The cold blue yonder beckons like a frozen dream. Piles of ice extend into the air like pallid skyscrapers. Where they and the above meet, no one will ever know. Birds circle in tandem, reflected in the crystal-clear ice. Is it reflected or refracted, I forget so much these days? Whales peep from below to survey the commotion then vanish back into darker depths. Theirs is an ultramarine yonder, not the cerulean of my own. 

I have seen things. I have known things. Things have both seen and known me. This is my doom. I recognise most and guess at the rest. Guessing is what humanity does in place of truly understanding. Some are just better guessers than others. I, however, have not the imagination to compete. 

The journey was long, too long, if truth be known. My lips are almost as blue as the wall before me. My fingers and toes are closer to black. There are many stages of blue in this reality I term me. Only one is the truth. 

I climb. I strike with the pick and kick with the crampons. I build to something massive. The sky remains a mystery during this duress. The wall remains intransigent. Regardless, I grit my teeth and pursue the dream. 

Night falls in shades of turquoise, then azure, then aquamarine, then black. The wall of ice takes on its hints but not its promises of a dawn. I hurry now, scared of what might happen if I linger too long. 

Time passes. Dreams fade. Stars emerge and die. A moon that is not mine slides across the ice wall like a skater, and is just as quick to leave. 

I breach the divide as a tungsten dawn dissolves the black and stains the blue. I could spit; it angers me so much. 

Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe, with all your might. And I do. And I shall. And I will forever more. 

There are leaps of faith and leaps of loss. There are tumbles and stumbles and falls. I have fallen further than most. I have tumbled and stumbled and bumbled too long. Only in the purity of this misguided endeavour can I redeem myself. It is time. 

She watches me from above and below. As the light of this cloudless new day, one of such a deep blue yonder as to defy comparison takes a hold of every other colour and throttles it from sight, she is everywhere. Glass upon glass. reflection upon reflection. I am engulfed. 

I always was.  

Thank you for reading

Richard

https://ko-fi.com/richardmankers