mysticism – Page 16 – A Piece, of the Sky

Ran sat in the well. The sky was white. The pods of newly unfurled leaves floated down, the donations of the beginning of spring. She stared up at the yellow-green waif-like plants, and then looked at the well wall in front of her, an impenetrable gray surface, down there in the gloom. In Maine, on Kaan’s property, she closed her eyes, soul moving around the darkened barrier, to a room beyond, a dim room, with red carpeting, in a château, in the south of France.

The room was ornate, set in a Baroque style. There was a grandfather clock, giving off a muffled clicking, over-wrought side tables and a resplendent golden davenport, made in Italy in the 1600s. A glass decanter of port sat on the heavy walnut desk of the study. The room opened out into a balcony. Translucent, white chiffon curtains floated upward, in the breeze of the late summer afternoon. Nealy stood just inside the doorway, with a glass of wine, in a beige three-piece suit and a red ascot, heavy golden rings on each hand.

Nealy turned as Ran slunk out of the shadows in the room, still wearing the jeans and cashmere sweater she had been wearing at the bottom of the well. The wind rustled some papers on the desk, held down only by a fountain pen.

“This needs to end,” Ran growled, “She is my girlfriend now, not yours.”

“How do you know that she ever stopped being my girlfriend?” Nealy asked. Beyond the balcony, the full, broad leaves of summer danced in the gentle gusts.

“She broke up with you years ago. We may look alike, but you’re on the other side of the world. I am the one she has now!” Ran said.

Nealy looked down, studying the glass of port, “No, you are the double, the clone. I am the true girlfriend.”

“Why, you -!” Ran choked out, and rushed forward, not knowing what she would do. But Nealy looked up, with a frozen glare. Ran felt herself transfixed, riveted with terror, under the unrelenting gaze. The pages got loose, from under the pen, and whipped around the room.

She woke up, eyes roving the ceiling, raking the room for any signs of the château, the chandelier, the bronze candlesticks.

Ran found herself back in her bedroom, in New York, Alli asleep, and unaware, reclining beside her.

Second image courtesy of Kristina Stipetic

Music:

Mendelssohn – The Hebrides, overture in B minor for orchestra (‘Fingal’s Cave’), Op. 26

Please-let-us-believe, miracle

The first stars poked out, like holes bored into the fabric of the sky. Jan and Alli sat, as they usually did, on the porch, facing Jan’s backyard. They were drinking mint juleps. Jan pulled a blanket around herself, shivering in the evening cold.

“Sometimes, I miss Nealy,” Alli began.

“Why?” Jan asked, turning around, “You have Ran. Isn’t she nice?”

“Yes, of course,” Alli nodded, “But in my heart, I miss Nealy, the original one.”

“Does an original love have to be the best one?” Jan asked.

“No, definitely not,” Alli answered, “But I can’t shake this feeling, this sense of time that sits within me.”

“You are hanging on to a memory, perhaps?”

“One might say so,” Alli inclined her head, “A frustration with a constant state of déjà vu.”

The moon was rising. The golden light fell on their faces, as the orb crested the trees of the wood. Alli had kayaked up the river to Jan’s house.

“Do you think that you can get that feeling back?” Jan said, looking into the twisted vines and bushes, beyond the world of her lawn.

“Or, I don’t know why this feeling hasn’t left yet,” Alli said.

“The era of your feeling is never coming back. You can’t get it back. You can’t go back. There’s nowhere to go back to. The nostalgia goes nowhere,” Jan said.

She continued, glancing at Alli, “When you left me, I realized one truth: people keep trying to preserve a world that no longer exists. Even if given the choice, would you really go back to that time? There’s only one way to look – forward – toward the future.”

Alli looked at Jan, still mixing the drink in her own hand, with the cocktail straw. The words did not come, so she looked back up at the moon.

Ganon Bowser