She looked back down the path
surveying winding steps
sea-wind buffeting her body
aggressive as the call
of ocean birds a-wing
above.
Slate-grey pebbles
wondrously uninteresting
skittered underfoot.
So many more to go, she thought
shouldering her pack.
+++++
The monastery emerged from stone
A sentinel rising silent
Awakened by her approach.
She paused, fingers digging for papers, pen.
Drawings scrawled across pages
Pen-scribbled over parchment
and she peered;
it was everything she dreamed,
everything that haunted,
hunted her through library stacks,
everything scribal artifacts breathed,
everything,
every story, every tear,
every blood-soaked page
marauders forgot and the scent
of acrid iron on hide-bound books.
Everything.
She looked, feasted on ancient stones
crumbling under her gaze
and ached.
It belonged in a museum,
but the scope
the scale
yawned bigger and wider
than any academic could hold
in archival hands.
Author’s Note 🌿
When I saw Scoot ‘s prompt this week, I knew I had to carve out time for it. The romantic idea of the academic adventurer, the Indiana Jones-esque researcher and explorer is near and dear to my heart, so I wanted to be sure to contribute. I had fun stretching the idea of the “historical artifact” to be a place rather than a thing — sometimes our forgotten places are just as much or more of a treasure than the things we can hold in our own two hands.
Thank you for reading. 🙂
❦ Heather
Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.
**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