Free Beast by Paul Kingsnorth Page B

morning mugs of water I realised what it was. The air was cooler. It had been so hot and still for as long as I could remember but today it was not so cloying. Through the window I could see that the sky was still a uniform white but I could see something else as well: tiny spots of water on the glass. I looked down at the areaof stone floor directly under the hole in the roof and I saw that it was darker than the stone around it and that it glistened.
    I went to the door and opened it and stepped out into the yard. It was still warm but nothing like as hot as it had become recently. And it was raining. There was a drizzle a slight fine silent drizzle almost like a mist descending. I could feel the drops on my skin the tiny drops of water but I couldn’t hear anything. It was so fine such a fine drizzle and it was a joy. Something was happening. The sky was still alive. The ground in the yard was damp and when I ran my fingers across the door handles and the windowsills they were damp too. In the night a gentle rain had begun so gentle that I had not heard or sensed it. I hoped it would continue. I hoped the rain would get harder I hoped there would be a downpour and that everything would be washed away.
    I went back inside feeling light. I realised how heavy I had felt for so long. Since the accident everything had felt like such a burden I had felt like something was clinging to my back but today I could step lightly again. I didn’t know why. I sat down and drank three glasses of water. Today I would walk the second grid. Judging from the map it would be a more interestingwalk than the day before. There were a couple of streams to cross and there were some hut circles with a ditch around them. It would mostly still be heather because everything was heather up here but at least something would break up the pattern. And today I would walk with a light step. It was fun. It would be fun. Everything was fun. Why not?
    I packed and set off down the track along the combe. I packed quickly because I was eager to be out in the rain. With my rucksack on my back I stood out in the yard and I spread my hands out and I raised my palms to the sky and I stood there until my muscles began to hurt so badly that I had to lower my arms again. I stood there and let the fine mist fall onto my hands and my exposed forearms and I turned my face up and the rain fell onto it the fine thin rain. The rain was warm like the sky and it was beautiful. It seemed to bring life with it and it brought the lightness that I could now feel inside me.
    I felt like skipping down the track I felt like dancing. I closed the gate and headed down the combe and I tried to skip I tried a merry dance down the track but my left leg would not stand it and I stumbled and fell. I fell onto my back and I lay there and laughed and felt the fine rain falling onto my face. How long had it been since I had laughed? It had been so long. I couldn’t remember ever laughing in my whole life. Perhaps I never had. I lay there for minutes giggling and feeling the water settling on me. Was there any reason I could not lie here all day laughing in the fine rain?
    When the laughter had run its course I lay there feeling empty and light. After a while I thought I should get up. I still had a job to do. I rolled over on my side to push myself up with my arms and I found myself gazing into the mat of grass and plantain and dock that grew alongside the track. I had never paid much attention to grass but now that I looked I could see that there were different kinds growing together entwined. There was a short wiry ferociously dark green kind and there was a kind with a long pale green stem with white seed heads at the end and a shorter kind with what almost looked like bright orange flowers on the top. There was every shade of green there were oval red seeds on tiny white stalks furring out from long stems there were flat blades and serrated needles everything was down here.
    All of these