The Dial

The sun was shining on my seventh birthday and my father took my hand and led me to the stream that sits near my grandmother’s house. I jumped on to the stepping stones, my father followed me: Splash. Splash - I almost slipped. He pulled me up into his arms and we laughed together. When we reached the other side of the stream I confided in him that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I felt a cloud of disappointment around the air where my father stood.

He did not want me to be a writer.

He wanted me to choose a stable profession but I wanted to be free:

“Child... what do you think writing will give you?”

I began to write stories anyway. I kept them hidden from my father. I sometimes wandered into the market town where we lived and watched the boys playing by the old theatre. There was one boy who shone like the sun, I could not help but stare at him. One day, my father caught me staring at this boy and he dragged me home. I fled up the rickety stairs of our home and burst into my bedroom. I noticed that my stories were no longer there, my father had taken them.

I sobbed for days.

One day, my father took me to the highest hill in our town and as we stood together at the very top he said:

“You are no longer a young child, I have read your stories and they are very imaginative and brave but they are lacking something. Go into the unknown and discover see if you find what is missing. If you come back and still wish to be a writer, I will not stand in your way.”

And with that my father left me.

He did not come back. I began to chase after him down the hill and as I did everything disappeared with him. I just came to a huge drop which led to nothing but darkness. I had no alternative but to turn around and go back up the hill. I have no idea how long I stayed on the top of that hill for. All I know is that I must have been in a very deep sleep because when I woke up the boy I liked was calling me:

“Come to the water” he said

“Come down to the water and drink with me?”

He pulled me to my feet and I followed him down to a clear water lake. We cupped our hands and drank.

 “Where am I?”

 He touched my lips

“You are in a place where only a few ever cross over. It is a kind of heaven my friend”

I looked into his eyes and I knew in that moment that I had found a rich love. He became etched in my soul forever. We watched rainbows together. He stayed close to me until he said he had to leave. As he walked away I called

“Will you find me again?”

But all that I could see behind me was a huge drop which would lead to nothing but darkness. I turned on my heel and marched over the hill where I came across a forest of trees. Thousands of rows of trees. All lined up in columns. Columns of eight. I headed out towards the forest, hoping that I might find what I was looking for. As I ventured along, I became tired and hungry, the path seemed to be getting narrower and narrower and the trees had personalities of their own, they whispered and chattered between one another, oblivious of my presence in their forest. I had never felt so alone in my whole life. I took shelter underneath a tree.  I lay down and thought about my mother. My father never spoke of her. This upset me and a tear rolled down my cheek. Some insects came to see me then, they came from under the ground in clusters. They kept me busy with their constant chattering and jokes, they seemed to be good friends and they told me many stories about the forest, eventually I drifted off into a very deep and heavy sleep. The insects grew restless and began nibbling my toes. I hardly felt a thing at first, just a tickle. They gnawed at my feet and carried my skin back to their homes under the ground. I’m sure that had it not been for the box that fell out of the tree, they would have nibbled me to death right there in the middle of that forest.

The box fell with such an enormous thud that the insects scuttled away, leaving my bony feet behind them. I cried at the sight of my feet, but also at the thought that I was alone again without a single soul to speak to. I studied the box which was old and gold. I ran my fingers across the front and felt that it was engraved with the word STAR. Perhaps this box was my treasure. I tried to open it but it was secured by a rusty old padlock. I attempted to lift it up but it was far too heavy and my body was weak from the insects. I sat on the box for a while, thinking about what to do with it. I decided that I must mark the spot where it lay, so that I could continue my journey but would be able to find it again once I had found some tools to open it with. I took off my scarf and tied it to a branch which hung above the box and headed off through the forest. The pain I felt walking was almost too much to bear but I kept going along my journey, I was too stubborn to give in.

Almost by a miracle, the more I walked the more my feet healed. Sometimes it rained and sometimes it snowed, occasionally the sun shone and the sky turned multicolour which made me feel happy inside. I came across lakes like the one Sun and I had taken water from, and I drank the water with need. I found that some of trees bared fruit which I ate with good spirit. Occasionally the insects came out and tried to befriend me again, but I was wise to them now and ignored their chattering tongues. After I had watched many moons pass by I came to a door and it seemed to be the end of the forest. As I put up my hand to knock the round golden door knob, I fainted.

I woke up to find myself lying in an ornate bed. There was a knock at the door followed by a strange little man carrying a silver tray. He placed it on top of the desk which sat beside my bed and then, before I even had a chance to thank him, he hurried out again. I ate the fish pie that was left on the tray and drank the fruit tea and then fell back into a wonderful sleep. When I awoke again, the tray was gone but there was a knock on the door and the strange little man entered once more carrying the silver tray and rushed out again before I had time to tell him how nice the fish pie had tasted. This happened again and again. The man would enter with a tray of delicious cuisine, he would run out, I would eat and then sleep. I have no idea how many days, months or even years this went on for. All I knew is that, I had never felt so healthy and my golden hair had grown down to my knees. One day, the little man hesitated as he left the silver tray

“Tomorrow we walk”

I was just about to thank him and he had gone! Sure enough, the next time I woke up, the little man escorted me out of the room and took me down a long winding staircase and into a beautiful garden which blossomed with flowers.  We sat on a bench and spoke about many things. He told me that he had lived and studied for many years in this great house. He told me that he was once a very famous writer and that he had practiced his craft every day. He gave me some exercises to do and said that the best time to do them was just as dawn was rising. He taught me about the pain of rejection and how everything will balance itself out in the end. He said to think of success and failure as two weights sitting on either side of a pair of scales. He said that the dial was the work and that provided I kept writing the scales would eventually balance. He said that this is what being a writer was like, it was like balancing the scales whilst continuing to work on the dial. The strange little man was pleased to have found me. He even told me that he had been waiting for my arrival for some time. We worked together but separately for many days, months and years. We woke at dawn and exercised our minds. We ate at dusk and this replenished our spirits. I could have happily stayed there for the rest of my days, just practicing my craft but one day he told me that I had to leave and cross back over to see my father. I told him that all I had seen behind me as I had travelled up to his house was a pit of darkness. He said that it would no longer be like that, and that I would find that my old town was still there along with the theatre that I had so loved as a child. I told him about the box I had found on my way through the forest and he said that he would help me to open it as it was probably about half way through my journey. He said he would accompany me to that point and that then I would be free to go back to the beginning of my journey with my new found knowledge and understanding.

We took supplies with us for our journey which was so much easier to do with my companion. We made friends with some birds who chirped happily with us along the path. The weather changed but we just kept on walking, our hearts were filled with good food, tea and literature. Sure enough, after days, months and maybe even years of travelling back through the forest, we came across a tree with a scarf hanging off its branches. I let out a shriek of delight as we approached the gold box.

“Open it! Open it!”

The rain pelted down onto our skin and he took a key from his bag and told me that it was a key that could open many locks. He placed the key into the rusty old padlock and sure enough as he turned it to the right and back to the left, the bolt popped open.

Inside was a clear glass mirror.

My friend, the famous writer was already away into the distance, shouting back at me:

“Bravo my friend, Bravo... some people travel their entire life to find what you have found. You reached the very end of the world, you traveled on a journey where you found love and freedom and almost death. You my friend are looking at yourself and that is the only way to become a writer”

I looked into the distance away from my friend and through the multi-coloured landscape and saw home. 

Rachel Dealtry