Hide me

At the edge of a steep cliff with the sea a hundred or so feet directly below, waves extending as far as the eye could see, there was a single wooden bench to which I returned each evening and sat alone to watch the setting sun paint its silent death throes all over the sky in shades of deep purple and red. Starting a few feet behind the bench and stretching back far into the horizon was a meadow of motionless flowers in riotous colors atop tall unyielding stalks. A solitary bonsai cherry blossom tree adorned the edge of the cliff to the left of the bench, a carpet of lilac petals surrounding its base. Nothing stirred on land, the only sound a faint din of the waves reaching up the face of the cliff from the sea below. There was a quiet madness in the air that captivated me; it was as if everything stood still with bated breath awaiting something or perhaps someone.

It was the most incongruously beautiful place you could imagine and since discovering it I had had it all to myself. This evening was no exception and I sat at my usual spot at one end of the bench playing with shadows. She must have come out of the meadow and sat down wordlessly at the other end of the bench. I don't know when she came and I didn't look at her, unsure what her arrival meant both for this place and for the madness in my heart. In my thoughts she sat cross-legged, her bare feet and ankles visible below the long silk skirt that embraced her legs. I thought that her neck was unadorned, that the swell of her breasts arose and fell with each breath in steady harmony. I thought that in her downcast eyes was an image of me. I thought that I knew that she must be humming my name over and over in her mind and that I was the cause of the smile at the corner of her mouth. I thought that her hands ached to be in mine and that her heart was calling out for me. In that strangest of evenings I thought that she must have sat with me for every sunset.

"Will you hide me within you?," she asked. I turned towards her.

Break your heart

Skye always drew large crowds to his shows and tonight was no exception. In the dark of a moonless night, the open-air amphitheater lit by torches all along the periphery was full of beautiful young bodies, most dancing either as couples or in groups as friends, a few dancing alone or milling about seeking dance partners. I stood alone at my customary back corner near the inexhaustible supply of cheap wine, nursing a glass and listened to Skye sing, eyes flitting from one sashaying skirt to another.

"Come dance with me," she said extending her arm to me with a shy smile on her upturned face and the flicker of hope burning in the flames reflected in her bright eyes.

I hesitated, smiling sadly into her eyes as I struggled to find the right words. Before she could withdraw her arm, I caught her hand in mine and bringing it to my mouth kissed it gently before letting it go. "Please don't be upset Laura. After all these months at Skye's shows, you know well that I don't dance."

"Damn," she said turning away from me with a bitter laugh. "I saw how much wine you had tonight and was hoping that you were drunk enough to break down and finally say yes." I stepped forward close behind her wanting to hug her from the back but resisted the urge for it would just make matters worse. "I hate how pathetic I am to ask you again and again," she whispered, her voice catching and I could sense the unseen shimmer of tears in her eyes.

After a few minutes of desperately trying to figure out how to help my friend, I leaned forward and whispered playfully into her ear, "You know how it is. We will dance. You will fall for me. We will fuck. And I will break your heart!"

She burst out laughing, her body shaking with a mixture of hurt and absurd merriment. "You are one cocky bastard!"

I could sense the tension flow out of her and stepped back a half step.

She turned around to face me with a wicked smile on her face, "And what if I want to take that chance? What if I want the dancing and the fucking even if it means getting my heart broken?"

I tried hard to smile back but instead after an anguished pause whispered, "Perhaps you want that, but this isn't about you, it is about me. I don't want to break another heart."

She stood still and watched the struggle of emotions on my face before reaching up with her hand to caress my face, "She hurt you very badly, didn't she?"

I unsuccessfully tried to suppress a short manic chuckle and shook my head, "No. No. She didn't hurt me at all. There may not even be a she at all."

She smiled sadly into my eyes, coming closer still. "She broke your heart, didn't she?"

"I am not hurt, Laura. Really. Not lovesick, and not heart broken."

I took another small step back and laughed, "And not married and not gay either."

"I just don't dance."

Unsay

If I inhaled so deeply and for so long
 
that I took back all the words I ever exhaled,
 
would that then unsay all your memories of us
 
and let me keep mine?

Why baby?

(A vignette I started about a year ago and then set it aside because I wasn't happy with it. Now it is out of place with where the blog's writing is currently, but here it is anyways.)

Setting: The camera swoops down from on high onto the flat open roof of a sprawling castle that has clearly seen better days. Its dark moss-covered outer walls have regularly spaced fire-torches and their flickering glow adds ghostly shadows to the dying light of the sun. Two figures stand several feet apart, the man facing the woman who has at her back the long shimmering golden dagger cast by the last rays of the setting sun on the expanse of water surrounding the castle. Our viewpoint descends low enough for us to be in eavesdropping range but not close enough to see the emotions flickering on their faces in the low light.

The couple stands motionless staring into the distance. The silence is broken only by the shrill cries of a large falcon circling the castle, riding an unseen current of air. The predatory bird swoops down into the water with a desperate cry of triumph. The man and woman turn together to watch the bird grappling with a large fish in its beak as it struggles to break free of the water.

Woman: Why baby?
   
The man does not answer but stands in place, fidgeting.
The bird approaches the roof, its wings flapping noisily, and deposits the fish still convulsing in its death throes at the edge of the roof and stands near it eyeing the couple with open hostility and challenge.

Woman: Why?

The man shakes his head, quickly suppressing a desperate laugh.
The bird breaks the fish apart and swallows large pieces all the while emitting sharp bugle-like calls as if to warn them against approaching closer.

After a few more minutes of the couple watching the bird demolish its prize the woman teleports away startling the bird. It flies away, leaving the carcass of the fish on the roof, voicing its protests in a cacophony of anguished cries. 

The man stands motionless for a long while, watching the sun die. The fires burn through the night.

