5:7

There is, he thought, the old solution. The one that cures all ills. At least for the moment.

While all this change and turmoil and dedication to freedom had quite revised his basic outlook, much of the old still clung to him like an old, worn, familiar cloak. And so with a shrug and a twinkle he smiled and pulled the silver-chased flask from that not-so-metaphorical cloak, spun the top off with practised ease and partook of a healthy swig. “Elixir,” he murmured. “Elixir indeed.”

He gave his head a little shake at the strength of his taste buds’ reaction to an old friend and took one more long swallow before spinning the top back on and slipping the worn container back whence it had appeared. “I think,” he began, “I think I shall enjoy this. I think I shall just bloody well sit here and enjoy this.” His voice was rising to thunderous levels. “I do believe I shall take this time for myself, you bloody bastards!” he shouted, although even he had no idea who these bloody bastards might be or whether they even existed outside of his own paranoid delusions.

Taking a deep gulp of air he stretched his arms out to the sides and threw his head back. “I shall take now, you soul-sucking parasites. I shall decide.” And then, so quiet as to be a mere breathe to the inattentive: “I decide.”

He bowed his head and drew his arms back in to wrap himself tight. “I shall wait.”

Then he lifted his chin and stared across the plain, eyes absorbing the play of sunlight across the grass, the patterns of clouds racing along the hillsides, the play of colour and texture as a distant river wound its way towards the glimmering body of water that took up half of the horizon. His ears opened to the sound of the wind ebbing and flowing across the features of the land, to the distant calls of birds floating unseen in the endless sky, to the brief, tiny moments of utter silence that punctuated the life he beheld in those moments he waited.

In that moment, in a odd sort of way, he regretted that drink for stealing even a little of this from his mind’s eye. It was in truth more glorious than any of the petty fears of imagined injustices. It was more heady than the rarest of brandies. It was, he admitted to himself, quite simply the real reason to be. To be here in this moment truly did justify all the other moments, for without them, there could be no now.

And so he took the time for himself. He breathed and he gloried. And took all that the world was prepared to give him. And you know, that was quite a lot.