- Vol. 01
- Chapter 12
Tectonic Love
Dearest Clementine,
I have left France. I am staying in Snowdonia, in a little stone house in the shadow of the mountains. I can’t face going back to our London flat, everything reminds me of Albert. Two months since his death. Here, I have been having the strangest rêves. Albert visits me on a nightly basis, whispers himself into my dreams.
Last night, I found him settled in the enigmatic mountains, perched in the peaks like an eagle. He was half man, half geological landform; my tectonic love.
“Darling”, he murmured into the pink of my ear, “It is up here that the birds fly, the kites sing; we seek to meet the gods”.
He carried on explaining about how mountains were born from earthquakes and plate shifts, new earth rising from broken land. I was so happy to see him. But, all the while, blood was flowing from a ruby necklace that was settled on his chest, seeping into the stone. I knew this was Albert dying and I wanted to stop it. I wanted to stop that blood, tear the jewel from around his neck, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t ….
Tectonic Love
Clementine, did you know that during the French Revolution, they built hundreds of mountains in towns? Men, women and children in Mountain Committees piled up earth in public squares across the French Republic. The mountains were symbols of the new society, summits rising up from nowhere.
Tomorrow, I am going to walk up Snowdon. The name in Welsh Wyddfa means tumulus, a burial mound. I will go and sing my song for Albert,
Best to you darling. Kiss the baby,
Bises
Aunt Dorothea.