You and I

There are only so many stories in the world. And the truth is that none of them are true. I am not who I am. I never was. There probably is a real you. But the you that lived and laughed was the you that I created. The you in the story. The you in the story that met the I in the story. The you and I that fall in love over and over in so many words, few of them true. The you and I that go our separate ways in so few words, many of them true. Of course those words, they don't write themselves. Or do they? Does the I in the story have free will? Does the you? Perhaps the I in the story is a puppet, soulless and thus guileless, pulled by the strings of good story writing, a slave to dramatic flourishes. You and I wouldn't write an inelegant story, now would we?

--------------------
                                                                         
In the unending rain, morning blurs into midday and so I wasn't sure what part of day it was when I stepped out of the house. Turned up collar and a hat provide meager shelter against the downpour, as I crunch my way in boots on the graveled walkway past the bed of flowers that you had planted and onto the path leading into the forest on the hill behind our house. Today I am going to meet you for the first time, again. I don't know why for our chance encounter, for this first of impressions, I cannot seem to make it bright and sunny and flowery and have butterflies and singing birds. Instead, for all our first meetings all I have is rain, never ending rain. I walk up the soggy sloping path into the forest, rivulets cross the path to disappear into the thick undergrowth, the canopy of weather-bent trees blot out the diffuse sunlight so that it feels like it could be late evening. Blinded by the rain and a potent mixture of desire and apprehension about what was to come, I blunder along the path seeking you.

A flash of color, incongruous in the rain, and yet anticipated makes me quickly step off the path and into the shadows of the trees. There you are, in gorgeous if soaked colors, standing in the midst of the path as if looking for something or perhaps someone. Streams of raven hair cling to the side of your face, rivulets of rain trail off down your throat and onto your bare shoulders to disappear into the embrace of your warmth under your gown. Your eyes sweep back down the path towards and then past me.  There you are, the one who will envelop my words with hers, intertwine my desire with hers, and plant the seeds of perennial flowers in our garden. I stand completely still, eyes riveted to your face, suddenly the rain not blinding and blurring but instead washing everything down to its purest essence.

We stand again at the threshold of a first encounter, you and I.

I know where my story goes. I wonder what happens in yours?

More than before

Today, more than before, I feel like writing you into my life.

You blush when I reach for your pretty face. Words, fragments of program code compiled into long sequences of ones and zeros and interpreted by scores of feverish machines in far away data centers: how does the heartless certainty of machine logic reflect the hopeful flutter of human emotions on your face as I pull you in for a kiss? Will the next few words write a kiss consummated or a shy demurral?

In my words, there are only you and I.

In my words, all dreams are about you.

In my words, I give up everything
for the world inside of me.

And yet,
in my words, is love unrequited.

Perhaps,
my words, they can't say enough. 

Cold

(This is the third in a series of very short stories inspired by an AM Radio build in SL; some pictures are included here. If you haven't seen his work, you should!)

Huddled inside an oversized thick jacket and yet cold to the bone, I watched warily from afar the smoke-filled fire burning in the field of grass. The incongruous fire burned in separate straight line strands several feet apart as if some fiery demon had raked the earth with three giant finger nails. Eventually, despite my unease, I walked up close to the flames hoping that they would yield some of their warmth to my shivering body, but to no avail. The flames hissed and crackled and lapped at unseen ethereal enemies that somehow held the fire at bay robbing it of its warmth and preventing it from spreading through the field. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing or of the relentless cold that seemed buried deep inside me and just stood in place rocking slowly on my heels. What added to the sense of strangeness and foreboding was that the odd scene before me seemed deeply familiar even though I was sure I hadn't set foot on this immaculately desolate place before.

After several minutes of indecision, the desire to walk eastwards broke free of the hold the cold had on my mind and I ambled off in that direction expecting to find a fence separating the field from railroad tracks even though I could not see either from where I stood. I made my way past a small unoccupied house and further eastwards to what surely would be a very odd sight to anyone, a table and a chair in the middle of the field far from the house and just a few feet from the wire fence. Just past the fence were the railroad tracks I had been expecting. It all felt quite natural and right to me and without thought I went and sat on the chair to look about me. The fire, the house, the fence, the railroad tracks, and now this table and chair in the middle of the field; what was this place? It felt like I had never been here, and at the same time like I had forever been here.

The wind picked up a little and the rustle of the pages of the notebook on the table finally got me to pick it up. It was more than half-way filled with what seemed like diary entries. The last entry read

You are not here. This is not real. Don't come back. Don't you come back.

There were pages and pages of such drivel. Some of the earliest entries from years ago were longer with rambling text about her being gone and never coming back, about the trains not running, and about being cold. Whoever this madman was, I was glad he wasn't here anymore. I got up to leave this crazy forsaken place and only then noticed the flapping scraps of white silk caught in the wire mesh of the fence. A flood of images came rushing into my mind. She in her wedding dress, the sound of the approaching train, the look in her eyes as she turned and ran away from me, the skirt of her dress catching and tearing as she jumped over the wire fence, the open freight car of the train that carried her away. She was gone, and I was here forever without her.

Defeated, I collapsed back into the chair and picked up the pen.

Bare feet

 (Appears in InnerWorld Magazine 20, pages 30-33)

"May I sit with you?"

I turned and looked back over the bench for the source of the voice. It was difficult to focus on the sea of tall flowers and grasses in the meadow after staring at the light of the setting sun on the waves for so long.

"It is such a beautiful spot. But if you'd rather be alone, let me know and I will come back some other time." My eyes found her. Bare feet, a summery white dress with a slit on one side showing an athletic leg, an unadorned lovely long neck, auburn hair on fire in the rays of the dying sun, she smiled and waved.

I sat up straight and smiled back gesturing towards the bench, "Please come sit. It will be my pleasure."

