Hev99 Week 4 Entry: Losing Track of Time

Hev99's Choice: Pic 1

Title:

Losing Track of Time

The metal beneath my feet was warm, heated by the midday sun, as I walked along it. My toes splayed out and curled around the old disused railway track in order to keep my balance as I raised my face to the heavens, allowing the hot sun to warm me to my bones. The breeze fluttered and danced around me as I continued along the track, my sandals held in my outstretched hand, my feet preferring to be barefoot, enjoying the freedom it allowed them.

The day was perfect. My mobile phone was switched off and left at home and my watch was curled up on my desk because nothing spoke freedom quite so eloquently as a day in the countryside, losing track of time.

Tomorrow would be business as usual. Grey constricting clothing, grey building, grey seven by six cubicle, grey computer and grey conversations with people whose names were forgotten before the calls were even disconnected.

But today was bright. Today was freedom. Today was sunshine, colourful places and a complete absence of traffic sounds. Today was being far enough from the nearest road that the only sounds were the soft flutter of my loose white skirt in the gentle breeze, the birds squealing and wheeling in the clear blue sky and the gentle tap tapping of my bare feet on the long forgotten metal of the old railway track.

As the tracks rounded a bend an enticing, green field stretched out in front of me, the long grass swaying and dancing in the breeze, a dance that only nature could choreograph.

Stepping off the track I put my sandals back onto my feet and clambered as gracefully as ever over the stile and into the field, dropping onto both feet on the soft grass. Gathering my long, loose skirt in one hand I started to run, enjoying the feel of the wind in my hair and on my face as I turned it towards the sky, my eyes closed against the brightness of the sun. My running feet collided with multitudes of the dandelion clocks which grew in their thousands in the field, sending their fairy-like seeds flying onto the wind and whirling around me as I started to spin on the spot.

Exhausted and dizzy from all the spinning I eventually collapsed in a heap onto the lush grass beneath me. There I lay, flat on my back, watching the clouds pass by slowly and the sun move across the sky. Each cloud became a face, each face became a reality and before long I was people watching and imagining lives for the fluffy cotton balls in the sky. Each cloud person had dreams and aspirations, but unlike everybody else, they would see their ambitions fulfilled, not watch their dreams turn to dust as the world moved too fast around them.

All too soon the sun started descending to the horizon, the world growing dimmer and dimmer in it's failing light, until I could no longer deny that my day of freedom, peace and tranquility was coming to an end, and it was time to find time again. Reluctantly I gathered myself together and headed for home, where the real world would catch up with me once more. Walking homewards I gazed back at the old railway tracks, dreaming of the people it had once carried away, to new lives, new places, new adventures. The part of me I suppressed, the part that longed for more, for adventure and freedom, ached as I left it all behind and went back to real life, wondering how long it would be before I could once more lose track of time.