It's Still Life

Beyond an Intersection Named After an English King and a Saint
Six Sentence Story: Day 1

Road Trip: The Devil’s Dyke

“… the proof is in Devil’s Dyke,” I say.

Nick, Hünga and I are in an open meadow, looking down at a deep V-shaped groove in a hill, “The story goes that the Devil said he’d dig a trench with his tail, and punish the new Christian converts by flooding Sussex with seawater, but a nun and a hermit, (his name is Cuthman; I don’t know her name), made a wager with the Devil that if he finished this task before sunrise, the Devil could take Cuthman’s soul, but if the Devil failed, he’d go away and never return to Sussex again.”

Nick leans into his cane, looking quietly at the wide view of green fields and villages scattered about with their thousand-year-memories, “It’s like a landscape painting, this view,” he says, and I suspect that the Gatekeeper observes every ripple in a stream, every wandering leaf and every twilight fading hill, and keeps it all in his head, “Beautiful,” he says softly,

“ …and then what?” he refers me back to the Devil and his tail.

“Hours before the sun climbs out of the east horizon, the nun lights a candle and Cuthman-the-hermit starts crowing cock-a-doodle-doo like a rooster, and the devil thinks the burning candle is the rising sun, and that the rooster is announcing morning, and off the Devil flees, never to return – sort of like one of Hercules’s labours with those Stymphalian Birds.

We stroll back to the car through wildflowers tall and weedy, whites and opal-pinks that brush against our knees, bees up and settling down again on tuneful wings, and the salty scent from the sea reaching us from the other side of the hill … and my heart is light that Nick hasn’t, as some might, suggested that there is nothing in this meadow but grass and trees; Devil’s Dyke is the proof of his measure … (and a friendship unspoken).

Nick calls for Hūnga who comes running like a shadow of velvety black through billows of pollen – he is the battle-ready King without fury or harm in his heart, and he lies between us in the cool grass, his head on Nick’s foot like an angel’s feather, and I rub the top of Hünga’s head (and think to myself, ‘Here’s lies the King, so where’s the Saint’).

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Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, including the word “shadow” Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2024.