"I am Carol", she said walking out of the meadow towards me. The long stem of a sunflower clutched in one hand, she crossed the few feet of gravel that marked the waterfront and sat down on the far side of the bench. Her eyes were fixed, as mine had been only a few moments ago, on the long shimmering flame that stretched from the horizon to nearly our feet as the sun set over the water. She watched the flame flicker on the undulating surface of the sea and I watched her. Her upper body hugging a folded leg raised so that its foot perched at the edge of the bench, her skirt pulled up so that the other lower leg was free and swinging in time to some internal music. Her chin rested on the raised knee, the sunflower plucked from the meadow caressing her hair, her eyes reflecting the slowly deepening colors of the flame she was so intently watching.

"You don't have company often, do you?", she asked eventually, turning her face towards me with her eyes full of mischief.

I laughed briefly in response and looked away shaking my head. "Fact is that I don't. But that don't excuse my rudeness in staring at you Carol". It was as if my internal compass swung from the setting sun to you, I thought to myself.

"Michael. That's my name."

"Michael", she said softly and turned back to face the flame. Extending an arm out towards the sea, she pursed her lips into an oval and exhaled deeply and sharply. The sun died.

Wish you were

In the light of the moon, I sit by your side.

"I wish you were...", I say so softly that you don't hear me. It is high tide and the waves lap gently at our bare feet. It was your inspiration to place the bench in our little corner by the sea just so that at high tide the waves of water would crest exactly at our feet. After all these years the memory of how excited you were when we did this still makes me smile. It was one of the last things we had bought together in setting up our home, the old bench from the garage sale with its wooden slats pockmarked as if each sea-storm of the past decade had written its history on them in Braille. You had loved the bench at first sight and I have always loved you and so it was that most nights we sat on the bench watching the iridescent waves in the moonlight.

"I wish you were...", I say faltering mid-sentence as you turn to look at me, your eyes searching my face. I ache to reach for you, to pull you into my arms, but resist for I can already feel the grains of sand slipping away from under my feet with the receding waves. Soon there will be nothing to stand upon. Before this can all drift away, I force myself to break your eyes embrace and pick up my flute to begin playing our favorite song. I play looking straight ahead, willing the music towards the sea with a quiet desperation. I play for each grain of sand that holds up our world. The waves of music, emotion, and the sea, all crest and fall battling it out for their own versions of reality.

In the small hours of the night, I sit by your side.

"I wish you were...", I whisper as I turn back to meet your gaze. "I wish you were, by my side".

Penance

(Appears on pages 46-49 with beautiful photography by Thereaver Barrymore accompanying it in the second year anniversary issue of InnerWorld magazine.)

I set the glass of whiskey, ice cubes clinking, down on the wooden side table and settle into my usual couch for the night. The warm moisture in the air creates a band of condensation on the outside of the cold glass. Reaching towards it with practiced ease, I use a finger to carefully trace her initials onto the moist outer surface. And as happens every night, the drops of moisture slide, move, mate, coalesce into tears that flow into the letters and slowly find their way down the path I traced, collecting into a small pool at the base. In time, the downward flow will bleed through the outline of the letters and blur them, but I know that if I don’t touch the glass, it will remain possible to make out her initials for a long time. As the night settles around me, I sit watching her slowly dissolving name, a bottle of Talisker for company and the drumbeat of rain on the roof for music.

The sound of the screen door swinging open and banging shut startles me and I stand abruptly, picking up the glass and bottle instinctively as if protecting them from an intruder. I stand in place, undecided whether to just sit down again or go investigate the noise. Resentful of this interruption, I drain the whiskey in one swallow, feeling the cold amber liquid spread its fire downwards inside my throat as I walk out through the screen door and on to the back porch. There is nothing, no one outside but the rain.

I can’t remember a night without rain. At least, not since she left. The lone bulb on the back wall of the house fights the oppressive rain as it presses down into the ground, its light barely managing to penetrate a few feet from the covered porch. In the darkness beyond, the world disappears into rain. Not having left the house for weeks, I suddenly feel deeply unsure if anything exists beyond the house, our house. Uneasy that everything has been washed away, I toss the glass aside and walk out into the rain, taking swigs directly from the bottle. In a few feet I can see nothing but press onwards, lurching, fighting the downpour. In a few more steps I’m forced to stop as all my senses completely focus on the intense feeling of rain beating down on me. There is nothing but the rain. Even the whiskey is finished and I let the bottle drop and stand absorbing the blows, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting the rain as it tears into me. The barrier of the clothes between the rain and my skin becomes unbearable and I rip them off. Naked now, I stand completely still with my eyes closed, head tilted back, and my arms raised towards the sky embracing what will happen. There will be nothing but the rain.

Save me

(Appears on pages 50-51 in Issue 18 of Inner World Online Magazine) 

The crowd roared its approval as the singer's voice came on over the plaintive notes at the beginning of the next song. "And now a song that hasn't been requested for months. Wicked Games goes out to Chloe." Shouts of "love this song" and hoots and whistles echoed from all over the dance floor. Like me, many here were regulars at Ed Kyomoon's live music events. 

"I have been watching you for many weeks now, and you always just stand alone at the back", she said as she flowed into my arms. With her bare shoulders and cascading raven hair safely within my embrace, I smiled into her eyes. "So what made you ask me for a dance tonight?", she asked smiling back at me. Memories faded in and out, this song, our song, her dark hair and flowing dress within my arms as we danced. 

I pulled my love in closer still, body swaying with hers in our effortless slow dance, my face nuzzling her hair, and waited many heartbeats for the start of the right phrase in the song to whisper along with the singer, "My world was on fire, and no one can save me but you". She giggled, her hands squeezing my back. "Mmmm, you seem fine enough to me Stranger. No fire and no need for saving." 

