Empty - the Devil and all his friends...

We get big skies on the Llyn - big skies, big winds, big rains, big landscapes. The peninsula sticks out into the Irish Sea like a broken leg surrounded by water, not quite an island – and there are giants and giantesses in the mountains. They throw rocks around, littering the landscape with their monoliths and cromlechs. It can be an empty, dangerous place, even more so when the thinking is upon me.

Sometimes, when the thinking is there I cross the lane, climb the step-up stones to the field and stand looking upwards under the big empty sky until its emptiness fills me up. I hate the empty feeling but it’s better, easier, than letting the fullness that threatens to engulf me build - filling me up to bursting, battering inside, demanding itself out. I stand arms outstretched, face upward, buffeted by wind, becoming void.

And, after a while of an age, fullness out and empty in, I walk back across the lane the hollow man.

Ready for sleep, I dream.

I’m at the hill and the moon is bright. The stone doors aren’t where I expected, so I simply walk into the hill through the turf and soil, roots and worms passing through my flesh and on into the chamber in the soul of the hill. They are all there – Arthur, his men, their horses, Merlin, Odo, Simsan and his wife, Maer, my Grandfather at his anvil beating on a long, glowing blade – and in the corner, towards the back, the Devil and all his friends sitting at the table, talking quietly, laughing, dealing, congratulating each other.

I see my Grandfather glance towards me, he shakes his head and continues with his work, heavy hammer falling, falling, falling. I look to Mair, no smile, no tear - she simply turns away towards the sanctity of the wall. The horses snort and spook nervous, ready to run – but where? Arthur and his men, each a statue, look forwards as Odo, Simsan and all the other Giants and Giantesses focus their tearful, bulging eyes towards the earthen ceiling above.

Only Merlin watches as I walk towards the empty chair and take my seat at His table.

His Counter makes the tally, ticking me against his column of souls. They are talking, the Scribe recording the conversation, hot red, in his record. In the shadow behind the Devil, his Talker sucks in each and every word, storing them up for her future use. A single sword is drawn, held high by His champion, the New King, His favourite boy - and then there are the others, the necessary small evils, of which I am only one - but one.

The Devil and all his friends waiting to take my emptiness and fill me again with their thinking and thoughts.

Where, inside this hill, is the big sky now? Where, oh where, am I?