finespun; a vignette.

Above us is the sky; beneath us, the earth. Between us is fire; beside us, a mountain and a churning drop into the valley. Within me is the blowing of a hollow wind.

There are strains of song curling around the frayed edges of my senses, but I am fully aware of the sober stillness constructed like an arc over the fire. It licks at the fading skylight, spitting firefly embers that flit like comets moving against gravity, shooting and fluttering wildly as the flame and the life leaves their darkening cores. They fade from this temporary glamour into ash; and the half-lived possibilities and half-true thoughts in my head go with them.

I wonder how your mind works. I imagine words; colored in pastel and rogue and cyan or pearl; marching in cursive or undecorated blocks across your head. And then I imagine your brain whirring and clicking; like machines producing 3D and 4D; and your heart, perhaps, supplies it with a fifth dimension.

I wonder what it feels like to be upwind; watching the smoke and ash get into my eyes and make it harder not to cry, while you look at me through it as through a silken veil. I imagine tendrils and little broken fingers reaching out from the back of my head to part it aside. But they die, and they fade like smoke itself; just a distance away from you, and you make no effort to help, so that we remain separated; cold and more than a little frozen in our sweating skins.

I am fully aware of your lips bending around the words; your voice curling around the melodies and your heart twisting around the hidden meanings of this song. I am only vaguely interested in what the words mean. I decide instead to listen to your keening voice and the breath that carries the notes to my ears. I imagine a wail or a scream rolling off your tongue; or a laugh, since it’s not that I want you to hurt.

Did you know? I have Polaroids of you taped to the walls of my heart; like stills from a movie scene, split-second differences in light and motion and meaning. You are standing still, and the wind whips your hair round and here and away, and your eyes blink and glow and flutter shut. In my mind I picture you that way; standing silent and perfectly still.

In my dreams I picture you laughing, or weeping, or screaming or maybe smiling. In my head I hunt down every memory I have of you and I search for the semblance of some distant emotion. I find myself filing away the subtle accidents; like your hand brushing against mine, or our gazes catching. I collect the pale confessions pencilled in the days passed in a shared routine. I cradle the heartfelt wish and possibility of falling in love with you.

But we linger here, fenced apart by fire with the precipice at our side. Now and then we gaze over the lip of the deathly drop, and we see the preparations of a war; a catastrophe just waiting to begin. And it is here, at the beginning of everything’s end, that we pause, watching, waiting for the stage to be set. My wish and fragile possibility is clutched in my hand. It strains; spiderweb lines tracing the blueprint of its destruction.

We are moments away from the end of all things, and we say nothing. Half of me is still trying to imagine the pictures and words etched and scrawled over your neurons, and I wonder what you are feeling. The other half of me watches my hand slip, not unintentionally, and let go.

I watch my dream crack as the Polaroids take on a sudden harshness, and a lusterless cold rests in your face.

(It falls and hits the ground, but I will not break.)


A short piece from some time ago. :) To make up for the terribly pointless post of last week, I'm posting quality and posting early this week! Plus I won't be here for my column (Friday) because me and Tank, as well as some other people, are flying to Bangkok on Wednesday! We'll be back by ten-ish Sunday night...and then we'll have loads to tell you! In the meantime, enjoy~.