Using the swinging motion of the dance I lifted her up by the waist, and still swaying with the familiar music kissed the length of her bare shoulders inwards towards her throat. Each kiss tinged with memory. In response, she arched her body back so that my kisses trailed down her throat and into the valley between her breasts. Her hands reached up to press my face into her soft curves. "What a wicked game to play", she intoned along with the singer, "to make me feel this way". "What a wicked thing to say", I responded with the singer, "you never felt this way". She laughed happily while I set her back down straight. "I had liked this song before, but now I am going to love it". 

With lyrics perfect for slow dancing, the moonlit night, the glow of the warm fires surrounding the dance floor, and the mingling of breath with unspoken memories and unhinged desires, all conspired to give meaning to every scripted dance move. She rested her head on my shoulders and gave in fully to my embrace. 

We danced together alone, each in our separate world, silent feelings emanating like ribbons, connecting, twisting, colliding, unraveling our fantasies. 

In the silence, passion. In the silence, pretense. In the silence, possibilities. In the silence, song. In the song, ghosts of dances past. 

(The lyrics used are from the song titled "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak. Edward Kyomoon does indeed sing regularly in SL.)

Tell her

(This story appears in Issue #17 of Inner World magazine starting at page 60) 

 I smiled into her eyes, my body stretched on hers, and reached for the scarves that bound her wrists to the bed. "Maybe I should not release you," I whispered into her ears and kissed the strands of hair clinging to the sweat on her face. "Maybe I should keep you bound here until you confess your love for me." 

She laughed giddily "and what if I never fall in love with you?" 

"Oh you will love me" I said as I undid the scarves and released her from under me, "you will love me more than you have ever loved anyone." 

She stood and dressed quietly before turning back and sitting next to me on the edge of the bed. "Is this what you told her too? Does she love you more than she ever loved anyone?" 

I took her hand in mine and looked into her eyes. "Babe, you know that I don't love her. That you are the one for me." 

She turned her face away avoiding looking at my eyes and my naked body. "But when are you going to tell her that?" 

I reached out and with a hand under her chin gently forced her to look back at me. "She will be hurt love, and I am trying to break from her as gently as I can. You know this." 

"Yes, I do know this, and if she feels for you half as much as I do, I know that she will hurt. Hurt for a long long time." She rested her head on my shoulder, "and yet this isn't right. Your making an alt to see me. It isn't what the man I love would do." 

We sat at the edge of the bed, my hands caressing her hair. "I don't know how it is so different from what you are doing. You have another lover too. What about him? You and he have been together for even longer than I with her." 

She sighed and sat up straight. "It is different. We have an open relationship." 

I laughed softly, shaking my head. "And yet he does not know about us. You meet me in secret too." 

"I never loved him. You loved her. That is the difference." She leaned forward to kiss me quickly and got up from the bed. "Look, I know the real person behind this alt and the avatar I met first is one and the same, but somehow it feels dirty for you to be using an alt. It just does." 

* * * * * * * * * * * 

"Sorry I am so late love. The wireless connection is so flaky" she said laughing apologetically, "and you know there is no one I can complain to since I am stealing it from a neighbor." 

She sat down next to him on the couch, leaning over to embrace him, kissing his face. "It is good that you are going through a busy phase at work. I don't feel quite so guilty about being online so little." 

He sits unmoving while she kisses him. "What is the matter love? You are quiet." 

"There is something difficult I have to tell you," he said, turning towards her.

I first made you

I first made you.
Not from whole cloth,
and not from textures stolen.
Not from billions of polygons
in a souped up graphics card.
Not from faerie dust, and
not from the ephemera of dreams.
I made you from conversations.

I first made you
for conversations.

(They say that short short fiction is really prose poetry. Well, this one just came out that way.)

Memories

(This story appears on page 50 in Inner World Magazine #16)

Today I set fire to all my memories. Memories of you and I. Memories of me remembering you. Memories of your being with me every day despite our separation years ago. I felt the reassuring clasp of your hand in mine as we stood watching the fire spread to anything and everything that harbored the memories that so marred my mind. Our land burned, the tall grasses that used to hide our intertwined bodies from prying eyes, the twin cottages where we lived and loved, the clumps of bamboo trees under which we spent all those hours talking, the flames removing all color and life and reducing them to charred skeletons. It took time for the fire to burn itself out, especially in those spots where the weight of our memories was heaviest; several hours of raging fire to turn years of whispered conversations under the bamboo grove into so much smoke that it despoiled even the clouds in the sky with soot, with dark particles of fragmented memories. In time and in fire, all the flesh of memories was gone leaving behind only the hollow bones of imagined substance.

You leaned into me as we watched the fire burn itself out, and I felt the wetness of your tears on my shoulder as you whispered, "Free... finally free." I pulled you closer, held you tight against me for a few silent moments before kissing the top of your hair and pressing your hand onto my heart answered, "I carried out your wishes my love, but these flames, these flames did not burn down this heart's desire". Hand in hand, we walked silently through the charred ruins of our former lives all the way to the far horizon. In the blackened sky, our doves, now ravens, struggled in an endless cycle of flapping wings as if held in place by invisible anchors, unable to escape. We watched their struggle to be free for a while before turning back. I could feel your steps faltering and stopped. "All of this," I gestured around us, "all of what was, was not memories." I wrapped my arms around you, whispering "You are not a memory, my love. You are my heart's desire. And all that is born of desire cannot be so easily erased." I could feel your quiet sobbing, your face against my chest as I held you for a long while. Desire surged, and not long after there was a flash of color under the bamboo grove behind you and even from the far distance I could tell that it was back, the big floral-print chair that was our very favourite place to hold each other and talk. The cycle had begun anew.

