I hugged into the rough stone as though I was it.
I kissed it, smelt it, whispered it.
I placed my ear along its heart and listened to its tales.

I didn’t like what I heard. Gory, bloody, base.
But, I could not tear away.

I was imprisoned by their memory and enchanted by the ruin.

I remembered a book read, years before.
A tale of first convict sluts and demons.
A tale of torture, heart break, lust and respect.
A tale written by an author who lived on the Island. Still. Colleen McCullough.
What was she running to? Morgan’s run? For me it was Bloody Bridge.

I listened for her voice. I listened for his. His was beaten down by the stone.

Her call carried across the pines planted by irons and it dipped into the bluest lagoon of sorrow and death.

Her call confirmed that this was the spot where convicts, chained and balled, were necessitated to shale the rock for building their prisons. In collecting, many failed to collect. They became shark food, or just drowned, held down by the weight of their transgressions.

Some enhanced the bluest hue ever with their Irish blue eyes as they looked out from their cemetery of scene divinity. Unmatched it was with the red of whale and coat of aggressor. Some lay beneath the bridge because they joined the aggressor.

Every where, the depression and the whispering were over bearing. It was breaking my heart. It was in my blood. I was the bridge. Bloody Bridge.

But the view. The view. No matter where I walked in Norfolk, the view tore down my ancestry smocks of sorrow. The shades of oppression and death became torn from my eyes and my heart rose like the sun itself.

The views on Norfolk Island were the most beautiful I had ever seen. The stories, the calling, the worst.



If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.