creative writing

The Woman with the Golden Veil

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Picture Credit – http://cdn.klimg.com/fimela.com/resources/sites/default/files/article/2014/09/golden%20veil.jpg

To catch a glimpse of her was to stop and catch your breath in wonder. There was little about her self that was remarkable: lips like raspberries, skin like milk, a simple dress, dark curls of hair. She was plain, but the veil, the veil made her ethereal. It was like sunlight captured, woven, and spun, a resplendent crown upon her dark head, pouring over her shoulders like holy oil. She said not a word, made no move to accept obeisance or the worship surely due someone of so glorious a diadem. She barely raised her eyes from the ground as she walked. Creamy-white feet pad through the dust, from the temple, through the market, to city square and babbling fountain. This water was never drawn, drunk, or even touched. That was what the well in the market was for. This fountain was sacred, like an oasis in the desert. Sacred to Melusina, the water goddess. And this woman was come to read her will. Read it in the current, the ripples, the waves, and the froth. She was the lady of the waters, Melusina’s oracle.

The golden veil cast sunlight shimmers on the water as the oracle took her snowy hands and did the unthinkable: she sank them into the fountain.

To Break an Angel’s Heart

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Once upon a time, an angel told a devil how to break her heart.

It was a strange event, the devil arriving at the edge of Heaven, and an even stranger question that he lobbed at her through the pearly gates.

“How could one break your heart?”

The angel’s wings waved pensively, the feathers brushing the golden bars of the gate. She was reminded of her erstwhile thoughts of whether the gate was to keep the devils out or the angels in.

How could one break your heart?

The question rang in her perfect ears, thrummed against her colorless skin, and pierced her inner light. Indeed, a touch of it seemed to spill from her chest, which she covered with her perfect hand.

“To break my heart, you must first find it.”

“Find it?” the devil echoed, “It is with you, is it not?”

The angel shook her perfect head, light and music spilling from the very rustle of her tresses. “It is not. It is there,” and she pointed beyond the gates, beyond Heaven, in a direction that most supernal beings agreed the earth laid. “It is in uncountable pieces, bits innumerable, hidden in lives lived, living, and to be lived from now through the end of time. In order to break it, you must gather it together, piece upon piece, bit upon bit, and then you must blacken it, every piece. Blacken it with greed, selfishness, unkindness, hate. Every portion must be touched, must be corrupted. In order for my heart to be brittle enough to break, every part of it must be burned and blackened with these flames. For, if even one is untouched, it will continue to beat and glow and that one piece will pour its light into others and those into others and so on. The light will never be diminished.” She blinked perfect, colorless eyes.

“We were all made this way, with our hearts split asunder. That is why we sing and praise and smile and glow. For our hearts are always alight in some corner, spreading to others.”

The angel’s voice was like bells of silver in the devil’s ears as he listened to her explain. When she was done, he slunk away from where he had stood, an inch from Paradise, and walked slowly back down to the Kingdom Below. What he desired was impossible and would always be impossible, for, as long as there are virtues such as goodness, kindness, love, patience, and generosity in but one human heart, that good will pour itself into another and another and another. Good abounding in people uncountable, lives and souls innumerable and alight.

The Joy of Alone

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10009813_1475881882626096_2055759745_nThe day was gloomy and rainy, reflecting the weariness that she felt in her very bones. All week long, it had been go, go, go. Meetings and lessons, get-togethers and dinners. People. All week: people. Finally, it was today. She stepped up to the window, asking for one ticket to the movie. The attendant might have looked at her a little askance but, if they did, she didn’t notice or at least affected not to. She garnered herself a small popcorn and a drink, inhaling the warm buttery smell of the theatre. It was smell that never failed to take her back to childhood when this was an unforeseen treat: going to the movies. Strolling through the multiplex, she made her way to the screening room where her chosen movie was showing. Stepping into the already semi darkness, she mounted the stairs to the very top row of high-backed, plush seats, scooting down the row until she was centered with the giant screen. The sweet spot.

Finally satisfied, she lowered herself down in her seat, stowing her bag,  drink, and snack, and making herself as comfortable in her temporary little nest as she could, padding it with the soft of her coat. And then, at last, she slouched in the chair, exhaling a heavy siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Alone. It was early, the theatre was practically empty, and she was alone. And the only word she would use to describe it?

Joyous.

As the theatre darkened and her favorite part of the movie-going experience (the previews) began, she snuggled down into her seat, grabbed her popcorn, and inhaled its nostalgic scent once more. This. This was joy. If just for these moments. Just…being alone.

A Cuppa Flirt

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Author’s Note: Here is the process by which this little incidental came to be. 

**My IM status reads: what to write? what to write?** Friend: write about the steam rising off of the first cup of tea in the morning. 😉 Me: Hmm, a descriptive piece. Nice! *tucks that away in her piece-bag for later* 

So here it is, written (of course) first thing in the morning.

= = =

I watched as she took the ceramic mug that contained her beverage and moved over to the window-seat to curl up in its corner. The day was still dark, the room quiet, and I watched. I watched as she held the cup lovingly in her hands, cherishing its warmth on this bitter mid-winter Saturday. And the steam seemed to respond.

Grateful for not being blown away instantly, as an immature child would do, it rose to meet her, to inspect this perspicacious woman. Serpentine and smooth, it gathered and poured from the surface of her mug, reaching up shadowy tendrils to caress her cheeks tenderly, craftily steal a kiss off her lips, and tease her like the coyest of beaus, stroking the tip of her nose. It grazed up into her ear and whispered bergamot-scented promises of warmth and relaxation, yet with a hint of elegant class and tradition. It curled around the shell of her ear and sighed anecdotes of white gloves, hidden novels, and sunny parlors, stories to charm even the most pragmatic of females.

I watched her smile, even blush a little bit. Or maybe that was just the heat of her drink? The shiver of steam’s warmth as it hits your skin and suddenly cools against your own balmy temperature? Or maybe I had made her tea a little too strong? A little too brazen in its flavor? Either way, I would hold afterward, for forever and a day, that a woman could actually be flirted with by the tea in her cup.

A Note in Retrouvaille

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The coffee shop had changed so much over the years. Gone was the little electric stove in the corner, flanked by the worn, squeaky armchairs. The place had been repainted, the booths and tables redone. The names of the drinks had changed, the art on the walls ever rotating. Yes, it had changed a great deal.

But as she sat at an empty table near the window, the air around suffused with the scent of coffee and cream and the tap-taps of keyboards, words of thought floating over her head, she smiled, The vanilla chai cradled in her hands, she remembered why she loved this place, even now.

She could feel him in the chair across from her, feel his hand – warmed by his spiced chai – in hers, his thumb running over the backs of her fingers thoughtfully as they talked, sipped, and smiled. They had spent hours here together, learning each others’ worlds, minds, and hearts. She could see him smirk at her, how he loved to tease. She could feel his kiss as he lifted her hand to his lips. These things she would never forget. These things would make this little coffee shop infinitely precious and beautiful a spot, no matter how much it changed.

“I love you,” she whispered into her vanilla chai as she lifted the smooth sweetness to her lips, her words added to those already floating in air spiced with coffee, chocolate, and cream.

The Most Exquisite Pain

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It is the most gorgeous of oxymorons, the most beautiful of bondages. La Douleur Exquise. To see him makes  your heart race, catch your breath in a net and hold it captive, fluttering. To see her makes your heart ache as so that you wish  to die simply so it will stop. Every word they speak from them drops as a gem from their lips, each and any touch from them to you imprints itself upon your skin, a sensation that will never be forgotten. Glances are hoped for, time spent together analyzed and blushed over, and words just for you are harbored up, memorized, and replayed in the night dark with a thumping heart.

It is a pain that can feel like it lasts forever but can only be a moment in time, that moment when we spy them and, though we do not even know their name, we want them.

It is a pain that can last for years, our hearts suffering in silence, our tears hidden behind doors, that person whom we have known as long as we can remember but who does not see us as we wish to be seen.

It is the stuff of romance novels, the prologues of self-help books, and drippy-sappy fairy tales (the original versions, not the tinker-dust happy endings). And yet we have devised the most beautiful sounding phrase for one of the most painful prisons of the heart. Some people would say “How French!” but I say, “How human!” Our history of languages resounds with the most beautiful phrases for the darkest moments of life. There is a reason, after all, that the phrase “the most exquisite pain” exists.

Superpowered Theory

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Here was the question posed to me: If you woke up in the morning and had superpowers, let’s say super strength and a healing factor, what would you do?

Honestly, I am not sure but I shall do my best to speculate. If I woke up in the morning with super strength, I would probably first figure it out by destroying a few things, namely my phone, which I grab on my way out of bed every morning as I stumble out to get the living room ready to take my daughter out of her crib for the morning. The thing would be smithereens in my hand, which would stun my still sleep-addled mind. I would crush the door frame that I grab hold of to gain my bearings in trying to understand what was going on. Then I’d try to lift our dresser, which took two grown and strong men to lift while it was EMPTY and WITHOUT the granite top and mirror attached. It would be like lifting Elizabeth.

Elizabeth. Oh, God.

Then I would start to freak out. I couldn’t touch Elizabeth. I couldn’t touch Ben. Not until I got this under control. I couldn’t take that risk. I could not hurt them. And I would burst into tears, inevitably waking Ben and blubbering to try to explain what cannot be explained in words alone.

The healing factor I would probably notice by the absence of my c-section scar, whose presence I haven’t been unaware of since the day it happened, naturally.

 

I know, not really your fun, oh-hey-I-have-superpowers moment. But realistic for me, I think.