Norse God

The Poem

He pushed the wall with all his strength. Yet it was to no avail, he knew he would never escape. He could feel as the muscles in his arms and legs tore and shredded, shaking, burning and failing as his whole essence pushed against the massive cold bricks made of a stone unknown to him, yet recognised by everyone. He poured out his strength, his dignity, and his lifeforce, breaking his bones and mushing his brain. The stone ground the dry, coarse, thick skin off his fingers and palms, him feeling the painful sensation of the collective mass of millions and millions of grains of sediment, grinding against his fingers, ripping the skin, piercing his tired hands, pushing back against the tiny lumps of his bone and muscle, and then pushing more. He could feel the warm flow of blood oozing out of his tired restless body, gruesomely painting the wall in red paint, yet covering only the tiniest percentage, like a dove trying to cover the sun. Yet he still pushed, on and on, hoping to feel more, even just a bit.

But he would not. He was too exhausted.

His eyes looked at his ruddy fingers and palms, and the brown sooty souls of his feet, appearing so blurry in his vision, as if a cloud had covered them. They were too coarse and rough now, too used to the pain. Too thick and hard to feel the soft pleasure he wanted, to even notice it's grumbling. The soft pleasure he once knew so well, which once consumed him whole in the way that this wall now did. No matter how bloody his hands became, or how sore his feet were, or how much his arms ached, or how tired his back felt. He would feel it no more. The opportunity had raced past like a snail. The pig had flown away. The wall would not move.

He looked at the cold blue sky, hidden behind the immense grey bricks too high up to reach even if he jumped with the strength of all his life, watching over him like a giant. His heart sank at the memory of the sun, how distant it was, how much it stuck out in his mind. How much he missed it. How much stronger the feeling was when he thought of everything on the other side. How much the memories and feelings burned in his mind when he thought of it. The idol.

After a time too long spent the man stopped flowing his force into his arms and feet. He ceased to do. And he felt the cool harness of the massive wall built around him. It's immense body, surrounding him on one side, enslaving him, forcing him to go in only the other five directions. Keeping him locked out with everything he really needed, arrested by all the freedom he would ever have. He would need to stop eventually, even for just a bit.

The man closed his eyes gently, feeling the tiredness cover him like a blanket, and the restlessness sweep in like an eagle. He breathed in deeply, feeling the icy air sooth his battered and abused lungs which pumped all the energy he needed to expel onto the wall. He felt his pulsing heart slow down, his bursting veins pour slower, and his tired muscles begin to shake. He realised his weight now pushed against the wall since his hands and feet were now merely keeping him upright. He opened his eyes, then he inched his aching legs forward step by step, like a child with a remote controller, feeling each tiny step send a pulse of pain up the muscles into his body, and he stood up. He peeled his hands off the wall, feeling the shaking ligaments slowly pull themselves off the tiny crevices which had made themselves home buried in his hands, and once again looked at their ruddy rough texture. They shook for a second, unable to control themselves any longer, no longer even able to close, only able to twitch with pain, shivering so they wouldn't freeze off. And he laid himself down in the shadow of the wall, with only his misery to comfort him.

The freezing cold hard dirt of the floor made him crawl up like an scaly armadillo. The chilly air infected his tears, assimilating them into the environment that had seemed to develop in the shadow of the wall, making them feel like icy crystals rolling down his cheeks, hydrating his skin like the fountains that they were. The idea that his eyes could still tear brought him an odd comfort, making his sniffling all the more confused. Rejuvenating his lifeless body and soul. Making them twitch, showing some signs of life in the dark lonely void. At last, his body sighed, some rest. He closed his eyes.

The sweet melody of music filled the halls, bouncing off the walls like ecstatic song birds flapping their wings. A shared pleasure for the people within them, something so rare to him now. A feeling which he had had plenty of, but which had long ago worn out. He wandered around the warm blissful walls, feeding him, allowing him to go in one direction. Locking him in with everything he wanted, freed by all the choicelessness he would ever have. He was finally where he wanted to be. He was with it, he knew it was near.

The man saw a bright red cup placed thoughtfully drawing his view to it, near a kitchen he was certain was packed with food. Next to it was warm milk, sugar, and tea. He was tempted to drink the milk first but knew if only he waited, he would appreciate the full scale of what was intended better then what impulse had told him. He quickly looked through some of the bright green and red wooden cabinets lit in the warm dreamy incandescent light, appearing as if clearer than usual, and more bright. His eyes were met with biscuits, and chocolates, and eggs and hashbrowns and everything he could ever want. More importantly it was filled with boxes and boxes of tea and sugar. He went up to smell it. His nostrils loosened with the sweet scent of the fleshly dried leaves. Loose tea, tea bags, spiced, herbal, chai, weak, strong, even some lattes. He went up to a kettle full of water and began to fill his cup. He looked at it, how comically large it was. Like out of an old Sunday morning cartoon. He would never run out, he jokingly thought, but deep down, he knew that he already had. He switched it on. Quickly it began to hum and bubble. He put in his sugar and a teabag then filled the cup, pouring water from the massive kettle. The clear water, purified from being boiled, quickly turned brown as it was stained by the dry tea leaves, changed by something so small. Patiently he waited, before taking out the bag and pouring in the warm milk.

The man carried his cup around as he began to search for it. These walls contained what he sought. His energised and well rested legs as well as his inquisitive and curious eyes searched around the walls but wherever he went he was met by the sounds of footsteps leaving the room, as if trying to hide under the shadow of the music. He was carried around in its wake for a while before his eyes eventually found an old antique leatherback book resting gently on a coffee table in the warmed room in the house. The book convinced him to take a quick break, after all, it would eventually show up. He sat down on a soft comfortable couch, feeling the warm old cushioning yielding under his weight. The music softened and his mind sharped. The man's fingers traced the soft leather overarching the book's pages, keeping them safe. He placed the book down before reaching for his tea. He put the cup up against his mouth and began to sip, but to his surprise he was only met with cold emptiness. The tea was already gone.

The man's crusty eyelids opened, his eyes greeted with the cold sorrow of reality hidden behind the shutters of perception, his muscles aching even more after the break, having been given a chance to become sore. To add insult to injury, his mind was rested enough from the consuming work of pushing the wall so he could think for once, and not just feel, or at least pretend to feel. His dream wasn't unusual, he reflected, though maybe more comforting than most. It was a long time since his dreams actually contained it and not just the shadow, he thought.

He stared up at the wall, seemingly having grown as much as his muscles had gotten stronger and how much as his skin had become senseless. The sky was still cool and blue and clear apart from a few distant clouds. The wall was still chilly and grey and made of unknown giant stone bricks. And the floor was still dirty, hard, and freezing cold. His skin seared from the icy feeling, and went numb from being dormant too long, trying to syphon warmth from his body by laying underneath it, but instead just losing all feeling.

An old wooden ladder stood against the wall, leading over it, and stable enough to carry him. He stared at it. Staring so long it seemed to burn into his retina to the point that if he had looked at anything else, even it, he would still only see the old wooden ladder stood against whatever wall would follow him. His eyes had seemed to cover the surface completely, having watched every single millimetre, every single fibre, every single atom before he even had an urge to do anything, but finally, after a long deliberation of when to remove himself from the comfort of the cold hard ground, a choice so simple yet made in tired restless thought, causing it to strain over minutes which typically did not need to be spent. There was no decision, the man took the only action any rational person would take. He did what anyone else would do.

He got up, walked towards the wall, and placed his thick coarse hands on the cold stone bricks and started to push.