(*The above story was inspired in part by an SL Sim shown here in two relevant pictures.*)

Rain

The drumbeat of the pouring rain on the roof kept me from falling asleep. I finally gave up and stood at the side of the bed looking at her sleeping form, the gently rising and falling swell of her breasts, the bony curve of her hips, the long languid softness of her inner thighs, and the taut muscles of her lower leg leading to the arch of her beautiful feet. Desire flaring, I fought the tumescent urge and walked out to the porch with a bottle of Talisker for company. The thick moist night air had awoken deep swollen desires in both of us and we had spent the better part of the night satisfying our primal urges. I had taken her for my pleasure over and over again and in the blurring of lust and love had been more demanding and rough than I usually am. And so, wishing to let her body and mind rest, I sat alone in my favorite wooden chair on the porch near the steps leading to our beach, just out of reach of the rain, nursing my whiskey. It was still a couple of hours from daybreak and in the dark of the night the rain came down in endless sheets nearly invisible to the eye except at the point of impact where the carpet of white churn marked the union of sky with sea. For all the fury of the rain, the sea was strangely calm and spent with the waves washing gently ashore just a few feet from my chair. Perhaps the incessant rain had beat even the vast sea into submission. 

My eyes closed, I let the whiskey speak to my blood, while my mind slipped slowly back in time into the night that was. Glimpses of her eyes as I tore into her with my need. Her desire yielding, giving, meeting thrust with embrace. The sounds from her throat echoing mine. Blood surged as I could feel her breath and the softness of her hair surround my need, her kisses up my thighs breaking my reverie. I opened my eyes, pleased to see her kneeling in the pose that was her favorite way to sit on the porch with me. I caressed her hair back from her forehead, cupped her beautiful face with both hands and smiling into her eyes I whispered, "You needn't have woken, my love". 

"I am bound to your need," she replied.

Dream, Interrupted

After a few months had gone by and the sharpness of memories had dulled somewhat, I went back to our home. It was still there, of course, and I walked through all the rooms systematically as if giving a tour to my own self. Nothing had changed except in one respect, her leaving had robbed every object of all meaning. For she was the one who had taught me how to suspend disbelief, to want these things to be real, and for that want to give them meaning. I stepped out through the wire-mesh sliding door off our living room and down the few steps to our private beach, just as I had done many a time in the past, only this time I was without her at my side. No more racing her to our hammock suspended between the palm trees. No more catching her clothes laughingly flung as she disrobed ahead of me on her way to diving into the water. No more wrestling her down to the sand naked. No more urgent coupling in the warm wash of the waves. No more whispered conversations that outlasted the moon. No more. Never more.

And yet, as I stood leaning against the wood siding on the wall with eyes closed, listening to the periodic sound of the waves washing ashore, I could hear her laughter. I could see us both entwined in the hammock talking. I smile as I tell her that in my dream we dance on this very beach many decades from now, when we are both old and infirm. I have told her this dream many a time. And like always, she laughs and kisses me, telling me that she has every intention of staying just as young and supple as she is now for all that time. The feeling of her kiss lingers on my lips as I open my eyes to the empty beach. Nothing is real. But then, it never was. She was my reason once to suspend disbelief and manufacture reality out of unhurried words and stilted animations. And all I have to do to have her back with me is to make reality again, only this time out of nothing except for memories. Then she would be mine. For ever more. And I can keep the promise of my dream.

Fall with the stars

(This story appears on Page 58 in Issue 15 of the online SL magazine Innerworld.)

I watched the stars fall. Standing at the very edge of the wind-swept cliff that dropped straight into the water on the Isle of Farias, I looked out west over the ocean. This was the westernmost island created so far and there was nothing but the surf of mildly choppy water to be seen out to the far horizon. Nothing, except for the stars. They fell at random intervals, the trajectory of their descent tracing a brilliant searing arc through the dark nighttime sky. They had different hues, the falling stars, some had more yellow and some had deep purples. I figured the color had something to do with how far away they fell from my vantage point. I stood motionlessly at the edge of the cliff ignoring the faint din of the celebrating throng on the amphitheater somewhere behind me in the distance. It was new year's eve. The third since she left my world, this world that we had shared for what now seems like an eternity. I had walked out very near the beginning of the singing and dancing unable or perhaps unwilling to share in the joy. I had walked up the steep steps and out into the surrounding ruins. I had walked for long without purpose, and yet instinct or perhaps some unknown and stronger force had drawn me to the water's edge.

I stood rooted, my mind slowly emptying of emotion and thought, focusing just on the falling stars that disappeared over the horizon. The wind had died shortly after I had arrived and nothing stirred. The stillness burned at the edges of my consciousness. I gazed westward steadfastly, holding the stillness at bay, keeping it from consuming me. I don't know how long I had stood there when the emptiness left by the receding mind was replaced by the single overpowering flood of emotion created by the sudden knowledge that in her world she was out at the water's edge too, that she was at her cottage by the beach. Improbable as it was, I was consumed with the certainty of knowing that at that very moment she was outside, her feet soaking in the waves, her eyes fixed on the nighttime sky of her world. She was on the other side of the horizon. She was there. She was watching the stars fall. And I knew. I knew just how to get through to her world. How to get through to my love. I had to fall. Fall with the stars, straight into her arms.

(Inspired by the lines "I want to fall from the stars, straight into your arms" in a song by Simply Red.)

Restless

[Setting: The camera pans over a forest and into a clearing on the north-east corner of a small island. At the water's edge is a hammock between two palm trees. In the hammock lays a man who is using his body to swing the hammock back and forth in time with the gently breaking waves. A woman walks out of the forest into the clearing and up to the hammock.]

