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Seeing

John Farquhar Young

    “Ah,” murmurs Fergus MacDonald, pointing with the stem of his ancient pipe towards the bands of vivid gold and mauve clouds stretched across the still blue evening sky. A sharp point of pure white light is moving rapidly from the west in the direction of Inverness, Elgin and the distant coastal towns of Scotland’s Moray Firth. “Aah,” he says again but now there is a note of sadness in the old man’s voice as the light hovers and fades as it descends.
    Peter, a young man standing at the door of the ancient cottage on the ancient croft turns to his uncle. “What was that?”
    “You saw it, did you?” The old man’s mood abruptly changes as he turns toward his nephew. In his appraising glance Peter sees again his mother’s eyes focussing on him - her special way of looking he came to think of it. But more than just looking, he later decided, more a sensing, a feeling around him and through him, with her eyes. At certain times when as a small child something odd caught his curious eye - a flickering movement or a strange fleeting shape - he would point and give a small cry of pleasure or surprise. Then she would place a reassuring hand on his head, bend and smile, whispering in his ear words in her ancient Gaelic tongue, the same words now spoken by his uncle:”...an da shealladh.”
    His uncle nods, his suspicions about his nephew’s gift apparently confirmed. “An da shealladh. The second sight. You have your mother’s gift to some degree.” Pipe in hand he points in the direction of the departed point of light. “Someone over there is spending their last hours in this world - whether they are aware of it or not. What you saw was a sign.”
    Signs! His mother sometimes talked of signs. She knew when his father, on a business trip abroad, died a continent away. That was a sign. Saw it in a dream, she told him; saw the scene before the news came through the following day; saw the time of her own passing, prepared him and told him to seek out his uncle afterwards.

    “Why did my mother seldom speak of you?” Peter asks. Questions about strange aspects of his life again surface in his mind but intuitively he knows that he must not press his reclusive relative too insistently. Take things gently, he tells himself. Events move slowly in these parts.
    Fergus smiles and draws a deep breath. “What was there to speak about? She knew very well how I spent my days and I had no fondness at all for city ways. But...” he pauses, chuckling gently “...we were never truly apart. We sensed each other and always knew what we had to know. I sensed her passing but sadly I was not able to...” His voice trailed off.
    They sit on a bench beside the cottage door watching the last gleams of the setting sun until Peter breaks the silence with the question which his mother never properly answered. “The second sight? An da shealladh. Tell me more about that.”
    His uncle draws on his pipe and chuckles. “Many have it but in different degrees. In you it is potentially very strong but as yet undeveloped and unreliable. That might change. With your educated Edinburgh mind you want to make sense of the things, you look in order to understand, to manipulate. When your thoughts are stilled you will become more conscious of an invisible realm - its presence. The loch untroubled by the wind will reflect the moon.” Then as though embarrassed by the pretentiousness of the words he laughs. “As some say.”
    “My mother was keen that I visit you after she passed away. She never told me why. She was sometimes very mysterious. “
    Fergus fiddles with his pipe then turns to his nephew, sadness in his voice. “Perhaps she wanted to give you a place to return to from time to time, a sort of refuge. Your world, the world of the city may become difficult for you - seeing the way you do.” He nods and is silent for a moment. “The contrivances of people, their shallowness and artificiality, knowing what you will know about them and about their fate - it may become difficult to bear. You may yearn for peace, for solitude.” He rises, and at the door of the cottage knocks out the contents of his pipe. “Your mother was strong, stronger than I am. Because of her love for you and your father she coped with the pressures of living in society - sensing the fates of the throng. You may not have her strength. An da shealladh at the highest level comes at a cost.”
    Often as he tries to advance his career as a lawyer, he recalls his uncle’s repeated warning. “Da shealladh. As it develops it can be a burden that is difficult to bear.” Sometimes a dark foreboding descends on him, and he knows that some tragedy will strike nearby, a serious traffic accident or a life-consuming fire; or sometimes, when he glimpses a sudden fleeting shadow or light hovering close to someone he takes it as a sign they are soon to be afflicted and to die.
    Whenever he can, he seeks the quiet of the hills and country to the west and south of the city. There, sitting beside a burn or river or gazing at the sky he senses another world, allowing its gently pulsing harmony to filter into his consciousness and envelop him.
    Years later: He sits alone outside his uncle’s cottage, now his. He looks at a friendly world unseen by normal eyes, marvellous, vibrant - and so, so welcoming. In the still blue evening sky, between clouds, vivid gold and mauve, a point of pure, white light is moving rapidly... towards him.

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