I arrived at an old camp this evening. More to the point, we arrived at a large boulder that myself and another had once used as a windbreak during the night. It was late when we arrived and I really should have stopped some hours before, but I was determined to get to this particular place.
There is nothing special about it, really. It is just a very big rock set a small distance from a cliff face with some other large rocks and a few trees in the general vicinity,
I remember it well, though. I spent a very cold night here alone. Well, alone for the most part. My companion at the time had returned when I awoke in the morning and I had found us lying in one anothers arms, huddled up for warmth. It was then that I knew he could be gentle and was capable of redemption. I did not know what was to come next. I could not have even begun to guess what would occur in the days and weeks ahead.
I sit here now, a small fire burning and with Arugru settled and snoozing by my side. I look up to the stars and see the same ones that shone back then, but somehow they are subtly different. I cannot put my finger on it, save the idle thought that perhaps I simply see the world in a slightly differing way to the view I held in those long gone days.
I remember how warm he was that morning, his body pressed so close to mine. I remember the peaceful expression upon his slumbering face and how carefuly he seemed to cradle my head even in his sleep. I remember the rise and fall of his chest, his soft breath upon the early morning breeze and how safe and yet uncomfortable I felt to be in that position. I remember that I feared to wake him lest that vision of a better man be forever gone.
I look back on that time and I feel so little in comparison to what I felt then. There is no anger in me for the cruelty of it and no sorrow for the tragic truth. I can detect no bitterness for what is, on so many levels, a bitter-sweet memory and the sweetness that perhaps should be there is also absent. There is, in fact, nothing more then a whisper of regret that things turned out the way that they did.
