Modern Century

March 8, 2018April 6, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

The leaves were falling from the trees. The wind carried them past Ran, down the street, past the end of the block. She was carrying a white box, tied with a wide pink bow – a cake for Karen.

The wind had a sharp edge to it, but Ran was dressed for the cold, in a brown leather bomber jacket and the gusts were at her back. She walked by the lawns, wooden fences, poplars swaying, wind vanes twisting and turning.

At the end of the lane, on East 14th Street, stood Karen’s two-story house. The mowed grass was strewn with the scarlet leaves, from the beginning of fall. Ran opened the gate and let herself in. On the stone flagstone path lay a plastic bag, containing a rolled-up newspaper, protected from the rain.

She knocked on the beige door, with the three glass panes at eye-height. Karen came to the door, coming down the mahogany steps.

“So good to see you!” Karen exclaimed, “Come right in!”

Karen’s arm was in a blue sling. “I’m sorry you couldn’t make the office party,” Ran said.

“Oh no, it’s fine. I hurt my wrist lifting that TV for the break room,” Karen said, “I was very grateful to get some time off.”

“It must be hard for you,” Ran said, setting the white box down on the kitchen table.

“My friend from spin class comes by once or twice a week,” Karen gave a dismissive wave, “It’s been helpful really. You figure out what your priorities are.”

“Only you would call a sprained wrist ‘helpful.'” Ran chuckled.

“What did you get me?” With her free hand, Karen undid the pink bow, and lifted the lid of the box. A bright yellow, and baby blue cake greeted her, exhorting her to ‘Get Well Soon.’

“Everyone at the office pitched in,” Ran explained, “It was nice, actually,”

“You shouldn’t have!” Karen said, “Oh, only you would ever be so considerate.” She came over and gave Ran a hug, with her good arm.

“I’m heading back to Cali soon,” Ran said, “It was the least I could do,”

Karen busied herself, finding a knife in the sink drawer. She cut the cake, “Don’t you have some publishing house business to tie up first?”

“Yes, I finished drawing up the new contract with Jerry,” Ran said, “The heads and the tails of it.”

Karen handed a slice to Ran on a paper plate, “Oh, please tell me you don’t have to go?”

Ran took her slice and leaned against the sink, “I’ve been in this town long enough Karen. I feel like I’m stagnating. Paddling so hard and standing still. I have to strike out on my own.”

Karen sighed, “Such vision. I wish I still had it. I gave up writing long ago.”

“That’s the point,” said Ran, “If I stay here, I’ll give up writing too. Plus, I haven’t used my surfboard in a while.”

“Well, we had a good run, didn’t we?” Karen smiled, holding her cake, with the fork stuck in it. They moved to the living room. Soaps were playing on TV.

“We sure did,” Ran said, sinking into the armchair, “And then I ran off with that Aron woman and got my heart broken.”

“You should have stayed with me all along,” Karen said, setting down her cake and switching the channel, “Then you wouldn’t be leaving the East Coast!”

“It wasn’t because of her,” Ran protested.

“Oh, come on,” Karen laughed, “It’s totally because of her. You want to get away from where this heartbreak happened. I get it.”

They ate the chocolate cake in silence, watching a rerun of “Days of Our Lives.”

Karen brought two bottles of Sam Adams out of the fridge, “One for you.”

“I just want to write one more novel,” Ran said, sipping her beer.

“But can you ever get back to that time, in college?” Karen asked, “That time has passed, hasn’t it?”

“I’ll just have to write the experience, in a unique way,” Ran said, “In a different light, like an Impressionistic painting.”

“You’re full of surprises,” Karen said.

“I’m just trying to recapture a feeling,” Ran continued.

Karen put her beer down on the coffee table, “Why don’t we recapture our feelings – for each other?”

“Oh, Karen,” Ran mused, “We never lost our feelings.”

Karen got up and kissed her on the lips, warm from the hoppy foam. “I want to remember you forever,” she whispered.

“You do have me forever,” Ran answered.

“And soon, you’ll be gone,” she retreated to the couch.

Ran got up and followed her, kissing her harder. They gripped each other in that house, as the rain began to fall.

When they broke away, Karen patted Ran’s shoulder with her free hand, “You should go. I’ve kept you long enough.”

Outside the beige door, Ran watched the leaves chase each other down the road. Her lips still tingled, her cheeks still stung. She walked down the path and willed herself not to look back.

Music:

Mahler – Adagietto, 4^th movement, Symphony No. 5

A World Underground

March 5, 2018May 20, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

discreet charm (2)

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Alli nodded, one foot on the rope ladder, hands resting on the edge of the well.

