Bardskull

by Martin Shaw

In the middle of watching stories I am being watched. There is something up there, on the ridge, looking at me. No, it’s not what you think it is, it’s not Death, at least not especially. No more than usual. But there’s something up there. It seems to be talking to itself, but the words are mangled. I just can’t make them out. When I was Numbskull I always thought someone was watching me. This watcher would leap benignly from behind a bush and inform me I came from another family, far away, and I had to leave, immediately, for some kind of sea voyage. It was all terribly important, and both they and I would require cloaks to pull the adventure off. Then you get older and you realise that no one’s eyes are on you most of the time. You’re not even in focus to the general public, just a kind of nervy blur. So finally, today, I am being witnessed. Isn’t this what I’ve been waiting for? It doesn’t seem so intoxicating now. This is not Jack in the Green, or Gerónimo, or a giggling Dalai Lama, this is some guy on a horse speaking backwards words to himself. I don’t have time for this. One thing I have learnt in forty-eight years is that there are certain things we need to turn our head away from. And I turn my head away from you. We don’t have to see everything that is out there to see. So I choose to not see you. You are a-blinded to me. Horseman pass by.