540. Fugled

A few years later . . .


"Thoughts are tools Kyra," said Papa. "As are words. Learn to wield them," added Papa, making the motion of a whip above his shoulder, "skillfully, and the sea will bow before your brow and the sun will rise for your pleasure."

Kyra listened, her visage not of her age.

"Likewise, saddle the twin horses of pride and greed, and as the sun rises it will set and upon your heart will fall a darkness no hynerian can escape." Papa stood, his back to the rising sun, his head aflame in haloed light. "Now, listen very closely." Papa's tone turned from thunder to drizzle, a whisper pulling his precocious one to her toes. "There are two questions you should never allow far from your sight." He paused as a magician before the hat.

Kyra drew breath as one emerging from the sea, as if from his essence she could absorb every nuance of the teaching. Consciously, she eased back on her heels.

Papa tilted his head, and assured of his pupil's raptness, launched like lightning a snap of his fingers, a fire in the eye and said, "Question one: What are you running from?" Then, seeming to climb into the sky itself without leaving the ground, his knees moving forth with a power and grace, he continued. "This question, will hide like a shadow in the night. You must, must, hunt it down, every day."

Her eyes grew wide, round, resolute as steel upon the hammer. Still, she said nothing, allowing the wind to rustle as stagehands in the hush.

"Question two: What are you running toward?" Papa stopped, the sudden lack of histrionics more deafening than a thunderclap. The two stood, nose to nose, neither moving, the air charged.

"And when I ask those questions," said Kyra, "I will know that what moves is an illusion."

"Yes."

"And this is why you sit."

Papa smiled, extending his hands. Kyra curtsied, taking his hands. From the window, Grandma Kyra watched a dance of smiles. Leaning from the window, she said, "If you don't move, you don't eat. Dinner's ready."

Leaning over, Papa whispered, "There is one thing I know that moves."

"Your stomach?"

Papa laughed. "Besides that."

"What?"

His face tranquilled like the setting sun, the wrinkles of his brow disappearing as waves in the evening calm. "My heart. Whenever I see your grandmother."

539. Not Easy

John woke, covered in sweat, eyes morning fuzzy. Ariel stood beside his bed, her long white gown giving her the appearance of a small angel; her hands held together, forming a tiny vase. Two fresh flowers, petals white and bowed like floppy rabbit ears, stood still, observers.

The camera pulls back and both John and Ariel come into view. Pulling away toward the ceiling, the camera rotates three-sixty, music plays, neither character speaks. John sits upright, his face unreadable. Ariel stands statue still, her hair as primrose as her mother's, straight as a waterfall, flowing over the tops of her shoulders. Her eyes don't leave his, nor do they blink.

Soundtrack: Five for Fighting's Superman

538. A Ball and a Room

"Papa," asked Kyra, "why do you sit like that so much?"

Slowly opening his eyes papa smiled. "When you get my age, everything hurts. Sometimes it just feels good to do nothing."

"So there would be no reason for me to sit like that too." Kyra took her young finger and corkscrewed it into her cheek.

Papa erupted in laughter. "Come sit here with me."

"Is this show or tell, because you know how I feel about that."

"I do. So how about if I propose a compromise and we do a little of both, not too much of either, but, maybe, if you listen and watch really closely, just the right amount of both?"

Kyra tilted her head as she anchored her hands to her waist. "Okay, but I'm gonna be watching you real close," she said holding two fingers slightly apart and squinting her eyes.

"Deal. Now come over here. Do you remember me telling you about 'this' and 'that?'"

"Yes, papa."

"Well, I want to take that conversation a little further down the beach." Papa pulled a small coin from his pocket. He moved it from right to left, Kyra watching as if he were a magician and she was going to spot the trick. "Did the coin move?"

"Of course it did."

"How do you know?"

"I saw it."

"Exactly."

"Papa. Let's move to tell real fast."

"Okay. If the coin is "this" and you are "that" then we create the illusion of movement."

"I don't understand."

"Few do. And in time, you will. For now, since we are 'telling,' I'll tell you this. Movement is a function of two things. If I move, it is only in relation to something else. You see, if I'm walking down the beach, I know I am moving because I can see the trees I pass, the sand under my feet, our villa getting smaller, so on and so on. You see?"

"No."

"Okay. Let me put it this way. What if there was a room and that room had no walls and no air. In fact, let's pretend that that room only had a ball and nothing else. Could that ball move?"

"I think so. It could roll. It could bounce. Papa, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I love you. Now listen closely. In order to bounce, or roll, or float, wouldn't our ball need a floor, or a wall, or air, or something other than itself? You see, movement only exists as relation. And relation implies two things. Like the coin and you. The coin needed 'you' to move."

"Papa, what is it you are trying to tell me?"

"Why I sit. You asked, didn't you?" Papa corkscrewed his finger into his cheek.

"Okay, okay."

"Now. I want you to think about this question. What if all the world, all the universe, everything there is, is just one thing?"

"Well, then you wouldn't be you and I wouldn't be me and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Now stand up. Give me your hands. The sun is going to set soon and I want to show it my new dance moves."

537. Floating

Life wants to live. Life wants to live.

Von sat in the waiting room, those words his hope, his dagger.

Life will fight to live. We don't understand it. But it is our best hope.

You may see her now said a voice he didn't recognize and would not remember. Upon the white pillow her auburn hair flowed and she looked almost comical with her balloon belly hiding under the sheets like a child hiding a ball.

Zoe opened her eyes and reached for his hand. You know, she said, what Ceru would say?

Von shook his head.

When the rain was heaviest and the waters started to rise he would look at me with those deep blue eyes and say that the only way to float, was to smile.

