Marlowe's Season

Marlowe with an e; was a strange boy with an even stranger name.

Now, most people when they met Marlowe thought that he was introducing himself with his surname.

The truth was it was his first name.

As a quiet boy, he did not correct the mistake.

The world turns on misconceptions and Marlowe turned right along with it.

The name Marlowe means driftwood.

Like driftwood, he washed in with the tide and the winds.

It started around the third week of September.

The first leaves of Autumn would start to fall.

Then like the illumination of a candle he would just simply blink into existence.

Every year he would first appear as just a thought.

An idea travelling in on the storm.

This year he chose to be born in the banked mud underneath a bridge.

The first leaves of the season would start to gather here in clumps.

Twigs and flotsam would collect and slowly his corporeal form would start to assemble.

By the second week of October he would gather himself up and roll with the wind through the orchards and fields; collecting leaves and fallen apples.

By the last week of October, he was as tangible as any real boy.

He would run through the woods and dance in the puddles and shout at the thunder.

On one of these days when he was climbing the piles of felled logs he saw a lady crying down by a stream.

Going over to her and holding her hand he asked her what was wrong.

The woman told Marlowe her name was Baize and she was the mistress of the woods.

She was sad because she was out of balance.

The nights were now longer than the day.

When the darkness over took the light she felt the same happen inside her.

She wanted to live in the light.

Marlowe said that was easy we should go to the town of men.

The light of men burnt through the night.

They prepared disguises with what they could find.

Marlowe stole a sheet from the washing line of a nearby farm.

Baize made them two masks so no one would know they were strangers.

They waited until dusk and walked up the hill towards the town of Flintlock.

As the day disappeared a man with a long stick lit lanterns on posts throughout the streets.

The town twinkled like the moonlight on the river.

It was incredibly exciting and scary all at the same time.

Decorations, ribbons and flags were on all the houses.

Everybody was out.

Everybody was wearing costumes and masks.

Everybody said hello to each other and good evenin’.

Baize and Marlowe watched as they walked around and went up to each other’s houses.

At one house, two little people dressed like forest monsters and a big person dressed as a spectre, stood on a decorated porch and knocked on the door.

An old lady came to the door and stared at the three intensely.

The two monsters did a jig together.

The lady laughed and reached into a bowl and gave them something.

Then she closed the door and they left.

Marlowe pleaded with Baize for them to go to the door.

She reluctantly agreed.

Marlowe knocked on the door and paused.

The old lady came to the door, opened it and waited.

Marlowe said his very best good evenin’.

Nothing happened and the lady waited some more.

She looked disappointed and was just about to turn and close the door when something magnificent happened.

Baize sung.

Not any song, but something preternatural.

Imagine a tree with leaves made of crystal glass and a gentle breeze swirls in and out of its branches.

The leaves resonate as they strike each other, some fall making new sounds; some remain.

The breeze dances through the leaves in differing harmonies.

Well that was Baize’s song.

It was the sound of the colour bronze.

The woman’s face erupted with joy.

The people in the street applauded and cheered.

The town had been hypnotised.

The woman put the bowl of treats on the ground and Marlowe started to fill his pockets.

She re-emerged with two golden brown apples on sticks all shiny and glazed with sugar.

Baize took the apples thankfully and embarrassed by the attention; scurried off with Marlowe.

Marlowe and Baize sat on the wall at the cemetery.

They bit into their crystallised apples.

They were amazed by the flavour.

Baize nibbled and bit with grace.

Marlowe chomped and spread the candied goodliness all over his face.

Marlowe pointed at another house and looked with affection at Baize.

She shook her head and holding Marlowe’s hand walked along the road back out of Flintlock.

As they walked down the hill back to the stream and wood.

Marlowe saw the true magic of the evening.

Baize was revived.

She had a bounce to her step.

She had been recharged and her inner light had returned.

The darkness seemed to respond to her and as she walked beneath the trees into the wood; a subtlety to the colours and textures surrounding them emerged.

Throughout November, Marlowe would grow into a man.

The woods and the rivers became his world.

He would ride on the winds like a kite and chase the hunters out of the wood.

He would hide the deer and conceal the boar.

He would pick mushrooms with Baize and dance with her in the moonlight.

Life in November is good.

By St. Alypius Day the exertions of month were bearing a toll on Marlowe.

His body was feeling old.

It started with a small thing.

After running through the woods with the rabbits; he stopped to drink from the stream.

He passed his hand through his hair.

When he looked at his hands he was holding a clump.

Looking at his reflected face in the river he saw an old man look back at him.

By the start of December, the sands of time had taken effect.

As they fell so did Marlowe.

As the days passed so did he.

By the third week he was back in the mud beneath the bridge.

The passing current washing him more and more away.

Soon he was nothing but a collection of leaves.

As the last leaf drifted away.

Marlowe’s final breath escaped up into the air.

That final breath circled his realm.

It said goodbye to all he had accomplished.

Then feeling the moment had come; it transformed.

It became that first essence of Eira, his sister.

It brought her forth into the world.

She would have this domain now as her playground.

Marlowe would have to wait.

He would wait for almost a year.

Where he would be born again drifting back in on the tides and the wind.

Thank you for reading my story.

This is an original creation and being entered into a writing challenge called 'Bedtime Stories'.

This has the potential to be one of four stories, which could even be four stories of an even larger collection. The images are just stock images and original illustrations would be a vast improvement. If you found this post on social media I would love to hear some feedback from you so please give us your opinion about what I could do to advance the piece. I would also love to hear what any little ones in earshot thought about it.

I publish my stuff independently for no other reason that I would rather these strange ideas that rattle around my head from time to time have a place to go.

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I have more strange musings here, Enjoy. Currently though this is my only child friendly story so my other stuff is more mature, so you are forewarned.

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