M smiles at W and reaches for her with his arms as she comes close.
M: How do I tell you, my love, how restless my heart feels without you.
W accepts M's hands to help climb onto the hammock and lays down. M gently pulls W's head onto his shoulder, kissing her hair with his lips. In the ensuing silence, M takes W's hands in his and holds them tenderly. The hammock continues swinging with the waves. It seems peaceful.
W: God, baby. I wish you didn't love me so.
M: laughs gently and asks, And how would you wish me to love you?
W: I don't know.
M plays with W's hair with his fingers, smiling into her eyes.
W: Like all the other guys in this world, I suppose.
M: And how do the other guys love their girls?
W: I don't know. It is a game for them. They are not serious. They play around. You know what I mean.
M smiles, pulling W's hand to his mouth, caressing it with his lips.
M: And do you want me to play around on you?
W: Yes.
W: I mean, No.
W: Oh, I don't know. It is just that you love me too much.
M uses a finger to trace the profile of W's throat down from her chin, down into the valley between her breasts.
M: laughs ... if this is your way of saying that you don't want to make love tonight, you can just say so directly.
W giggles and whispers.. no!
M pulls W roughly under him, his body covering hers, his fingers unbuttoning her shirt. He kisses her down the valley between her breasts, a kiss on the skin exposed under every opened button.
M: Are you feeling suffocated by my love?
W does not answer but pulls M's face into her breasts.
M turns his face to kiss W's breast and reaches for a nipple with his mouth.
M: You know that you are free to be like the others, to treat this as a game, to play around. You don't have to love me as I love you.
W moans loudly as M suckles on her breasts.
W: I know baby, I know.

[The camera moves away from the couple. Perhaps the avatar behind the camera feels shy.]

Eyes

I had arrived fashionably late to the party and as is my wont stood in the far corner from the entrance nursing a drink and observing the crowd and its dynamics. Now whether I am an observer or a voyeur has never been clear in my own mind. Regardless, it is usually a fruitless and solitary pastime. That night however, right around when I had just downed my sixth drink and my mind was considerably numbed and defenseless, she made her entrance. It seemed as though the crowd quietened. Or perhaps it was just that my senses sharpened and focused on her suppressing all that was extraneous. Evolution must have done this, given the hunter and the hunted special abilities. I watched her enter the room, instantly part of the conversations. Sequined, off-shoulder dress flowing with her as she moved. Someone gave her a glass of champagne. Laughter, her head thrown back, her hair lustrous. Her lips parting to swallow. Kisses for a friend. A hug. Feline, her movement. Predator or prey? She moved across the room, pulling in her wake a growing crowd of voices. Someone took the empty glass from her. Her bare arms encircling a friend, pulling him in, whispering in his ear. Laughter. The crowd parting as she moved steadily across the room. She was within earshot now but my senses dulled my hearing so that I could see her better. Her smile infused her face and I could see the green of her eyes, the light touch of makeup on her face, the moistness from the champagne on her lips. She had not looked at me, not once, but she kept on coming in more or less a straight line. She reached for the glass of champagne I offered as she finally came near. "You have been watching me," she said, raising the glass to her lips as she came within kissing distance. "My eyes have not left your face since I first saw you," I whispered, raising my glass to join her in a silent toast.

Something in me

I had walked for long on the hot deserted streets littered with trash, past the shuttered storefronts adorned with graffiti, the dark shadows of the high-rises my sole companions, when as I turned a corner I saw them. I hadn't expected to meet anybody here and so I stepped back quickly, back into the shadows, observing silently. They were talking, he leaning back against a car, a beautiful gleaming old Chevy Impala, his body tall and well-muscled, a little gray visible in his hair below his hat. They were talking, she standing in front of him, animated, pretty young thing in a flowery summer dress, raven hair cascading in waves over her shoulder and back. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I could tell that they were flirting, the kind of flirting when one meets an attractive person for the first time, the kind of giddy flirting that happens when everything works, every joke is funny. He would touch the rim of his hat every once in a while and smile, flexing his muscles as he gestured to emphasize something, leaning forward into her. She would play with her hair as she responded, moving her body from side to side as if she were dancing ever so slightly, eyes focused on his face. God, she was young. Radiant. Happy. I watched her, eyes tracing her profile as she threw her head back laughing loudly. She seemed so innocent. So captivated by him. Something in me wanted to reach out, protect her from this man, from his evil intentions. Something in me wanted to tell her that she was too young for him, that he was obviously practiced at the art of seduction, the proverbial smooth operator. Something in me wanted to seduce her myself. Something in me wanted to captivate her, to subject her to my desires, to let loose the beast within me upon her.

Story: Long Pause

[Setting: A serene small lake surrounded by a thick forest. From the distance the camera moves in closer to two figures near the waters edge, standing a few feet apart and facing the lake. The camera moves close enough that we start to hear their conversation.]

L: "I am not one to betray a love. "

R: "Then why?"

[Long pause]

L: "I just couldn't stay true to you."

R: "I don't understand. Why do this to me?"

[Long pause]

L: "I think I lost the ability to distinguish what is true and what is false in our love."

R: "What do you mean?"

L: "We lived betwixt fact and fiction for so long. It just got hard to keep things straight."

[Long pause with anguish apparent in the stillness of the figures.]

R: "You always had my heart. You knew that."

[Long pause]

R: "Didn't You?"

[Very long pause. Both figures stare resolutely at different fixed points in the lake.]

R: "Is this about our open relationship? Because you agreed to that. You even argued for it yourself. And you know that all the others are just toys to play with and discard."

[Long pause]

R: "You know you are the only one with whom every kiss is real... every feeling is fact... with the others it is just roleplay."

R: "Our love was different. It was real. I know we never met. You don't even know my real name. But it was real. Different. The feelings were so fucking real."

R: "You knew that, didn't you?"

[The camera gets distracted by movement at the other end of the lake and shifts its focus to it. We can no longer hear the conversation.]

