U is for Utopia

OK, I fell off the A to Z bandwagon. I had a good excuse, namely that of flying to Britain for a long weekend. I thought I could squeeze a few posts out late at night but I hadn't reckoned on my father's computer which needs a handle to crank it up and makes a whirring noise. Now I feel jetlagged and off the pace of my challenge narrative. U was maybe Monday. I'm going under...

Freddie felt the warmth of the sunshine. It embraced him through the strange oval, stained glass window that his father had built so many years ago. He had fallen hard and fast, he was being held deep in the embrace of the chaise longue. He recalled the old railroad now and the time he had joined Martin Bowls as they walked in front of the ornamental steam train and dived into the bushes, laughing hysterically as it almost ran them down. The strange and hypnotic translucence of those days washed through his dreams, like the tides on the big river in the gorge where they used to fish. The summer afternoons in West Virginia had been languid and endless. When his parents took him back from the holiday home it felt like a dream had been shattered.

And here now, with the world shattering around him, he was back at the holiday home and feeling whole. He had limped through fields of wounded men and heard the anger of the guns rumble on the hillsides where he played as a child. He had been amazed when  he had found the cottage, forgotten and unscathed down its antique lane. Glass panes had fallen in on the greenhouse when the storm had passed through, but the vegetables had continued to grow, riotous and defiant. There was no sign of disturbance or that that cottage had been pulled down as the world had disintegrated around it.

The electricity no longer worked but Freddie had lit candles. And he had collapsed into a long and fitful sleep, only to wake to the embrace of the morning sun.

Just when he was starting to believe all that had happened was a terrible dream, he heard a squealing as a nearby window was raised and the sound of a thud as if someone had thrown themselves in. He pulled himself from the couch but he was still heavy with sleep. He caught a glimpse of dark eyes, a wild mane of hair and hands were upon him. He moved back in fear of the mad creature that seemed to be assailing him. The focus returned and he made out the swarthy features of Diana. She was smeared with blood and mud and her blouse was ripped. He did not want to imagine what she had faced on the road.

"Freddie. Get me out of these," she cried. She was ripping and tearing up her clothes and the sun that slanted through the blues and greens of the stained glass, lit up her naked form like a water nymph on the bed of the pond. She grabbed his hands and pulled them roughly onto her naked form to cup and embrace. As they sunk into the chaise longue, Freddie said a silent prayer that time would stand still and preserve them in the morning sunlight, like ancient insects embedded in amber.