Your name

But sometimes every word has been used,
and there is nothing left to do
but hold the one you can't have in the sweet arms of a tune.

                  ------- From "Sweet Arms of a Tune" by Missy Higgins

When the evening shadows lengthen, when the rest of the world goes quiet and the soft sea-breeze gathers courage and whispers through the curtains, I wait for your name.

Your name.

We play the long game, you and I. Maybe I will know your name, and maybe you and I will know what to say. We know the rules. And so I wait.

When darkness settles, when the flickering flames do their ghostly dance and the song that is buried in every movement comes alive, I wait for your name.

Spend my time

I don't know why I spend my time
writing words that you'll never read
with meanings that strain credulity

I lay beside you in the hammock on our beach, my face resting against your bosom, your beating heart filling my world. You are asleep and so I tell you that you have a beautiful smile. I tell you that I won't close my eyes, lest I lose you to a dream.

In the fading light of the sun, you lay rocking to and fro in our hammock waiting for me. I pause on our porch, watching the last rays of the sun bathe the contours of your body. Setting down the glass of Talisker whiskey on the wooden rail defining the porch, I walk down the few steps of beach to join you on the hammock.

I open the door to our home, walk in, and see your car keys on our kitchen table. Smiling with anticipation I shed my briefcase and shoes, loosen my tie, and pour myself a glass of whiskey. Two ice cubes in the glass, I turn the music on for the speakers facing our beach and am ready to dance with you. As I step onto our porch, I see the trail of clothes you have shed on your way to our hammock.

I call out your name, but when I look at the beach you are not there.

With every passing month, every passing year, it gets harder to write you into my life, but I swear by the words still left in me that we will dance together again at sunset on our beach.

Unrequited

Be in my arms,
be in my dreams,
be my love unrequited.

Another year is ending. With a fire crackling beside us, we sit on the carpet in our living room facing the wall of windows overlooking our beach. It has been snowing continuously for several hours now and so there is a beautiful quiet all around us. I lean further back against the pile of cushions propped up on the wall near the fireplace, and you lean back against my chest, my arms around you, my face resting against your hair. My eyes linger over your familiar curves, the rise and fall of your breasts, the flare of your hips, the dip of your silk dress as it drapes your thighs and legs. It never fails to stir desire, seeing you.

I reach for the glass of whiskey on the carpet next to us and you raise your face in anticipation. Smiling, I give you a sip, the cold of the ice inside tempering the fire of the whiskey. I watch you swallow, and then cup your face tilting it upwards to kiss your lips, tasting you and the whiskey, tasting you and me and kisses yet to come. 

The snow surrounds us and we sit and watch it fall in silence. Squeezing you deeper into me with my arms, I rest my face gently against yours and wait. It will be midnight soon.

Beautiful Rain

I am wrapped in the deeds of the words that have made me.

It is a beautiful rain. I turn towards you to tell you what you already know, that I love the warm rain in the city, but you are not there. The drenched empty half of the bench to my right glistens blue, then yellow, then red, and then back to blue again in harmony with the flashing neon lights in the Pizzeria sign across the narrow cobblestone street.  The small city garden behind the bench that bustles with children and their mothers during the day is silent and unmoving in the night. It is a moonless darkness and there isn't a soul about. I look leftwards, down the hill to the river. On the two sidewalks, evenly spaced gas lamps are shrouded in a fine mist, their feeble light barely reflecting off the wet cobblestones.  Bright light spills out of a few street-level windows from the row of two-story brownstones that hug the street on both sides. I sit there and watch the familiar scene.

When I turn back towards you, I know you have been watching me for a while. I reach for your hand and slide my body on the bench to be closer to you. The warm rain washes down your face. When I look into your eyes, I can see our little world reflected in your unspilt tears. I reach for your face, cupping it with my hands and whisper, "I don't remember, love. I don't remember what I am supposed to do."

Ribbon

In the dead of winter, I live at the water's edge.

Autumn leaves are long since buried under several feet of snow. Barren trees stand tall in silent vigil. There are secrets here that hibernate in the harsh winter, but all one has to do to survive is to not disturb their sleep.