Von couldn't find his tongue.

Squeezing his leathered hand she said, Von, will you do me a favor?

He nodded through glassy eyes.

Float me out of here. Then she smiled and he smiled back as the sun shinning through the rain.


Soundtrack: Colby's Song by Joshua James

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536. So Somatic

There are three looks she said

there is the look before you frail me

there is the look while you are frailing me

and then there is the look after you've frailed me

Put them in order she said

Get them right, she continued, and just, maybe, I'll let you frail me again

Get them wrong, and, well, there's always the milking

She smiled

When you return, I want a week's worth

Anything less than a week and I'll know

"She didn't say that," said Yul.

Rog smiled without replying.

"No frailing way!" Yul said each word as if she were paying by the syllable.

Rog shrugged before adding, "You know what she called me after that first time?"

"What?"

"Often."

Yul grinned, wide. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I love you."

535. Anticipation

Yul sat, twin curves catching the moonlight in shades of Ansel Adams gray. Drawing breath, waist swimmer tight, the fruit of her nature rising, firm, symmetry smooth, seductive. "Tell me about Susan?"

Rog rolled on his side, head resting in his palm, elbow anchored in the mattress like a tent peg. "What do you want to know?" He replied without making eye contact, neither smiling nor not smiling, a look of eyes drinking in the dawn, a face standing still before wonder, breathing unconscious.

She watched his eyes, his face, could swear she felt his warm breath caressing her mind. Tilting her head back to expose lean neck, she arched her back, her arms locked as buttress, softening the curves on her chest to sharpen the sparkle in his eyes. "The first time. How did it happen?"

His eyes drifted into memory and for a second she regretted the question. Like the new sun, his cheeks rose, exposing the rogesque grin she had claimed as her treasure, a simple, natural gesture that made her feel good to be fertile, and as the moon reflects the light of the sun, she smiled back.

"Snizzle." He said the word as if sacred, as if the tone of expiration, spoken not of tongue or cord, but breathed into life by mind and memory, needed no further explanation. Pauses speak; Yul heard. He continued, "One morning, after the milking, she offered me a cup. Well, offered isn't quite the way it happened. I remember the words, then I remember her walking through the mud to the front porch. I followed like a roped calf, her gait a spell before me, her primrose hair as the wind. We walked not twenty yards and I never heard a step nor felt the ground and what should have taken, did take but a minute to walk, endures as hours in my mind, each step, clear as dream, forever changing perception, founting sensations I never knew existed."

"So you had a cup of snizzle and then she frailed you? Is that it?"

"In a manner of speaking," he offered. Like a single coin thrown in the collection plate. A bit irritated with the interruption.

"A manner of speaking? You shiotting me? Either she frailed you or she didn't. Or maybe . . ."

"Or maybe there is more to the story than you know."

"Rog, no offense, but you're not that deep."

"Not that deep? Really. Okay. I might not be that deep but I wasn't the river and a dumb as stone rock don't need do nothin' to fall to the depths." Rog paused, a bit unsure of where he was headed. "Have you thought about that little miss oculator lady?"

Yul tried to maintain a serious look. "I'm sorry baby. You're right. Now tell me about that river. Just how deep was it?"

"I've lost the mood. Another time."

"Rog."

"Alright. So she invited me in. We sat the kitchen table and she poured fresh brew. She didn't speak. Neither did I. I held my cup under my nose as if the steam could hide my eyes. And I watched. I watched a sight that I'm not sure how to explain because what I'm about to say and what I saw never seem to match. So here it is. I watched her rotate her index finger along the rim of her cup. I can't explain it--that sight. I remember the bent of her finger, her clear nail, the skin both soft and experienced and the way she caressed the lip of that bone cup. If she had been a witch casting a spell I would not have denied it."

"Interesting."

"What?"

"I've never heard you so subtle and detailed before."

"Am I boring you?"

"No, not at all. I'm enthralled."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just continue."

"The morning light beamed from window to table, her golden hair sparkled. The morning milking was done, and the room had that lazy satisfied lull between chores. Her finger sang the cup like bow on string and although I followed her finger round and round I found my eyes drifting up to her face, to her eyes. She was looking down, only the bottom quarter visible, her lips sitting ripe, pink, petite, neat, neither too big nor too small, the kind of lips that spoke of wit and humor and educated in common sense, not a stranger to hard work, sincere as syrup on pancakes. So there it was. The finger, the eyes, the lips but that wasn't it at all. There was something else. A mood, a feeling, a texture, a color, hue whatever you want to call it."

"So . . ."

"So that's when she told me one week."

"Are you shiotting me?"

"Nope. To make a long story short, she told me to appreciate the anticipation. Said there was every likelihood the "warm commerce" would not be as good."

"Was she right?"

"I'm not telling."

Yul smiled. "Come here baby."

Rog smiled back. "One week."

534. Kinesics

Mairi knocked on the (red) door.

Trev, did you hear something?

Knuckles white, petite, rose thrice, fell twice.

No baby, not a thing.

Wood sonorous, sentinel sennet, sung with susurration feminine.

I could have swore I heard something.

What fell, fell as rain, the door (silent) witness silent, her heart (leaden) rendered violent.

Do you want me to check?

Rims glinted, a light kind to eyes (verdant) full of (liquid) pain reflective.

Yes, please.

Crimson cheeks quivered, command lost, decorum abandoned.

Okay.

Snuffle breath, pond shallow, issued cries inaudible to stone ears.

Thanks.

Arm rose, the weigh as lead, purchase beyond body to pay.

Trev opened the door.

Her cape opened in the fall, a pleated parachute forming a perfect circle.

Oh my Janus. Mairi? Em!