He is standing in a wooded valley by a river. The land around him is not flat. The narrow valley rises steeply on each side and is made up of rocky outcrops and mature but small oaks, beeches and the occasional mountain ash.

All these trees are self-seeded and have grown unevenly in the thin soil. The sunshine casts deep shadows on the ground.

There is no wind.

His eyes scan the view in front of him as though he is searching for someone behind a rock, in the river or hidden in the undergrowth.

Keeping his face to the view for as long as he can, he slowly and purposefully turns his body so that his back is to the view – his head being the last part of him to turn away. He stands like this for some minutes, facing away from the scene. He appears to be talking quietly to himself.

Eventually, he reaches into a deep pocket and pulls out a flat circular metal case with a lid, which he opens. It contains a small circular convex mirror or lens that is tinted blue.

He raises it upwards and holds it in front of his face so that he can view the scene he has just discovered. Immediately, the scene is transformed. The curvature and tint of the glass drag the foreground into a dark frame to the left, right and bottom of a lighter and smaller middle distance, with a single tree growing out from a rocky shelf, and a paler far distant valley set against a triangle of evening sky.

He continues to talk quietly and carefully as though addressing a child, and these are the words he speaks:

Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,

ut prisca ens mortlaium,

paterna rura bobus exercet suis,

salutus omni fenore;

nec exciatur classico miles truci,

nec horret iratum mare;

forumque vitat, et sperba civium

potentiorum limina.

Ergo aut adulta vitium propagine

altas maritat populos;

inutilesque falce ramos amputans,

feliciores inserit …

Small black flies surround his head and land on his ears, his eyes and his lips, but he appears neither to notice nor to mind.

Slowly first but then more profusely, blood begins to trickle from both his nostrils and down across his lips and onto his chin. From here it drips onto a white and embroidered linen garment he is wearing at his throat, eventually staining it a full deep burgundy red.

Cliff McLucas