Way to go, Trey!

Way to go Trey!


Trey stretched very slowly, a painful drawn-out stretch. And as the dull warm ache slowly overcame the distinct hurts, he sighed and lay down on the weathered rail with his head against the jamb. It was his favourite outdoors spot and the years of use had worn smooth the wood.

The weathered wood looked no different there, but he knew it was there. The spot too had changed over the years reluctantly mirroring the changes in his gait.

‘It is an old friend, that spot’, he thought. ‘Nothing better than the company of an old friend and the winter sun.’

It was one of those rare clear sunny days. The sun shining softly without the burn, the air a soothing breeze and the sea softly lapping at the lichen on the piers of the quay ... a rare and beautiful day indeed.

His faculties were still sharp, sharp enough to comprehend the discrete between the dreams and his sight, but these days he preferred to accede to the drift. His mind wandered. In and out it went between his dreams and the day. And as the aureole seamlessly grew around in all that he saw and in his dreams, he smiled a wry smile.

He dreamed a soft kaleidoscope of memories, blurred at the edges. Memories that walked into each other and came together as one.

He dreamed of the farm far away. He dreamed of the hare as it had feinted left and scurried right so quickly that he found himself on top of it and with a confirmed kill. It was not as if he wished to lay lien on it by way of food, it was just that he had loved a good chase then.

Youngest of a litter of three, Trey had been afraid to go home all day. He knew that his parents would get to know of the kill and of his father’s angry outbursts. And he was afraid of the severe punishment that would be meted. He knew that they would not understand that it was only a game he had begun to whet his desire for a long hard chase.

Not knowing what to do, he had decided to stay away from home the entire day and spend it with the older boys. His newfound friends at the farm initially regarded his act in silence and then burst out into a boisterous celebration. They limned his act in the most flattering ways. And the story grew with each telling.

‘Way to go Trey!’ they had cheered. ‘Way to go!’ He had reigned over them that day.

They had raced over the rails by the road and over into the sidewalk by the motorway. They had gone over into the neighbouring farm and raided the kitchen and teased the dogs, till they were chased out. Tired and a little droopy after the food, they had decided to spend the rest of the day by the pool.

He shivered as he remembered that as the day drew to a close, his friends for the day moved on one by one. Soon he was the only one by the pool and how he had been even more afraid to go home.

He remembered the heartbreaking sadness he had felt as he had taken a long last look upon his home before he stepped onto the motorway and followed the moon out of the farm so long ago.

Trey sighed a long sigh, fumbled and turned his head for a more comfortable space and peacefully drifted once more. The sun had climbed down now and touched him through the drupe even as the petrel noisily canvassed their prophet-like performance by the leached rocks.

But Trey no longer saw them or heard them. He had moved on with the drift.