Shrill cries of ravens had broken the deep quiet and woken me up early this morning. When I came outside and looked, there were too many of them to count. I watched them fly in chaotic circles around the last standing wall in the ruins that shadowed our home. Their battle was not mine. Against whatever evil that drew them here, whether they emerged victorious or perished, their cause was not mine. So I turned my back to them and walked down to the frozen beach. I would wait things out at the water's edge, near the unbreached sanctuary of the vast ocean. I stood still for a long while, hands clenched inside my jacket pockets, striving to drive the world out of my mind. 

"Why won't you come when I call?"

I turn around to look at you. Wild eyes, skin pale as the dead winter, disheveled hair, the skin tight top of a black gown ending in a flared feathered skirt with a long train that hid your feet, the ribbon in your dark hair matching the color of the bright red trail of blood in the snow behind you. 

"All I heed is your heart," I whispered softly so that you would not hear, and turned back around to the shelter of the waves.

Taste

Is it all as it seems,
so unresolved, so unredeemed.
If I remain, how will I know?

                          --- from "Humming" by Portishead

From where the sky falls into the sea, you call me.

I stand on our beach and look out over the waves to the far horizon where the sea wells up to embrace the falling sky.  I lose track of time, letting the warm waves wash the sand onto my feet over and over. You call me and I hold your hand, the wind enveloping me with your body's scent.

A perfect evening spent watching the sun set over the endless sea from our beach. I am surprised at how dark it is now. The sun must have set quite a while ago even though I don't remember it that way. When I look up, the veil of the shy night is studded with stars. The familiar waves sparkle and churn in the starlight.

"My love," I whisper, and turn towards you. You are not there. The wind still remembers your scent but as I look down at my empty hand, I am suddenly unsure.

"Should we go inside?," you say behind me, and I swing around.

Mirrors

For the seventh straight night, I could dream but I could not sleep. Every night, my dream was a whirl of ancient music, of bare feet striking stone ground, and of the faint chaotic ringing of bells. Every night, there was pain in the dream, sharp visceral pain and grim determination. Every night, my dream had gotten more and more urgent and chaotic.  Every night, I fought exhaustion before giving up and going out on the mountainside to scramble among the oppressive ruins, looking in vain for the source of the dreams.

Tonight, for the first time I could hear the music even while awake and standing outside my tent in the dark. Up and down the slope of the mountain were boulders mixed in with broken pillars and pieces of what must have once been a high stone wall. The pain was to be my compass. I walked, then fell and scrambled, and then got up and walked again, following the gradient of the drumbeat of bare feet. In delirium I walked, unseeing, unfeeling, like an animal following the direction in which the sound got louder. I don't know how long it took, but it was still mostly dark when failing to find my way around a large upright slab of stone, about twice my height and embedded in the slope, I had to climb over it to its top.

There you were. Dancing barefeet on a courtyard of broken stone mixed in with dry soil and hardscrabble grass. Shards of broken glass were strewn about the surface. Trails of blood from your feet followed your dancing. There you were. In a veil and long-limbed dress with an almost ankle-length skirt, all embedded with small mirrors and brilliantly colored threadwork. The swirl of blood as you teetered and danced, the sound of your ankle bracelets and chains, the sound of your bangles, the sounds of my dream.

I don't know if it is you under the veil.

I don't know if it is you inside the pain.

The Climb

The sky is the color of blood. I reach out with my forearm and use my shirt sleeve to wipe the blood off, but that only serves to create wave-like marks on the sky. I cannot see anything else.

At the top of the dance, I lift you up in my arms so that your head tilts back, long dark hair cascading down in a waterfall. Kissing your exposed neck, I swing you around in my arms. The scent of your skin is all around me, the wind swirling it about me as we dance.  I cannot see you and so I feel my way through the movements in the dance. Your skin against mine, your body responds to the subtle directions my movements provide.  Your skin against mine, I can feel your breath on my cheek as we get close in the dance. Your skin against mine, I can hear your strong heartbeat and more faintly those of the many who watch us. I cannot see them, but know that they surround us and wait. Your skin against mine, I pull you closer still and whisper, "Baby, you are right here with me."

The sky is the color of blood. Perhaps you will show yourself when all the witnesses are gone.

There is sand

At both ends of time, there is sand. A white beach with sand, and you.

I put down the bottle of Talisker and reach out to give the wheel of time a whirl. From you to you, in a blur of images. There you are, when time stops, in a summer dress with the warm bright churn of the waves at your feet and a rose with a long twisted stem in your hand. I linger for a bit in that time.

