Member-only story
The Windmill-My First Encounter
Displaced landscapes are what they call them.
Of course, I didn’t know that back then. I was too young, and we didn’t have twenty-four-hour access to all the information in the known world.
I was seven, the first time I found one. I hadn’t even realised at the time… You see, Mum and Dad had gotten into a big fight. They’d been arguing all day (at least, that’s what it felt like) and I’d spent all day hiding upstairs in my room, trying to drown out their voices but nothing worked. Not even the loudest music on my Walkman, with the volume turned right up.
In the end, I just couldn’t stay and listen to them anymore, so I snuck out and went across the back garden and over the fence. There’s a path there, probably mostly worn down by me, going on countless walks into the countryside beyond.
I broke into a run across the field, and into a little copse of trees, before slowing down, as I gasped for breath. The path was so familiar to me; I’d walked it so many times. That’s why it confused me when I saw it on that day. I know these hills. I know this woodland. I know this landscape. How can I have just not noticed this windmill… it’s not exactly as if it’s something small and innocuous.
