Violet Mists

There was once a girl whose mind ran so fast she could not catch it. Over hills and dales and through blackberry thickets they traveled. The further and faster they ran, the more and more they both unraveled. Until she was wearied by sleepless nights and her mind was pulled apart by thorns and branches, leaving scattered, silver thoughts across the countryside: rare and soft like unicorn hair. The long hours bled into each other, until red day and blue night dissolved into violet mists. She could not see but knew she could not stop. Until, one violet hour—if hours and minutes and time still existed—she tripped and fell and landed on her own tangled insights and epiphanies and nightmares and dreams. They felt rare and soft like unicorn hair. They were silvered by flying time. And she finally thought to ask, “Why are you running?” Though the air was still, a melody drifted through the violet mists like bluebells shaken by a red wind.

 “Why are you chasing me?” asked her thoughts. The mists cleared. Her mind was no unicorn. It was a sleek and powerful hound, a hunting dog, and it had caught the scent of inspiration on the red wind. “I will always return to you,” said the hound. “And, when I return, I will bring back my prey for you to eat.” And so, she understood. Her mind was not trying to escape—it was working to keep her alive. She struck a bargain with the hound: it could run and run and chase and chase, and she would not pursue, so long as it returned in the nights and curled up by her side. Together, they wrote, together they picked apart their quarry instead of themselves and grew strong. And the violet mists had separated into blue night and red day. But now—in the blue night there was a red fire she had made to keep them warm—and when the red day came, her hound drank from the blue water running beside their home, stretched, and sniffed the air.