I used to try and tell if time was or if time would be, but gave up on that quest upon realizing that from beginning to end, there is sand and the waves, and you and I.

Another swig from the bottle, another whirl of time with my hand, and there you are. Raven hair wet from the waves, skin glistening in the moonlight as you lay next to me, your legs entwined with mine. There is much to linger for in this time. I stay for a while and we make love again.

In the light and the dark, there is sand. A white beach with sand, and you in my arms.

Road

Born on the road again. The road and its surroundings look different each time I come into being. Now whether there are many different roads or whether the world is one long serpentine road and each night just starts at some random location, there is no way for me to tell. Tonight, there is fog and the lights of the towering buildings on both sides of the road make it all seem otherworldly. The road is empty, as always. It takes me a few minutes to come to terms with the vaguely familiar or maybe just generic urban surroundings.

I know I am not sleepwalking, because as always I am holding your hand.

In the early nights we had spent all our time exploring the road and whatever surrounded it. We had tried getting off the road but the world got more and more vague and nebulous and ill-defined as we went further off the road. We would never get very far and besides we would end up on the road again every night.

I squeezed your hand, and pulled you gently to where light and music spilled out of the open doorway of a building to our right. Our kind of music, and there in the spotlight we danced.

Futures Past (part II)

(This is part II of this previous vignette.)

We drove down the road where no one goes, past the city lights, past the gritty edge of the nighttime city, and then over a bridge across the river. Just past the bridge, the road turned and ended abruptly on a bare paved waterfront terrace facing the city from across the river. Just in front of where I stopped the car, a small picnic table for two was laid out with a plaid checkerboard tablecloth, a single lit candle, and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. We sat in the car for a few minutes, holding hands, reluctant to get out and face the night's end. Nothing moved in the entire world but the flickering flame on the candle.

"Come love," I said, opening the car door and walked up to the table to open the champagne bottle for us.

I offered her a glass, and she sat across from me to watch the reflection of the candle's flame in the still water of the river. From the remaining height of the candle we could tell that tonight we would get less time than usual. Unbidden we stood and walked up right to the edge of the terrace, music started playing automatically, and we slow danced. We held each other and forgot the candle and how much time we had left. We talked in whispers, as if not wanting to awake the ghosts of dances past. We danced at the edge of the water, our bodies flickering alongside the dying flame.

In the last light before darkness, she stopped moving in my arms and asked, "do you love me when we are gone?"

Idea of you

You may be long gone
You may never have been real
but what exists and will never leave
is the idea of you


You may have been lover
You may never have been friend
but what you will always be
is my muse

Dawn

I sat nursing a glass of whiskey on my usual couch. A couple of feet from me, through the open window was a great view of our beach in the moon light. A bottle of Talisker on the side table had kept me company through the still night as I buried my thoughts in the past.

It was nearly dawn before the wind picked up enough to bring in the salt and the spray of the waves in the sea through the window. The quick relief from the oppressive heat of the night aroused me from the reverie I had fallen into. There you were, standing outside on the beach near the waves, framed by the window and its sheer, now-billowing, curtains. Bare arms, a pure white cotton dress with a long slit up one side to nearly your waist. I drained my glass in one gulp, the fire of the whiskey plunging deep inside me. You stood with your back towards me, raven hair cascading over your shoulder. With practiced ease, I filled my glass with the amber liquid and sat back on the couch to watch you. The wind, now alive, swirled around you lifting your dress, gathering your body's scent on its way into my memories. You always had beautifully athletic legs.

You watched the waves and waited for the sun to begin a new cycle. I watched you and waited too.

Come the dawn, we can run away.

Rain like static

I woke up in slow motion, the sound of the rain beating down on the roof seeping slowly into my consciousness. When I could no longer convince myself that I was dreaming, I opened my eyes to the dark of the bedroom. The familiar warmth of your body was next to me. I lay completely still, letting my eyes adjust gradually until I could begin to see in the faint moonlight that bled into the room through the window a few feet from our bed. Rain surrounded our house on the beach. Overwhelmed by the sound of the rain, I got up carefully so as to not wake you up and sat on the edge of the bed so that I could look outside. The thick rain looked like static on an old black and white TV that had lost its connection to the world. It was a peculiar mesmerizing rain and I sat staring out of the window at it for a long while. Ghostly shapes appeared and disappeared in the rain like static, and so it took some time for me to finally focus on the hooded figure at the far end of the beach near the waves. Startled, I stood up and pressed my face against the window to try and see more clearly. Whoever it was, was just standing there in the driving rain right at the edge of the waves.