Ran looked her in the eyes, and gave her a peck on the lips, “Alright, have fun on your adventure.”

“Well, Kaan did say this was the only dry well she’s ever found,” Alli remarked, “There’s no way I could come all the way back up here, and not check it out.”

“Be careful,” Ran said, switching on the flashlight mounted on Alli’s helmet.

“I will,” Alli smiled, “Stay on the walkie-talkie.”

She climbed down into the abyss. The pool of light above her head swam around the cold, stones, slick with the morning dew. The further down one went, the less likely that liquid was to evaporate.

As each rung sunk under the weight of her foot, she wondered what she was doing. Kaan had cited Aro’s advice to look for the blockage of the flow in a dry well. This was back when Kaan and Aspen had been still together. Then in Maine, Kaan had found the dry well in question. After exploring it, she offered it to Alli to use.

Ran’s head, swaddled in the red-orange corona of her hair, floated above Alli, on the surface. She was an auburn glow, looking down, crowned by the aura of the blue sky, sunlight filtering through the still empty branches.

It grew colder quickly, but Alli was in a puffy jacket. She seemed to descend forever. When her foot touched the wet dirt at the bottom, she looked up. Ran was still there and waved. Alli waved back. Like Kaan had explained, there was some sort of water main at the bottom of the well, a sewer leading farther into the bowels of the earth.

Alli waved to Ran once more, and disappeared into the ragged entrance, torn open by some water diversion crew years ago. The absence of natural light was felt immediately; the artificial light on her head bounced up and down with her movements, with each step into the gloom. She followed the slim stone catwalk, running along the channel of water, at the bottom of the well.

She tried to keep her heart’s rushing to a minimum. Other than the cloak-like darkness, the tunnel was peaceful. The underground brook gurgled. Tree roots hung from the ceiling. Occasionally, the muted rustling and shuffling of rodents, mice in the soil and crumbling or eroded parts of the walls, was heard, as they ran through their burrows.

Alli walked on in the darkness, for half an hour. The orb of light, a fluid conic section, danced along with her footfalls. The path sloped upward, and Alli struggled to keep her balance on the slippery rocks. As noted by Kaan, the passageway opened to another platform, the bottom of a second well, about two miles away.

The sky was the color of a robin’s eggshell. Cumulus clouds drifted over the opening, out to the distant sea. Alli sat down on the well bottom, looking up. Water glistened and rolled down the stones, past thin creeping vines, and fine, feathery plant growth, minute patches of lichen.

She held her knees and turned off the helmet flashlight. The morning cold gave way to the sunlight of early spring. She breathed in the musky smell of the damp undergrowth, tiny leaves, stunted in the half-light. She looked at the mute, unassuming stone wall in front of her, still covered in life, even several feet below the ground. Alli closed her eyes.

At this terminus, the path continued, but it was an immaterial path. In her mind’s eye, she was walking onward, stepping beyond the wall, seamlessly into the summer home of Nealy, located in the south of France.

The hallway was dark; only lit from the day, creating a chiaroscuro of white beams in a flurry of mites and dust. The red carpet was well-tread, but still soft, pliant. Alli crossed the hallway, dressed in a white jacket and pants, wearing a navy-blue pocket square.

Nealy was at her side, also in white, but sporting a red pocket square. They walked out to the main staircase and passed through the atrium, to the exterior of the house and the grounds.

Outside was a haze of orange light and strips of clouds hovered in the last minutes of twilight. They strolled the rolling promenade, not worried about getting grass on their white shoes. The evening was relaxing and cool after the heat of a summer day. The lawn was empty except for those two white-clad figures. It was just those two walking in the mists of time.

They reached a white swing hung from a stately oak. Alli sat down and Nealy stood up, holding the ropes of the swing. They looked on at the sinking sun, the pink sky, heard the chirping of the sparrows in the bush.

Will we never be this way again?

“The ghosts of time are always racing toward the sunset,” Nealy said, “There is an eye of the needle that they must squeeze through, to get back to their world, before night falls.”

The last embers of dying rays were being extinguished, consumed by the graying hills, the dark countryside.

Will I ever see you again?

Alli jolted awake, shivering in the night. Above her the circle of the sky was a midnight blue, dotted by stars. She shuddered and said into the walkie-talkie, “Ran, are you there?”

A pause, but then the connection crackled, “Yes, I am at Kaan’s cabin. I can see the other opening from the porch,” Ran said.

“I’m coming back,” Alli said.

She stood up, joints aching from being in one place, one position, for so long. She looked up at the post-twilight sky. The portal was closed. A memory was gone forever.

Criesandwhispers