Tobias Teschner, Brook Hsu at Lady Helen

‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.‘

Night falls, slowly, creeping, creeping up behind them, dark and drear. The horizon offers last glimpses of dusty blue and lilac. The bright tint of the sky, a shape shrinking into dusk. Shadows are cast long, distorted, hunting, haunting.

Hooves on the soil softly, rhythmically. Bass tremor glazed with the sound of gravel, crushing parts of the sensitive tissue. Then softness again. Gathering speed, the galloping motion– stretching and contracting–physically forces air into and out of the lungs like bellows.

Their eyes watering. Teardrops forming in the corners, streaked across their temples. Brows furrowing, rows of wrinkles tightening, the accelerating pace of the journey, the dashing wind in the darkness. Clenching fists. Closer and closer the tiny rectangular lights come. A promise, reeling in yonder.

The last of the firmament’s light caught in a pond as they are passing. A cold even blue on a stark surface, allegedly solid. For a second the impulse to test, to dare its sturdiness, like a second on the cliff edge, suction.

The slick surface bounces back sound and sight, propelling them, compelling them, forward, forward. Hunched, hunted. But once past the water, the tremor–reverberating again–seems like silence. The rhythmic forward motion feels like retreat. Deflating. The tiny rectangular lights no closer. The promise behind the window sashes no closer. Not within reach.

‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.‘