I looked back at you. Your gentle breathing was undisturbed.

I looked back outside. The hooded shape turned around so that I could see the face. It was you. I called out your name in surprise. You stirred on the bed behind me. Despite all the rain and the distance I could see your face clearly, our eyes locking for a few instants before you turned back to face the waves.

I shuffled to the door and stepped out into the rain.

It was the first of many times that I was going to lose you.

Waves

We danced intertwined at our favorite spot on our beach with the sound of the waves for music. We danced and talked for hours, spinning a shared new world with our words. We made love in the dance, words caressing, penetrating, creating a swirl of arousal, words leaping, leading, following, soaring in a dance at once familiar and unreal, before retreating into private peaks of release and then ultimately bringing us back together to the quiet of the beach with its waves. We lived in the dance.

We had danced like this many a time.

We had never even met, let alone danced together.

They say the heart deceives and so it is the mind one should listen to, but then what is one to do when it is the mind that deceives one's heart?

The salt spray of the waves was now close enough to break through the blindness induced by the reverie I had slipped into whilst standing on our beach. The sun had almost set and the rising tide brought the wash from the waves to my feet.  I stood still letting reality seep back into my world along with the moonlight as it flooded the beach. There was no triumph in the moonlight for having vanquished the sun. I looked down at the long-stemmed rose clenched tightly in my hand. I had forgotten about the rose and Valentine's day. Turning back away from the waves I walked up the beach a few steps before bending down to leave the solitary rose on the sand.

"Is that rose for me?", you asked. I turned around to look back at you.

Signs of Summer

She lay on the carpet right in the middle of one of the science fiction aisles in the bookstore. Not sitting on the floor reading a book as one sometimes finds people doing in bookstore aisles, but laying fully prone on her stomach on the carpet as if beside a fireplace at home. She was dressed in a sleeveless black summer dress, her raven hair off to one side, her bare lower right leg swinging up and down keeping time to some inner music. I stood frozen in pleasant surprise for a few minutes, taking in the contrast between her pale white skin and the black dress, the firmness of her lower leg muscles, the sensible open-toed sandals on her feet, the delicious athletic form of her prone body. Fortunately her feet were towards me and so she could not see me staring at her. Mind made up, I walked the few steps to the next aisle and then across to double back into the science fiction aisle several feet in front of her. I wanted to see her face. She smiled as she read, raising her head up every now and then to drink iced-tea. I pretended to browse the bookshelf whilst looking at her surreptitiously. Her unadorned neck. Her beautiful eyes riveted to her book. The curve of her breasts pressing into the carpet. There was something about her complete abandon that captivated me. She was lost in her book and I became lost in her. I flipped through the random book I had reached for, my attention fixed on her even though my eyes were not.

****************************************

A rush of cold air swept into the bookstore as someone walked in through the front doors. Instinctively, I pressed the front of my down jacket together to stay warm. On looking back down, the aisle was empty. She was gone. Stunned, I sat down in the aisle with my back against the bookshelf. Snow was falling outside. I could see it come down from the sky through the big window at the end of the aisle. How could this be? It had been summer just a few moments ago. I sat there looking out of the window, disbelieving reality.

****************************************

"Found what you are looking for?", she asked. There she was again, laying on the carpet a few feet from me in the aisle. Gorgeous eyes smiling into mine.

"Everything," I whispered. Pausing for a few moments, I searched her face with my eyes before continuing, "I have found everything I am looking for."

Other me

(For a change, not a vignette but a decree).

What use are dreams if I cannot dictate their content? What cruel joke does biology play on us? For when we are most free from the constraints of reality, when we are most free to conjure up any fantasy we wish, we are also most at the mercy of the uncontrollable whims or fancies that seed our dreams. If it isn't me that lives my dreams, then who is this other me? Be he demon or deity, I wish to trade places with him so that he may taste what it is to live within the bounds of reason and society, and I may taste true free will. So that he may walk, and I may fly. So that he may be true, and I may lie. So that he may deal with the world as it is, and I may fashion a world as I want it to be. For if I am to make conversations and have coffee, make love and have fights, if I am to do with others all the things that one does in the realm of daily living, then I want the realm of dreams to be for you and for you alone. If I was the other me then you would be my life.