Story: Dance

She danced for me. I had arrived into the middle of the crowded club floor a little while ago and had carefully walked my way backwards through the grayed gyrating bodies to an unpopulated corner. I stood there, listening to the banter of the singer and to his music, waiting for my computer to resolve the textures on the crowdful of strangers one by one. She had materialized just a few feet away from me, her sinuous body clad in the latest skin, the kind that glows and provides a softer focus than that attainable using the latest cosmetics in real life. I adjusted my view so that only she was visible to me and so that I could ignore the madding crowds. She had picked a lovely dance, sensuous but not erotic, and her body flowed with the music as if she were mostly liquid. Her dance periodically brought her right up to me and then moved her farther away. At the closest point in her dance, I could look right into her eyes, her head thrown back, so close that the merest incline of my head would allow me to kiss her. I fought the urge to do just that and instead let her long limbs envelope me before her dance would take her back away from me. Mesmerized, my eyes tracked her movements, following the curve of her lissome leg as it extended out of the slit in her soft black lace skirt. Her shoulders bare, descending to show just the start of the swell of her breasts. I watched the curls of her dark lustrous hair move in unison with her body, alternately hiding and exposing her collarbone. The contour of her shoulder leading to the long throat and then her face. I focused in yet closer on her and imagined my breath follow my focus caressing her as I studied her face. We were alone in my world, she and I, and the music. I studied her. And wordlessly, she danced for me.

Story: Until my days are done

This story is inspired by a beautiful sim (specifically by the incongruous part captured in the included photograph) by AM Radio. Here is the slurl if you are interested in exploring it.

It was just when I was beginning to anticipate the triumph of erasing my life that they first appeared, the five violinists. By then it had been several months into my coming back to the desolate island of my forefathers to die. I had dragged the small boat that brought me there from the beach to the only man-made structure on the island, a spare but functional cabin; the very structure where long ago the wailing of a newborn had heralded my arrival. This was the place I meant to erase, the whole island, and not just from memory but from existence. Each day I would get up and wander about systematically willing my exhausted body to focus its remaining energy to my final task. I made it snow incessantly, the white of the snow leaching all the color from the land, obliterating every feature, slowly fading the mass of the island blurring it into the white snowy background, as in an ancient and fading black and white photograph. The living things, mostly trees and grasses, were harder to deal with. I would tend to each tree and clump of grass in turn, using whatever magic remained in me of my forefathers, to bleed the color of life from them. I had worked feverishly each day for months in the bitter cold until the color was gone from the trees, leaving faded bony branches, more skeletons than trees, and the air was thick with the space between these trees. Each night I would try to sleep, my body racked in pain but caring nothing for it because I could taste success. And then they came, they came at night, the five violinists. I did not have to drag myself out of bed to know this. Even in my delirium, I could feel the terror every note from their violins lashed on my mind. I could hear the five strands of music, rivers of color and warmth, extending outwards from where they stood. I writhed and cursed all night consumed by the knowledge that every note from their violins breathed color back into the island. They were my nemesis, whether angels or demons I cared not, for they were there to thwart me in death as they did in life. At daybreak, when the terror had finally subsided I staggered out of the cabin and saw that the heat of their music had melted the snow where they had stood in the night, and in turn the bitter cold of the morning had frozen the melt into a glassy pond of ice. There, right under the glassy ice were their violins. I raged against the gods, wailing, throwing my fevered naked body against the ice in the pond wanting to smash the violins to pieces so that they could never be played again. At long last when there were no tears left in me, and the cold had turned despair into resolve, I turned to the new green leaves that had sprung up in the night on the bush growing on the boat nearby. I knelt, cradling the new leaves, turning my mind to their color, coaxing it out of them as I had done for so many months. I knew then, that the battle was joined, they will play their infernal music among these trees every night, and every day I would grow the space between these trees, at least until my days are done.

Story: Come Walk With Me (v1)

This vignette takes place in a real place (see included photograph). A beautiful build by AM Radio. Here is the slurl if you would like to visit.)

"Come walk with me" I said, and extended my hand to her as she arrived through the portal door. She looked at my outstretched hand, hesitating long enough that I thought she would refuse. We walked slowly, hand in hand, down the shiny tar road in the middle of the desert. The land around us was barren, the recent persistent lack of rain leading to cracks big enough that little furtive creatures darted in and out. Perhaps there was some moisture to be had deep inside the parched earth. Nothing grew though on either side of the road as far as the eye could see. No man made structures broke the vast expanse, other than the road itself, straight as an arrow. We walked down the middle of the road for a while, the painted yellow center lines between us, dividing, stretching with no end in time. I looked back for a moment, and perhaps because of the haze under the baleful sun, it looked to me like the yellow lines weren't there at the beginning of the road, that nothing had divided us back where we had started. We walked towards what seemed like a small tornado on the road, open big black beautiful umbrellas whirling about in the whooshing air. There was nothing else in the little dust storm, just the umbrellas. We each tried to catch the umbrellas several times but with no success. There was to be no respite from the sun. She laughed sadly, tugged on my hand, and we continued on down the road. In the outstretched silence we could see the ragged shadow of a great big tree in the distance. As we approached it, the tree itself seemed more like a spaceship floating above the road with only its shadow on the ground. We paused briefly at this wonder and then walked on under the floating tree to the car. An old car, beautifully maintained, its grill gleaming, its headlights bright, its engine growling steadily. An empty car at the end of the road. Perhaps it could take us back to the beginning, back to where we had started.

