12.7.10

Rope

There’s a really tall animal walking on two legs over there. It hasn’t got any arms but it seems fairly happy, ambling along with what passes for a grin stretched across its wide face. He’s wearing a weathered bowler hat that could’ve been pretty stylish.

But that’s not really the point. The thing you need to know, if you aren’t here to see it for yourself, is that this creature has a length of rope tied around its waist which tethers it to another creature.

If you allow your eye to trace across the three metres of rope you arrive at the wrist of a small human-shaped entity. But it’s not a human like you might be. It’s more a suggestion of a human or a shadow or a ghost, maybe.

I’m not really sure it is there at all. I can see it but there’s something unnatural about the way it’s moving: the way its arms and legs seem to elongate occasionally, growing impossibly long and spindly before retracting and fattening, as it slides slowly across the baking sand upon which we are all standing.

The taller creature plods along obediently, never attempting to venture further than the rope would allow. So you might think everything is fine, but the exact nature of the relationship is a mystery. And it doesn’t look particularly appealing.

I keep watching as they slowly disappear over the top of a dune on the horizon, and then I realise…

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