Day 19 - Off road

I am standing in a road
and I'm wondering how I got here.
All my clothes are drenched in sweat
and my heart is thumping quickly.

Is this beating due to fear
from some terror that I've met.
Has my mind blanked out some sickly
gruesome scene from off this road.

I resolve that I won't let
this strange fear take me completely.
But the cause is still untold.
Does the danger still lurk near?

On my feet the mud is thickly
splattered. How does this unfold?
For no answers are there near
and my mind's in panic set.


I pause
         and look around.
dry fields
         lie left and right.
Nothing
         else except
a hill
         above the road.

My breath
         returns to me,
heartbeat
         is steady now.
But where
         on earth am I?
And what
         has just occurred?


I resolve to climb the hill
though the going is quite rough.
My limbs feel slightly ill
and I've fairly had enough.
But I persevere to reach
the hill crest whence I look down.
And I just make out a beach
and beside it a small town.
And towards this town I drift
treading lightly as I go.
And the mist begins to lift
and the past I start to know.

I remember  there were people chanting .
Who wore painted masks to hide their faces.
And they made me drink a potent potion.
And they took me to some unknown places.

I approach the scene  in muted silence.
This small town somehow seems to know me.
There's a wedding on in the main square
and the dressed up people turn towards me.

Then suddenly I see what happened.
The reason for my loss of space and time.
For last night was my send-off party
And all those ringing wedding bells are mine.