Story: It is what I need in here

She was my new neighbor, the one with the futuristic house in the deep sky, and I had been showing her my land for the past hour. The beach, the house on the hill, the waterfall I had built and the dungeon-cave that hid behind. She had been fascinated by the toys in the cave, particularly the especially perverse ones. We had laughingly experimented with them, hopping on and off some quickly, lingering for a few minutes on others. It is amazing how quickly the illusion of easy familiarity can build up on the charge of sexual energy. I held her hand and led her to the beach. She changed from her goth clothes to a gown whose blue shimmered in the moonlit night against my dark tuxedo. I nuzzled her face with my lips, caressing it with my breath, kissing it softly, feeling the quickening of her heartbeat against my chest as we slow danced on my beach just out of the reach of the periodic white spray generated by the crashing waves. "It is not this romance that I want", she whispered into my ear. I smiled and asked, "tell me your fantasy then"? "French maid", she whispered again, "to serve and to be used". I swayed with her silently for a while, bodies intertwined, engulfed in the closeness engendered by her revelation. "You know it is amazing to me how many strong and successful women I have met in here who wish to be slaves", I said eventually. She nodded quietly. "I spend my day making decisions for burly sweaty men who depend on me for their livelihood; every day I make all the decisions for the business I own. And then when I come in here at night, I need to lose myself in someone strong, to serve, to be told what to do, to be owned". She smiled as I gripped her hair gently, pulling on it to tilt her head back and kissed her throat. "It is what I need in here".

Story: Paired Violins

She would tell me things, lots of things. Beautiful things. How her parents had this great floor-to-ceiling library in their stone-built rambling castle of a house. How she spent much of her childhood curled up on the sofa near the big window with a view of the meadow reading books from all over the world. As I would caress her hand, cuddling her under the great big tree at the corner of my land she would tell me of the times she danced and skipped her way to school with her best friend on cobblestone streets in the early mornings. As I would press into her softly and kiss her iridescent hair she would tell me of her love of horses and the many summers she spent riding the gentle creatures on her family's estate. We would spend hours on my crescent shaped beach standing a couple of feet apart and facing each other playing our paired violins. She had become very fond of them from the moment I had first showed them to her. Their strands of intertwined synchronized music would appear magical to us as they wove disparate simple innocent individual strands of notes into complex stormy turbulent music. During high tide the waves would sweep up the beach and kiss our feet as we played and she would tear up and tell me how being able to play music with me filled the one void she had in her life. As I pressed her body against the wet sand my weight forcing her to yield, she would look into my eyes and tell me about how her best girlfriend had betrayed her trust and seduced her boyfriend while they were vacationing together way down south where the American continent's dagger pierces the frozen heart of the southern world. When I would fling her to the floor of my dungeon pinning her arms to the ground as I ripped her clothes off to take her for my pleasure, she would tell me of how she was afraid her older brother was going to rape her, that he had increasingly been brazen about it and of how she did not know how to tell her mother about her fears. As I would tie her hands and legs apart and slip the ring into her mouth to hold it open so that all her pleasures were available to me and before I would use her throat as my cock's embrace, she would tell me about how she had often seen her father violate his mistress, and of how she would hear her mother sobbing for hours afterwards. She told me things, lots of things. Dark things.

Story: Pixel by Pixel

She shimmered into being, taking form pixel by pixel less than a stone's throw away from where I stood absorbed in the beauty of the waterfall before me. Distracted, I looked surreptitiously at her, eyes lingering over her form, slowly coaxing the textures that made her to focus on my screen. Something about her appearance, something about her appearing at this moment in time when I had for long stood soaking in the absurd lonely loveliness of this place with its haunting music, something about her appeared to be designed to penetrate the shell of my isolation. A shell I had clung to for a very long time. Wordlessly, I swiveled towards her as if to invite her more fully into my world. I smiled inside, for I knew just what I had to say to her, I knew just what words would bind her to me and keep her in my world. She knelt, as if in anticipation, her knees apart, her eyes looking up pleasingly, her skin glowing under the diaphanous clothes she wore. "Greetings, my Master", she said as he shimmered into being, taking form pixel by pixel.

Story: Toys or Men? (by JJ)

The toys held my attention at first. So many to try, so many shapes and sizes.

Then he caught my eye. Tall, dark and handsome, not unusual for this place. But he stood there, quietly pondering, a calm, self assured island in this sea of iniquity.

When he spoke, I felt myself respond, as if a current flowed from him to me, drawing me in. His presence surrounded me as we talked and laughed that brief while. When he said he had to be going, I didn't want him to leave. But it was silly; we'd known each other only minutes.

Yet, I was aware of him, even when alone again.

Story: Keeping Count

"One hundred and thirty eight"; the thought came unbidden, flooding his mind, riding in on the surge of power feeding into his body as he came alive again. He knew what it meant. It was the number of times he had died and been reborn, at least since the time he figured out a way to keep score. He surveyed the scene materializing before him striving in vain to recall anything else from his past. It never worked, nothing but the last thought passed through death to the next life. *Get naked bitch* he heard himself say and did what he always did to keep from going insane, he shut down his mind's senses from what was happening to him, to what he was doing to others. Only his internal clock kept track of the passage of time. He was ready when the inevitable jolt of power rushing out of his body came. His senses awoke and in one brief instant of clarity he could see his victim. Bending forward he kissed softly the tears on her face, whispering, "One hundred and thirty nine".

Story: Sentience?

She knew the sun shone only for her. That all the beautiful naked writhing bodies around her, pelvises thrusting mindlessly, were enshrined in darkness. And yet, whatever little hope she had left in her unending quest had brought her to this newly formed island. She swiveled impatiently, waiting for the horizon to deepen, for the textures in the far grayness to come alive. And then as she turned she saw him, at first a white amorphous blob and then resolving slowly, piece by piece, into skin and clothes and hair. Something about him drew her eyes to his face, to his glance upon her, and she knew instantly. The sun shone for him too. She had found another sentient.

How to Begin?

The aim of this blog is to write about experiences in SL in the form of short (less than 500 words) stories. Ideally stories in a single paragraph.

In a sense all non-singular experiences in SL are the work of collaborative fiction, since there is a (varying) degree of artifice, pretense, and suspension of disbelief in all SL encounters; hence the name of the blog.

Of course, is it a blog if no one but the writer reads it? Time will tell.