Embellishments are not farfetched

A whisper echoes out of the darkness. Its voice is rough and… and frightening. ‘Embellishments are not farfetched.’

I look around into the dense dark of night to try to see who, or what, was talking to me, but its identity was shrouded by midnight.

‘Embellishments are not farfetched,’ it whispered again, so close to my right ear that I spun on my heels so quickly, I almost fell over.

‘There… did you hear that?’ my mind warned about this unseen danger in whispered tones.

‘Yes mind, I heard that, where do you suppose it’s coming from?’

‘Embellishments are not farfetched.’

‘Over there,’ screamed my mind, ‘Just beneath the canopy.’

I look towards the canopy and before I knew what was happening, my wanderous feet had dragged my defiant body towards the voice.

'What are you doing,’ my mind berated, ‘Why are you walking towards danger, we always walk the other way?’ Suddenly my mind gasps and asks the night, ‘What have you done with my human's body?’

As I neared the canopy, I heard the voice once again. Its tone had degraded into an almost unintelligible string of words, devoid of humanity, ‘Embellishments are not farfetched,’ it whispered one last time as I reached the canopy and pulled it back…

I didn't think about what I might find behind it. I wasn't really sure that there would be anything at all, and I couldn't for the life of me shut my mind up. I stepped into the lean-to that the canopy kept hidden, and there in one back corner, squatting on the ground with its head in its hands, weeping, was a heaving, distorted form.

I walked over to it, knelt before it and lifted my hand to run over the top of its head to try to ease its pain.

As I ran my hand over, I cooed, ‘It will be alright, there, there, don’t cry. Tell me what’s wrong, and we’ll see if we can fix it together.’

While speaking, my mind was screaming at me, ‘You’re a fool Karen… don’t do that… just back away… you don’t know what the fruck it is… If I had legs, I‘d RUN NOW!‘

The heaving form, squatting in the back corner of the old lean-to, once more spoke, and this time I heard the words in such a fearsome clarity that I almost listened to my mind.

‘Embellishments are not farfetched,’ It spoke and then it began to lift its head from its hands. As it raised up, I saw who it was.

It was me.

I stood face to face with myself for what seemed like hours, when the me that had been squatting in fear at the rear of the canopy, lifted its right hand and pointed to something just to the left of us, and as I looked, it spoke those words again, ‘Embellishments are not farfetched.’

As I looked to where the other me had pointed, I had a sudden urge to run as the me who had seen what I now saw moved into my body, and catching up with myself, I moved to the rear of the lean-to, lent my back against the old wooden pole, and slowly slid down along it until I sat squatting.

Just before I put my head in my hands to try and stem the flow of tears, the thing… that thing… the one thing that now haunts me, sat defiantly to my left, but my mind captured its image and does not allow me to forget it.

It was a Ford.