.  There is a sound like the rushing of the wind, clicking like two stones being tapped together, and the faint sound of bells.  His name.  His farewell. Then the valley falls silent.  The tears pour down my face.

I see that I am still on the grass, but starting to stir, with my eyelids fluttering.  And that other me is crying too.