Childhood

Awe. Your first feeling. With it stamped across your wide-eyed face,
you take one step onto the drawbridge. Looking up you can make out the
pinnacles of the turrets rising out of the cliff face in front of you.
They must nearly reach the impassable stars. On second thoughts you
decide not to look down: it is not very hard to make out the sound of
huge torrents of water smashing unrelentingly into the passive slices
of rock hundreds of meters below you. A foul wind whips round your head
sending your hair in all directions as you try to take in this amazing
view.

Far out to sea you can see a ship approaching. It doesn't look like the
usual rusty liner plodding through churning white horses that you and
the rest of the world is used to. You imagine a scarred sail from weeks
spent in a battering storm, a gnarled wooden prow with finely worked
dragonhead proudly rising above the helmets of a war-painted crew,
hungry for the taste of battle. And as you look into the coming storm,
you think you see another sail? and another.

"Come on you little scallywag!" Parents, they always ruin everything. A
hand descends upon your shoulder.

"Don't you want to go inside?" your mother teases. "Get on with it: we
want to keep this beautiful weather for our picnic." You squirm away
from the iron hand and, with a last gaze at the ships' now-dark
imprints in the grey sea, you race up to the main door.

Finding yourself in a courtyard with a roof of dark, foreboding clouds,
you scan the countless thin strips of light dripping from windows. Mum
and dad consult a map with irritation and then turn it the right way
up. Apart from them, you are the only one in the courtyard. A glimpse
of light, steel, chain mail! You steadily track the shimmering
reflections as they make their way past window after window. Then, with
a flicker, the light at the figure's window is put out as if it was a
candle and the clad figure is sucked into darkness. You look back to
your parents, but you stop dead. They are nowhere to be seen. Finally,
alone! You toddle off to the nearest door into the depths of the
fortress. As you pass under the Anglo-Saxon arch, you hear a bell
ringing clear above the sounds of the storm. It would have warned of
invasion in the olden times.

The dimly lit passage forks in front of you. You choose one way at
random. Becoming aware of your footsteps echoing off the damp walls,
you quicken your pace. Ahead of you is a staircase curving upwards and
out of sight. Apprehensively your feet reach for the stairs. They are
surprisingly easy to climb after the slippery passageway. Flickering
light illuminates your way from wicker briers clamped to the walls.
Soot stains scour the stone above the briers like cracks in melting
ice. A horn sounds, howling like a wolf, not to the moon, but to war.
It finds its way to your very soul and sends mischievous prickles
through your body. Shouts filled with anger, hatred, fear emanate from
the very stone around you. Your heart races. Stairs, more stairs. You
live in hope that soon a door will appear around the never-ending
corner. Screams and battle cries rent the air.

The spiral staircase ends abruptly at a solid oak door. You tentatively
lift the latch. With a massive peal of thunder, the door is flung open
by a gust of wind, rain and sound that batters you against the
unforgiving slabs of the cold floor. As the door swings wildly, trying
to wrench itself from its hinges, you sit up with a shivering arm
shielding your face. Through the chinks of your fingers you peer past
the veil of rain hammering at the battlements to the Anglo-Saxon
soldiers beyond fiercely firing arrows into an unseen mob. Falling
backwards in terror, you try to head back down the staircase but you
hear chain mail and shouting approaching. Your only option is to back
onto the walkway.

With your back to the crenellations, you look over the innards of the
castle, now being spilt by fires flitting along the thatch roofs and
gaping holes in the sides of buildings that shower rubble and dust upon
the miserable wretches cowering in the courtyard below. The noise is
phenomenal: screams for water, shouts for ammunition, horns sounding
all around the castle, bells being tolled, inhuman screams as the
occasional arrow hits its mark and sends the defender toppling from his
perch to fall into the abyss now muffled by showers of dust. You force
yourself to take a look over the crenels. The sight that meets your
eyes is unimaginable. The sea is black with the sails of longboats,
vibrating with the sound of deep drumbeats. Below you are the great
grey cliffs, rising steeply from the boiling water. You suddenly become
aware that scaling them are thousands of tiny ants. There are so many
that the steep plates of rock themselves seem to be moving in waves
towards you. But towering above you is a sky you have never seen in
such turmoil. Rolling black clouds are streaked with the red of blood
and frequent forks of lightening emit bursts of brilliance that burn
your eyes.

On the countless tiny lumps of rock rising inelegantly out of the
water, siege weapons have been erected and stand gaunt and powerful
above the crowded keels. As you stare at one of them, it suddenly
uncoils as balls of fire leap high into the air. You watch, as their
streaks are evidence of a perfect arc. They fall in slow motion and
slowly you realize they are headed straight for you. Soldiers along the
wall fall back staring in abject horror at these hounds of Hell.
Smashing into the wall with devastating effectiveness, they unleash
their power. Slabs of stone fly out in all directions as the walkway
beneath your feet rears up sending you flying into the air. You feel
power. It overwhelms you. You look back as the wall buckles and
descends with you. You can't see for the dust.


Feeling the warmth of summer sunshine on your face, you
submit to a worldwide grin. Opening your eyes to slits, you see the
outline of a bird circling above you, touching the perfect blue sky.
You savour this perfect reality.

"So while we've had a heck of a time with this so-called map, you're
enjoying the tranquility of the courtyard I take it?" You open your
eyes fully to be greeted with the face of your mother. Smiling she
says, "Oh what it is to be a child. You know your father still is one."
A laugh. "Come on, let's have this picnic."