The man who fell in love with the sky...

It was as if he had been singled out in the world, alone as he could be, working out in the fields. A single dark cloud hanging in the sky, thunder before the flash like a voice calling out from above, out to him as he looked up. Light seemingly bursting from within him as a single finger of lightning extended from the heavens all the way down to his head, burning with an undeniable fire. A thousand pounds of pressure and passion, forced into his body and back out again. When he woke up, he knew things were different, changed in an almost imperceptible way; there was no noise, not a wisp of wind in the sky just a deep blue field of endless beauty. An open book of passion and anger, joy and mischief, all lying above him in the sky, a lover whose only boundary was the horizon. That was when he knew he had fallen, not from some great height, or for some amazing woman, but for the infinite sky. And who could refuse a man who could touch such a sky? And that was when it began.

The tower was simple at first, a base of earth and mud, building higher with stick and stone, wood and steel, and as his tower grew so did the belief that this was a different kind of love, not merely something to be had but something to be earned. That was when the tower began to change, no longer a tool for the climb but a testament to his own worth, his devotion to the sky and all she had to offer, his character built into the very bones of the structure.

Each night he would crawl back to the top and watch the sky sleep and the stars come alive, listening to the whispers of her dreams as he slept.  Each night the was process repeated and months would pass in this fashion, the man becoming ragged and torn, his will never breaking, his strength never failing as he found himself happy to commit his very soul into the building of his tower.  So higher he built and higher he climbed, and the tower grew thinner and thinner until there was only enough room for one man to stand and then he wept. He knew he has succeeded, looking down onto the clouds below and up into the ever continuing sky. He wept in happiness and accomplishment, believing himself to be higher than the very world and finally alone with his lady of the sky. But as he explored his new horizons he noticed the shadow, falling across himself and the smile slid from his face as he saw the mountain, looming even higher than he was and on the mountain stood an opposite reflection of a man. A man on the mountain.

The first words flew across the chasm of space as if eagerly awaiting a reply. “What are you doing so far above the clouds my new friend?” asked the man of the mountain
“Proving my worth and my love to the sky” the tower man replied
“But I was here first and her beauty belongs to me, your tower will not impress her in the shadow of my mountain, and you have built yourself no ladder or stairs, no safe way down”
“My mountain climbing friend, if she chooses to reject me then there was never going to be a safe way down, and if she does knock me down then I shall fall smiling in the knowledge I did all I could and that in itself will keep me from death”
“then why not find a mountain of your own to climb?”
“Because although the effort mighty, it was not enough for me to walk up the path another man made. This building, my tower, will prove far greater worth than any climb. You have a way down, a way out, a man should not have a way out of love, and if he does then it is not love to him at all.”
“We shall see my young friend, my mountain has withstood many years of her wrath, can your measly tower stand the test?”
“We shall see indeed,”

So the man stood atop the tower, open and alone, waiting for the test to come. An unmoving epic of stillness as the sky exploded around him, wind howled, ripping through the air, lightning arced and the thunder deafened him, hail pelted his body and all the while he stood resilient. Knowing that she was worth it, that standing in the heart of the storm was nothing compared to the worth of her love. He laughed then, at the beauty of it all, in trying to prove himself to her, he had earned respect of himself, he had been tested and he had come through worthy for her love and his own.

And through the happiness and laughter he found a small sadness as he realised once the sky cleared and the clouds parted, the sun would rise slowly in the distance, and the first light of the morning sky would always touch the mountain first. So the man smiled and waved at the mountain screaming over the distance “I passed. I am worth everything she has to give, but this day and for many more she will only have eyes for you, so I will leave you be atop your mountain and when she tires of you she only has to boom her thunder in the skies and I will be come running” and with a final bow and a mischievous grin the man stepped off his tower and flew down into the abyss, smiling all the way.


As a footnote I will say a few things, firstly I hate the start, I cannot start things, so I did kind of just jump in, secondly yes its metaphorical for things that have happened to me and some that haven't, but it is also a collaboration of events in my life not just the effects of one or two people. Thirdly it is the first thing I have sat down and written that wasn't just eight lines apart from my blog in a long long long time.

I hope you liked it, but in the end I do, and thats all that matters to me.

Aint no sunshine in technology, no holiness in god...

I have seen so much, been so far and met so many. I find memories of travel sometimes fleeting, memories of places often lost and memories of people eagerly awaiting my thoughts.

Tonight i sat down at Coogee beach at a spot that shouldn't mean a thing but does, watching the water flow in and out, listening to whatever was playing through my phone and thinking a bit about everything. Like how the relevance of time has changed since the creation of the internet. Trends are no longer a year long thing; it takes half a second for someone to upload an idea that will start a riot of change.

I think about people a lot. That sounds exceptionally stupid but to me it isn't, you see my Dad's army. So I've moved around my whole life, I find a life, a house, a school (now a job); I stay for a few years and then move on. So I have left so many places and faces behind. So many people who I will never see again, whose features I can barely remember. I can barely name a dozen people I know I will never forget, and yet none of them have grown into my life. None of them have slowly found their way into the walkways of my infinitely awesome mind; they have all crashed in, with an ungrateful tumble and a high pitched scream. People who you need only know for a moment to feel like you have known them for lifetime.

I have been here a million times and yet each time I am here it feels new and alone and terrifying. Stuck in a place where they is no moving forward, only falling backwards, where no matter how hard you push, try, or work at it nothing will change without a stroke of bad luck and some exceptionally lucky charms. Sometimes I wish I was an emo kid so I could express myself with horrible photos of a man walking alone down a dark street. I cannot have what I want, but is it better to take what you can and live completely in those moments or to take nothing at all and try and forget?

This past week has been good, I started the New Year with the following of hobbits, I found my confidence hiding at the bottom of my sock drawer, quivering in anticipation and huddled up next to my charm. Both are happily back inside my head and shaking things up just as they should.

I feel sorry for the people I work with as all they get to see is an angry kid who doesn't deal with his head well at all. I am not self-important or arrogant for that matter but I am so much more than what you see there. Visit me on the days I am happy, or the day when I wake up and feel worth, see the bloke who is willing to stop and talk to the old timer just because he knows they are lonely, or the guy that will go out of his way to make others happy just because it’s the right thing to do. Give me time to work my head around my issues and my jobs issues and give me the opportunity to be something else then entirely pissed off.

That is all for tonight, I'm going back to Doctor Who and my happy awesome thoughts.

Goodnight, sleep well and sweet dreams.