A few rugged years have passed in Zanzibar's life...
It all began with fires...
Fires through his beloved mountain...
Fires stamping out all the green
all the sanctuary
of his little retreat...
He felt he did not need to seek a desert to wander
the desert had come to him...
a not so welcome visitor...
Where did 3 years go...
It had all become a blur of
numb nights and
numb days
alone
lost
Where DID a whole 3 years go...
He so longed to be that wizard
he once was...
but that could never be
he was no longer that wizard
he needed to find a new pathway...
but what
where
and most of all
how
it hit him hard today
his creator's birthday
he just couldn't let it pass
again
something needed to be done
his creator had been a wild child
that few really knew
he had a gift
that he rarely shared
a storyteller
and Zanzibar knew that without him
he, Zanzibar, wouldn't even exist
(not publicly anyway)
what the storyteller didn't know
was that Zanzibar had always kept an eye on him
always
Zanzibar remembered Katoomba days
in the Blue Mountains
he saw his creator
explore the secret crevices of the town
poky art galleries
dishevelled bookshops
and one special day
when he explored old Carrington Hotel in the main street...
my creator danced up the old, crumbling stone steps
past a bronze statue of Pan
and peered through smeared windows...
he saw workmen inside...
new timbers
carried past sad old grand stairways...
he longed to go inside and explore...
it was then my creator told her
how he imagined this grand old lady
in the years after 1883...
especially the early 1900's
she must have shone with beauty
he mourned that she became derelict from the 1980's
neglected
unloved
undervalued
forgotten
but now he felt excited
perhaps the old lady
could be grand again
It was then that I saw my creator in a new way...
I could see these very attributes in him...
to some extent...
His blatant showmanship
his raw logic...
That wasn't really my creator at all...
He was insecure...
Not confident that what skills he had really mattered...
He feared being small...
And so he performed
dreaming of and activating weekend escapes
taking her with him
showing her evidence of his inner worlds
that he could not put into his own words...
That explains why he never wrote down his stories...
That explains why she determined
that somehow
she would write them for him
that somewhere
someone
may notice
Aaaah
Now I'm smiling
I see the new Zanzibar
She and I will create together
(as really we have been doing for a few years now...
silly me)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAY
