I haven't worked much on this one, only a few paragraphs (but will be returning to it this weekend, and probably will just update this post, rather than add a new one). Uncertain of where to go next (though I have the bones of the story mapped out in my head), how to flesh it out, I decided that I would focus on the two female characters in the story. I was not going to do this, previously, but writing in general is pure reflection upon life by the author, which essentially makes every tale a body of non-fiction executed in symbols. In this sense, the stories go where they want to, as a life goes as it does. I don't think I named the brunette yet, and probably am not going to, but she will most likely in the future be referred to as "Bunny". I have not figured out how to tie Mary into this, as I'm quite uncertain of her role. But right now she is somewhat of a dark and mysterious phantom akin to the goddess Eris, seemingly troublesome but ultimately necessary. Here is the first installment of Bunny's dissection as a character. I will begin with the first meeting of Bunny and Adam, though it has been posted before, so the reader has some frame of reference. Again I will mark with asterisks where I truly left off.
“I see you here, from time to time. You are always sitting in the same place. As if it was your vocation to be a reliable beauty, that others may admire your elegance.”
“Oh,” blushing, the girl dog-eared a page in her book and proceeded to close it and put it to her side. Adam was entranced by the shadow of the wine glass that fell gracefully upon her book of childish stories. The blood red reflection consumed the cover illustration, turning it’s pale colors into deep shades of damnation.
“I am a pretty puzzle, indeed. I like to have fun and yet indulging in words intrigues me just the same as romance. In fact, I must admit that I am far more dedicated to words than I am to others, men especially. If I were to give my heart to some silly suitor, he would claim to love me at first, but beyond this glamorous façade lies an imprisoned soul. Most men should want to run when they are presented with it’s unpredictable intensity. What person truly cares for another? This Earth and the events that take place upon it are but a movie reel, and it’s inhabitants are a stellar cast indeed! What is the light of God but the light on the projector? And what is Time but a moving illusion? Every moment is a photograph in this grand charade! Emotions and concepts, intellect and ideas; delusions that fade as morning dew dries up in the strength of the afternoon sun. Things stop glistening. People don’t appreciate the rest of the day as it fades into the darkness. They are always waiting for the sun to rise. Nobody knows how to live through the whole day, how to get through the murder scenes, let alone love one another!”
She sighed deeply and sipped her wine, as if it would replace the agony she felt from such a dispirited picture of humanity with the calm apathy of nihilism. Adam was certain that she didn’t really believe such things. He was not as deep into the cave as she was, and was still able to turn around and see the light from the opening he crawled into.
“Haven’t you cared for another?", Adam questioned.
“Oh, I had loved someone once. It was so long ago that the memory has faded like the brightness of the paint on a wall after years of being beaten by the rays of the sun. The moments are dull and motionless in my mind, though I know that I was once alive in the glory of such passions.”
“I am the same as you, indeed, but hearing such an existential disertation from another is disheartening. It attempts to murder the soul!”
“Oh no! It is not existentialist for me to think these things. I am only looking for something real. Perhaps there is a soul out there that is able to live through the day.”
“Perhaps I am a soul that is able to live through the day?”
The brunette laughed heartlessly at Adam’s obviousness. “Oh, perhaps. Perhaps not. Now if you will excuse me, I haven’t the patience for men today, this is why I have the beloved world of fairytales to escape to.”
“In your pursuit of reality you fill your head with idle fairytales? You are a mystery indeed!”
“I assure you, my humble friend, that fairytales are as real as you and I.”
With these words the fabled Dorothy retrieved her book, hiding her face behind a cover illustration of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Adam stared at her for some time as she tried to climb over the rainbow into Oz in an attempt to find the truth.
The old man was now without all five senses. A soft voice came from within him expanding like a wave coming into shore. It seemed to yield the loud power of an explosion, though it was composed gracefully of notes he was certain did not exist in the waking world. His entire body broke from its stillness, vibrating acutely that he was certain he was experiencing a seizure. This shower of energy that seemed to come from above and travel down to his feet seemed as though it had gotten itself emprisoned in flesh. With great effort it had shaken off the corpse of the old man, taking his consciousness with it.
Sight was restored to him. It was difficult to tell which things he was seeing were real, and which were of the dream world. He knew that he was still in the forest, but from the ground grew strange plants he was unfamiliar with. The only thing noteable about them was their bright red color. The sun shone strongly, causing the canopy of various shades of green to take on a translucent nature. The flowers resided in the shadows where there was not a sliver of light to alter their opacity. There was not a trace of yellow nor orange to marry the two complimentary colors, that they may work together in a splendid display of light and shadow. The delicate green tent seemed to tremble in the presence of the militant red flowers. And for this reason they seemed more like intruders planning a preemptive strike, than welcomed guests in the emerald city.
The sun was momentarily tucked tightly behind a large cumulous cloud. In its hiding, the shade’s damp chill provided a desolate, yet charming ambience, akin to an ominous mist that elegantly hangs like a curtain hiding distant ocean shores. Cracking branches led the soft rustle of leaves in a dance of sound. The first thing the old man thought of was The Wolf. Desperate to find his companion, he had forgotten the strangeness of all things that were happening to him, and without his body attempted to run far into the trees. Immediately he was transported deep enough into the forest that he could no longer see the edge of his property.
The soft sounds of an animal brushing against growth as it travelled through the forest were more audible now. The old man was certain he heard music faintly asserting it’s presence as a whistling wind whipped itself passionately through the treetops. As he floated closer, now compelled by the commanding nature of the noises which intrigued him, he began to see the source of this cosmic lullabye. Beyond the zephyr that played the wooshing leaves; past the low rhythmic chanting of a nearby brook, was a melody that should have been imprisoned in the past. It was the glue which held together the orchestra of the forest, and the old man had concluded that this was the stuff of the fabled faery music.
What he had seen was not to his liking. He had felt as though a malevolent force had ripped a forgotten image from deep within his psyche, holding it in front of him like a carrot on a stick. Overwhelmed with longing, his heart felt like a once still lake, in which a stone was dropped from the sky. The dull ache that spread out through his being from the initial shock of this unforgivable sadness pulsated like the rings which begin and fade, making room for new rings until the water settles. This phantasm before him was but a romantic poison with a beautiful name, causing a ruthless chaos that would never succumb to order’s reign. The chosen victim of a murderous Time quick to injure and slow to kill, the old man had no choice but to accept this suffering. The red flowers began to grow as the sun became eclipsed by the moon’s shadow. The emerald city was conquered, scorched by the black fire of night.
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Adam stood, feeling jilted though she remained next to him. He knew her breed of women well. She was not a land to be conquered, not an animal that could be hunted, not a fish to be caught in the dirty sea net that was the desire of others scrambling to her light, her body, her face that was but a pretty clown mask of tenderenss and warmth no one wanted to look beneath. There were a few that she was stripped bare around, those who had the gift. It was them she was not innocent around, for they loved her for who and what she was, a monster indeed, but when treated as a monster, there was no reason for her to turn on the bright light. It was those who could truly dance in the darkness with her, who would enter that place without fear, that she could shine naturally for with her subtle glow.
Time and again it pained her to live outside of the world, for there was a time she had delighted in the costumes and the glamour. In her youthful naivete she had the ability to be a princess seduced by the poetry of the handsome peasant boy who dragged her to the bottom of the ship to indulge in forbidden festivities. She had thought this was living until she became aware of the maids that scrubbed the deck. These dispirited women who grumbled and wept for no one and nothing but their parched and bleeding hands, were once smitten by the peasant boy and his romantic banter. Nobody had informed her of this, it was the telling look in their eyes when they watched her dance in violent happiness, drunk on red wine and promises of forever. They were remembering with a sorrow that refused to believe that his love was not love, but seduction eager to sink it's teeth in soft victims. The movie reel repeated rapidly across their faces, as if the evil god of longing kept rewinding only to fast forward again. Confused by the scenes in which the film had begun to deteriorate, in an automatic madness the women stared down vacantly at their bedraggled bodies, left only in the company of their own bewilderment as to how they became so filthy.
"Why aren't you dancing?," the boy asked, noticing a subdued expression of horror that had somehow held her childish beauty prisoner. Suddenly it became easy for her to see the emptiness behind acting eyes, how the play had molded her like clay into the role of his prisoner. Once she dried, he could place her on his mantle as a trophy. Cracked and brittle like the maids, he would no longer have use for a statue that cannot dance, and would soon substitute her with another. Like a drop of straight poison he had slipped gently into her life, his calming properties creeping up slowly to cause a philosophical death that mimicked peace of mind. This was an epiphany given to her by some kind of higher force, whether from within or without; her intelligence at once doubled, her intuition now much more deserving of her trust, and her lot in life revealed. While the peasant did not understand her sudden change of heart, he let her climb to the top deck as she pledged an oath to the golden truth of the sun that was setting upon the water, and did not even care to watch as she jumped into the great uncertain sea alone. Through the crash of waves as her body plunged the surface, guffaws of the peasant's jousting with another were the whispering songs of phantoms from a recent past that had already seemed so foreign to her. In the world of men like him, the music never stops. Any inkling of doubt that she had about her decision was murdered violently by his predictable routine.
Existing on the fringes of average living was at first difficult, if only because her brain had to readjust its habitual behaviors. Though not quite the same breed as the peasant boy, after diving into the waters she had happened upon her own little island. Tucked away to build a home in the midst of the sea, she had become a legend for sailors who happened upon the secret piece of a mighty Earth that was hers alone. For it was inhuman, and decidedly imbalanced to relinquish her responsibility as a woman in the physical world. What turns a man into a rake is the stuff that turns a woman into a siren. Her alteration was impossible to avoid. She became less real in the eyes of society, and more real in the history of the universe; A strong and intricate vessel that served to protect a fragile and intricate truth.
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