I run across the frozen heath. Blades of glass shatter beneath the soles of my naked feet. I am a red blur. The land shrinks from my warmth. It shrivels at my alien touch. Once I belonged. No longer.
Exiled from the frozen islands, finally forbidden from that dark waste, girded by cold and lifeless seas. Now making haste down to the bony shores, now easing my skiff into blackened waves. Point the bow towards hospitable terrain. Allow the fierce chill to fill that dingy sail. Weathered canvass creaks in anticipation. The ocean is of glass; too smooth, far too easy.
I lay crippled, hemorrhaging, as we carve our way over the placid surf. In agony and delight. The most beautiful pain. I'll not return to sun kissed shores the same. I cannot. Before I make land a new kind of man will stand at the stern. Steady hand on the rudder, proud, clear eyes refreshed by the beauty of his new world. Host, no longer, to the parasitism of ancient and hungry ghosts. Impossibly cured of the deep malaise, the sickness of the soul, but cured nonetheless, and eager.
The red eye climbs above the horizon and with it, color returns.
