A Herald to Apollo

by Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

cool fruit juice

Tall trees towered and lined the wide clean mudded courtyard pathway forming a canopy, veiling the trail from the world above. Their gently pointed leaves whispered and rustled in the subtle breeze that brushed through them and the well-kept grass, painted a perfect shade of lush forest green. The same spring breeze that fluttered the perfectly clear waters of the pond central to the grounds of this place. The waters rippled and waves lightly formed upon its translucent surface, as if waves in the ocean. Within the lake, a Brobdingnagian figure encased in pure gold emerged. Figures; horses; dolphins. Directly ahead, a man; a God. Rising towards the west, a mistake? An error of judgement? He had a large hunting horn pressed against his frozen lips as a herald to heaven. Thick metallic hair hung about his unfeeling eyes; eyes that could not see. At his right and left golden hands, two perfectly carved horses with oddly beautifully angry eyes; far exceeding the humanity of this living counter parts with a strangely angelic eminence. Their manes were stiff and refused to yield to the insisting power of the wind. Their bronzed muscular forms refracted the lowering sunlight which faded out between the trees. Many similar horses joined them; bucking and rearing. Perpendicular, two dolphins swam away from each other with mouths gaped wide open in warning perhaps? Their golden tongues gleamed and glistened as the solar luminance above dance and dallied as it dissented. Centering, a huge jet of water shot into the heavy, dewy, dusk air with the righteous fury if the tempest. Cold. Unnaturally cold.