A Compelling Place (The Port of Azores)

By Dennis Siluk Dr.h.c The road leading up the hill to a spacey panted village, which seemed to be spread out from the foot of a hill above me to circling the top of the hill and then downward, served as the center of the town-let. Here donkeys were unloaded, and small cargoes sorted for delivery to whomever, if indeed there were merchants farther up the mountain, or down the other side. I was left alone, as I climbed the heart of this peak that extended out of the Atlantic Ocean, as if it belonged to the tips of Atlantis, whispering awe to my alternate mind, of the mysterious volcanic ridge underneath it. I looked beyond the limits of the town-let and the mountain peak itself, and saw between the hills, the colorful sun reflecting off its Atlantic waters, it was 1976. As I turned about I found myself facing a speeding car coming down the dusty and hard dirt roadway, a sporty kind of car. The car stopped and I heard a sweet peremptory voice asking, "Are you intended for the island?" I turned to find myself facing a lovely, good-looking woman stout woman, with long black hair, in colorful clothing. "I live here in a dwelling on top of the hill," she replied, "did you just come in from the plain at the airport below at the military air base?" Come the woman's additional reaction, to the curious moment. I stood there in a kind of bewilderment, ignoring the question, "Come" she said, "I'll give you a ride down the mountain?" But I was going up the hill. She then noticed being a stranger with no luggage, must have figured I was taking advantage of the short delay in the refueling of the plane that just had landed at the small military airport below us. "My name is Sergeant Chick Evens," I said, "and yes, I'm just kind of sightseeing as the plane refuels." "People fall of this cliff-road, you must be careful as you reach the top, but by the time you do, the plane will be long gone!" She reminded me. From what I could see, it all was a tightly knit town that stretched from the near the summit where I was, the outer boarder, to the top to the hill, or the peak of the mountain. And then perhaps proceeded down the other side of the hill until it coiled around the hill to the back of the airport. And I wanted to stay for some odd reason, negotiate with the young lady, whose face showed deed thoughts, trying to dig into mine. I was twenty-nine years old then, she was not much older, if not younger. And so I did get in the car, and she drove wildly down the road, and all the other good places I had known become disconsolate for that brief moment in my life. I had wished for a flash, to have made myself a part of the brotherhood of this most desolate, and mostly uninhabited, compelling place. As I sat on the plane heading to Germany, a simple explanation was received into my alternate mind in silence, as if left there by the woman of the Port in the Azores, to forever ponder, received as if by clairvoyance, in a long moment of hesitation, marked by her deep-set eyes, which seemed to express the quiet exaltation of the town- And I seemed to carry fugitive thoughts, the island had a kind of intellectual power far surpassing others I had been on, and I had wondered, and still do wonder if I could have held a place amongst them. No: 1031/11-5-2014 Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dennis_Siluk_Dr.h.c. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8797121