Paul Kingsnorth - Beast

when i have tied my boots i go through the door out into the yard again i don’t take anything with me there is nothing to take with me. i stand listening in the cloud it moves around me like it is alive this cloud i stretch out my arm and i can just see my hand i rise up into the air and i keep rising with my hands outstretched either side of me up through the cloud up and up through the solid hill of cloud until i rise above it. all is blue up here all is so blue and the great yellow ball of fire in the sky is coming down on me and i look down onto this great rolling carpet of cloud and through it i see the yellow eyes of the cat and down i go i fly down through the cloud and i stand in front of the cat and it looks at me right into my eyes. yes. that is what i thought.

but how am i going to find the cat. where do i go how can i possibly know anything here. when i can just see my hand how could i possibly walk without stumbling without becoming lost forever if i walk out there surely i can never come back surely i will never find my way back to this place. but what do i have here anyway a broken window an empty matchbox a cold fire no food. the cloud is in the house now. i am going to walk and i am going to find it.

perhaps i have been standing here for an hour.

i can wait as long as i need to wait i can wait here the cloud moves around me as if it is exploring me sniffing me out becoming comfortable with my presence on these old stones. i feel like i have been standing on these old stones forever.

and there it is. i knew it would come there is the cry through the cloud there is the call on the moorland slopes. the sound of the cat high above me.

there it is again the long high keening of the creature. where is it coming from somewhere to the south i think. i wait perhaps another three minutes or four there it is again the long high call as soon as it begins i uproot myself from the stone and i walk towards it. i walk into the cloud until i am brought up against the drystone wall and i feel my way along to the right until i come to the wooden gate. i unlatch it and go through it i don’t bother to close it behind me it is too late for that. i walk down the track as fast as i can i can see enough of the track in front of me to keep moving. i hear the noise again it is still ahead of me but it is very distant. i come down to the stream and i splash through it the water is icy on my ankles and my calves. i open my mouth i lie down in the stream and let it flow over me and let it flow through me until i am ice. i keep walking until the track turns left i know where i am the track here heads down to the valley but i’m not going that way i am sure the noise came from ahead of me from up on the tops. i strike out on a slight thin path through the heather if the cloud weren’t down i could follow this path easily in the cloud i can only see heather a few yards in front of me all around me a circle of heather pink and purple flowers with tiny droplets of water on them. my wet trousers push through the heather. everything is silent now i think i am still heading towards the sound but the cat never stays still it never stays anywhere it is never where you expect it to be. it is ridiculous to follow the sound it is ridiculous to look for it i could walk this way for ever but it is too late now to stay at home.

in a building she stands before me and there is cloud between us. well she says i suppose you must do what you need to. i know what you think i say i know how it sounds i know god is dead i know he has been killed with everything else. i know all the parts have been taken out and are lying around on the carpet and now we are all free to be unhappy alone i know there is nothing holy now. perhaps i am circling it because it looks stupid to the people who take everything apart but i think there are things deep in some people which won’t be taken apart i think that none of the things which make us move in the world can be pictured. the thin track through the heather is taking me upwards now up onto the slopes that lead to the shoulders of the moor. it must be ten minutes twenty maybe thirty since i heard it i think i am still heading in a straight line. the cloud takes away everything you think you know about where you are. well you do what you must do she says you go if you must but if you do not come back soon we will learn to live without you and you will lose her and me you will lose both of us forever. i hate her sometimes she sees through me she gives me no room at all christ her love fills me with shame. christ’s trouble is that he’s all human. where are the bears running through his bloodstream where is the sky and the water in him. he’s all about the people you are god’s chosen make the earth yours subdue it until it squeals what is underneath this what is beneath the waters. a man clad in gold stands in a wood and stares at me while strange birds wheel all around him. if you stare into the cloud long enough you can see shapes faces times a silent hunt riding above you fingers and claws the moving lips of lovers boats heading out to sea feathers and shells bees and blades vines and creepers growing from the sockets and the openings. it rises from the ground and sings to me and falls back under. i could walk this way forever.

i keep walking up my boots laced tight my feet and ankles cold and wet the heather rasping against my trousers at every step. i walk on and the silence and the stillness of this cloud and its closeness makes it all feel as if i am nowhere at all. i could walk this way forever i don’t suppose anybody else would ever see me at all.

there is the sound again ahead of me and to my left and still far away i wonder if it is further now. i begin to walk faster one foot in front of the other up the tiny track through the heather and i keep walking and then suddenly the track ends and i step out onto a road. it is solid asphalt it stretches to my left and to my right off into the cloud there are no markings on the road and there is no traffic. i step out onto the centre of the road where now which way now. i decide to walk to the left i walk along the edge of the road and the sensation of the solidity the managed flatness under my feet is strange to me. i can’t hear the cat. i wonder what to do i keep walking will i find the track to the house again now in this cloud how will i find it. then in front of me i see something rising in front of me on the other side of the road something is looming out of the cloud. i keep walking slowly towards it. it is a great rectangular shape as i move closer i can make out windows chimneys outbuildings.

it is a grey stone building it has an empty stretch of asphalt to its left with giant concrete cubes blocking the entranceway. there are grey metal shutters all over the windows with small round holes in them and the door is barred and padlocked i walk up to the door and rest my hand on the cold metal i make my way all around the building to the back following the walls with my hands in the cloud. there are some old sheds there and a barn with an arched doorway and a small garden with picnic tables. everything is weedy and overgrown. someone has forced the metal shutters off one of the ground floor windows here i’m able to push open the window and put my head inside. it smells of must and feathers shall i should i yes it is impossible not to accept this invitation.

i squeeze my way through the half open window into the inside of the building. i drop to the floor in a pile of pigeon shit there are spiders in the corners it is a tiny dank room i have landed in but there is a door to a bigger one. i walk through the door there are tables and chairs and a bar with handpumps there are old barrels lying in the corners it is dark but hundreds of pinpricks of light are coming in through the grey metal shutters on the windows they are like eyes the pinpricks of light are like yellow eyes looking at me from the outside. i should not be in here i can’t look at the eyes i can’t look at the shafts of light coming through they are like lasers they come through the windows and they land on me and each one burns me like acid. no this is terrible it should not be like this nobody told me about this. i need to find a place where the eyes of light will not land on me i run and crouch down behind the bar where it is dark there are plastic ashtrays scattered around on the floor and transparent pipes that come down from the pumps on the bar and disappear into the floorboards there is a brown plastic crate of empty beer bottles beside me. the light can’t get me here the eyes cannot see me. but it is too much for me to be in here how will i get away from this place if i stand up the eyes will see me but then i wanted the eyes to see me that was what i wanted wasn’t it it is so confusing in the cloud. i decide to make a break for it i hold my breath and then i scuttle on my hands and knees like a giant cockroach from the bar into the back room where the shafts of light from the metal shutters cannot come i almost trip over my own hands i think i feel one of them touching my skin on the way but it’s fine. i am fine. i reach the small dank room and i run now to the window and i force myself back up and out through the crack into the curling cloud.