Does the other me dream? It must be so, for to claim otherwise would make me and my kind special and separate. If nothing else, Occam's razor or in other words the simplicity that science demands of explanations would assume that my other me dreams and then so does his other me, and so on, ad infinitum. I hereby decree that all the other me's inside of me must dream of you and you alone so that I can be with you infinitely.

Fine Line

It's a dangerous game, it's a very fine line
and if one step is wrong, I'll have no cards to play
That's why I have got nothing to say tonight

                  --- Riot on an Empty Street by Kings of Convenience

I no longer know if it can happen, you and I.  It wasn't that I had no choice, it was that all the choices I had involved disregarding the soft lonely voice of reason.

I put a hand on the top of the barricade and leaped over it bracing for impact as I fell the nearly two-story drop onto the concrete pavement below. Despite landing into a crouching stance, the violence of the sudden stop traveled instantly through my bones all the way into my skull jarring my brain loose, or so it felt.  Images, like shards of steel-edged glass, flood into my mind.  Rain. You are dancing in the rain on a springtime hilltop, your wet dress clinging to your curves. Summer rain. You are in my arms on our beach watching the sea swell up from the battering coming down from the sky. Glistening sweat. Your raven hair clinging to the sides of your face as you thrust your hips upwards to meet mine, your swollen nipple filling my mouth. I fall over into a fetal position, clutching my head in a futile attempt to shield it from these image fragments. Fear. You looking back frantically while running hard in desperate stumbling strides alongside a long white fence. Frame after frame of fear and running and the pristine white fence. Low moans. Your hands in my hair as I bury my face between your legs suckling greedily on the moist trough between your lips. Frame after random image frame coursed through my mind. Even in the midst of the pain I can tell that some of these images are not from the past.  I shake my head to drive these images away but the pain only gets sharper. There is a little bit of you in everything.

An unheralded urgency somehow brings forth the strength from inside me and I get up on my feet. I have to find you tonight. Unsteady, I see both the images my eyes are seeing and what my untethered mind is creating for me. I would have fallen but for my groping hands finding a fence to steady me. An idyllic white fence that seems to stretch endlessly into the future. I stagger back in disbelief. Drawing my dagger from underneath my shirt I run wildly alongside the fence, bumping into it every few steps both to make sure that it is really there and to keep from falling. Suddenly I see you  running in front of me, red gashes on your arms. I can see the terror in your face as you look back. This can't be happening for real. I stop and shake my head to be able to see properly again. There is only the fence stretching in front of me. I keep running, dagger gripped firmly in my right hand. I can hear you calling out my name.

A laughing man and the sea

How do I tell the sea that I am not the author of the storm? That this is not my dream, but hers. That swallowing me would give it no respite from her fury. How do I tell it that I am but a laughing man and it is the sea?

I pulled down on the hem of my coat and turned up its collar before I stepped out resolutely into the severe storm.  I had waited far too many days already for the downpour to end or for it to at least slow down enough that the sea would stop its furious lashing of the little island of sand that was home, our home. My sleep deprived mind could feel the realm beyond the sea gradually slipping away. I have to find a way to cross over to the other side before it disappeared.

Time became the drumbeat of shards of rain. Time became the pulsing tiredness of muscles. Time became the crest and trough of waves. Over and over.

The sea had gone mad.

Futures Past (part I)

I could see her waiting for me on the curbside as I drove down the street towards her. Tonight she had chosen a smaller and more athletic body than most other times, a skin that knows only the night, raven hair loose on her shoulders, the twin tops of high pale breasts visible above her strapless off-shoulder mini-dress, her bare legs ending in high-heels. Pulling up to her, I stopped the car and leaped smoothly out of the open top to land close beside her in my tuxedo.  I smiled broadly and opened the car door for her with a flourish.

"My destiny!" I said, offering her a hand while gesturing elaborately to the passenger seat with the other.

"My love," she said, smiling in return and held on to my hand as she daintily lowered her body into the seat. I danced around the car whistling happiness and got back in. She leaned towards me and our lips met in a kiss. A kiss full of memories and predictions. A kiss to make this night more real. Before the kiss could make the desperation in our hearts well up and sour the evening, I broke our embrace gently.

