The Aspiring Bard

He fell from the sky, one rain-lashed night, slipping through the clouds on tattered wings. He called himself Ashari. He was long and lean and tawny-colored. He couldn't have been much older than I was, but he knew about things. In that soft, strong voice of his, he spoke of a world I'd never seen. Of mountains and waterfalls, and plains that stretched, like the sea, for as far as the eye could reach and rippled in shades of brown and green.  His dialect was strange to me at first, but as I sat, hour after hour, and listened to his stories, I grew accustomed to hearing him. He spoke in pictures, sometimes, describing the words that held no meaning for me, drawing images in the air with grease-splattered hands. It was good to sit and hear about distant lands. It was good to forget, for a while, the troubles of my own small life and the dark memories of the nights. But that, of course, was after. When he arrived in the village, no-one dared approach the flyi...

Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash I am the one who perches precariously on the edges of life. Always second-guessing. Always keeping my options open. Always with some escape hatch in the back of my mind. Just in case. And you? You're the one who comes along and pushes me off the edge. You're the one who trusts my instincts, even when I'm in the midst of explaining that I  really can't swim. A firm shove in the small of my back. A terrifying rush of empty space. And suddenly, there I am, in too deep...and swimming. And, as my head breaks the surface and I realize that I haven't drowned, I look up, catch the twinkle in your eye, and laugh. Written in response to  this prompt.