North Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland

No Time to Die - Special Post

I was awoken on Fair Isle in the small hours for a MEDIVAC—Roy Batty, an old crofter, my sole passenger, sat silent as we readied for flight. The urgency of the mission hung in the air, but Batty’s calm was unsettling, his eyes intense and searching, fixed on the night beyond the windscreen. He is silent.

Shetland to North Ronaldsay, Mid-Flight)

Roy suddenly speaks:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Peerie towns an’ villages at nicht, alive wi’ fire an’ shadow, spread oot below like gems in the mirk.
I’ve watched storms roll ower the voe, lightning skirlin’ low, closer than you’d ever daur.
I’ve felt the machine flicht, the horizon tilt, as we slipped atween worlds—land and sea, nicht and dawn.
A’ those moments, a’ those sights—lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time tae land.”

We touch down on EGEN.

I shut down. Batty steps toward the waiting ambulance, head bowed. He releases a bird into the night—it vanishes in the dark. I watch, silent; Batty’s fate unclear. The bird is gone. Rain falls, soft and steady, blurring the world.

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And after all that, one thing stays with me: where did he find a bird?Read more