"Did I tell you?," I whispered in her ear as I pulled back.

"Tell me what?," she asked. I held her gaze for a few long seconds, each of us fighting separate demons that we could not see clearly.

I turned to pump the accelerator while pressing down on the brakes to show off the low guttural growl of my muscle car. Grinning, I eased on the brakes to set off up the road with tires and brakes squealing. "Did I tell you," I shouted above the roar of the engine, "that you look gorgeous. That you set my pulse racing every time I look at you." Pulse and car raced up the road.

She leaned back in her seat, her body and mind visibly relaxing, her hair catching the wind and billowing about the headrest. We drove in silence through the city in the light of the setting sun. There was no traffic anywhere. There never is. All the lights in the windows of the beautiful skyscrapers shine for no one. We held hands and watched the silent, lovely, uninhabited, and foreboding city go by as we followed the single road to its conclusion.

"You made a beautiful world for us tonight," she said, squeezing my hand.

"Love, I thought it was you that made this for us?"

She was silent for a while. "I don't know. It has gotten so hard to tell." With a visible effort she cheered up and asked, "where will you take me tonight?"

I laughed. "I have no idea where this road is taking us, but from the clothes we have on I would guess dinner and dancing."

"Mmmm, my favourite," she said happily.

Don't respond

"Don't respond to this -- I miss you and I love you, but you left me with no choice. It's lonely here without you."

I lay in the hammock on our beach with the folded note on my chest. The sea churned, the ebb and flow of its recurring waves keeping pace with the swinging of the hammock. The pale light of the setting sun flickered off the waves. The outer peace quieted the inner turmoil.

A gust of wind blew the note off my chest and into the sea, where it skipped a few waves like a stone cast by a playful child before it got caught in the water. I had tried to catch the note as it flew off and had failed. It now lay in the water, soaked and floating. From afar I imagined the words slowly dissolving, their ink leaching out into the water. I imagined the ink-on-water words getting diffuse and bigger but keeping their rough shape as they floated and got pushed and pulled by the waves. Will they reach our beach and mark those words on it for ever or will they float away into the vastness of the sea? The hammock swung back and forth and with it our world, undecided. I lay back against you, our bodies together shaped the movement of the hammock, my hand played with your hair.

Not our Fate

"But you and I, we've been through that  
and this is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
                --- All Along the WatchTower by Bob Dylan
 
Disoriented, I stand in what I think is the middle of a room, but I am unsure for my eyes have not yet adjusted to the darkness. I don't know how or whence I came to be here. I try turning cautiously around seeking outside light from under a door or from the edges of a window but there is complete darkness. With no reference point for the eyes and nothing within reach but the floor I was standing on, all I had were the sensations from my body and it made my distrustful mind unsteady.  So I stopped moving and just waited.

The flesh of your high breasts flashes brilliantly as you arch your back. I blink and it is dark again.

I follow with my eyes your up-stretched arms to the scarves tying your wrists above your head to the posts on either side of the bed. Our bed. Your arched back and the urgency of your thrusts meeting his tell me that you are close to release. Darkness again. Fuck.

Is this my room? It ought to be for you were on my bed. Yet it cannot be because nothing else is right. I lurch forward gingerly but the ground is unsteady and alive under my feet. As I struggle for balance I see you again.

You are kneeling on the floor, nadu, before a standing man. Your white naked flesh against his dark trousers. Your knees pressed against his dirt-streaked boots, your breasts pressing into his knees. Even though I see you from the side I can tell what your upturned face is begging him for. My body responds, blood rushing into my barometer of desire that knows your pretty mouth so well.

I hear you moan close behind me and swirl around, almost falling in the dark. Your hair clings to and covers your tears-streaked face as you lean forward straining the ropes that tie your hands on the bar above your head. I cannot tell if you are trying to escape from or grind into the dark-haired face pressed between your legs. My eyes are drawn to the leather whip lying near your feet on the floor and then to the raw marks on your breasts and stomach. I search your face and wish I could look into your eyes. I wish I could ask you why you are crying. I wish I could ask you why you are moaning with pleasure. I wish I could ask you if this darkness is within you or within me.

I wish it would just rain down on you and I and wash all this darkness away.

You are close, so close, and I lean forward to whisper into your ears, "You belong to me." But you don't hear me.

The dark covers me.

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.