But a memory

listen to this.






We speak a language of our own.


A language of nuances, of expression and gesture.


           Of whispers, 


                          silence, 


                                   heartbeats.






It is delicate,



                                                                    fragile, 






                                                                                                                             fleeting. 






And then


                              it is


                                                 gone.








Like summer afternoons, dwelling in the fragrant memory of a sweltering day.






The cool breeze,


the swollen fruit,


the dizzying records on repeat.






But these moments,


this peaceful ecstasy can not last.


For we depend on sight, on holding the other in the reflection of one's eye.






But alas, the light


                                 the light


                                      is 


                                        fading,


                                            falling,


                                             increasing.


Disappears from our eyes


                                                                  darkness falls

Watch it grow. 

The distance between us. 

Lengthening as shadows in the late afternoon, 

                        stretching out, 

                                                                falling 

                                                                                             through 

                          cracks 

                                                                                                       and 

                                                                                                                                                                        crevices,

dimming the light.

                                to darkness we fall

The distance of Adam and Eve falls between us

The silence 

The unspoken 

                            hush, my darling. 

                                words can not revive, 

                                       repair,

                                              restore

This memory 

This memory of irrevocable loss.

Naught For Thee

I wondered if you would have thought of changing the light bulb before you left. But you didn't, and now I'm stuck sitting in a room full of candles. 


It was as if you wanted me to do this, knowing full well I couldn't change the bulb for myself. 


But hark, my dear, this candlelight vigil is naught for thee, rather, for my aching heart and lacking adequacies in domestic duties. 


Rest your heart, your head, beloved, thine hopes for the hopeless, for resting thy assurances in the delicate shadows and reflections and none in your memory, I find comfort in the memory of light not by fire, but by deeds.

Composition

When did it all begin?
I try looking back over our years, searching for the signs that I must have missed.

Did you expect it all along? If a gypsy woman approached us in the street a year ago, say at that fair on midsummer eve, to tell you how you would go, would it have made a difference? Would you have looked at her in denial, and strove to prove her wrong? Or would you have nodded quietly inside yourself, as if you always knew that one day it would soon become too much.

Too much. The richness of the dark chocolate you would only eat, so bittersweet it would make your eyes water. The neon lights, flashing over and over in the same patterns, each minute, each hour, each day. The excess of wine, the too deep conversations, the stifling heat. The way my feet would always be too cold against your leg, the lack of pauses, commas, full stops. The boiling coffee you would spill a few drops of in the same place each morning. The tiny skeleton of a bird we found, the first time we looked on the roof. The smell of the Chinese restaurants, thick with memories of your first overseas trip.

I think the air was always thick with memories for you. The summer trees, under which you had your first kiss. The smell of another's neck. The salty smell of hands and feet and skin and hair after a day by the ocean. The rusting pipes in the alley next to the grocers. In the smell of gardens in springtime, the overwhelming scent of herbs and fruit blooming. The old leather jacket your father used to wear. The books I would bring home, to pulse hungrily through the pages, leaning in closer and closer. The smell of the first winter morning of the year, silent and crisp, the sharp blue sky, clear from clouds, as if a wind had blown each whisp away. Standing in a field, small yellow flowers dotting though the deep green, our feet damp with morning dew, hair brushed out of our eyes, surrounded by fresh, new light.
Maybe you just wanted to escape from it all.

And now that you're gone, how do we escape?
We float, we drift, as a shadow of life. We boil the kettle, open and close windows, take out the garbage, and live the ordinary life that we thought we lived before you. We visit the places we once went together, sitting in silence in the rooms that once held our laughter. We lose things, we find things, while never finding the thing we've lost forever. We call each other, each lonely ghost, to sit with silence on both ends, knowing but never saying that it was you who filled our conversations. We dream of old days, we use the memory of trees, of weather, of the yellow shirt and bare feet to create new memories, which still fail painfully, crashing onto the hardwood floors and the carpet with your coffee stain, shattering our illusions, so all we're stuck with is the glaring hum of reality.

Reality. In the bottles of wine, left over from goodness knows when, because I can't bring myself to do anything with them. Last Tuesday night, when I woke in the night, reaching over for your hand, your face, to find you were gone. In your sister's note she left, 'I'm sorry', only to say it over and over again in the recovery wards. In the trail of things, dropped in pathways, through doorways, on floors, because we have no strength to hold onto you anymore.

But we still can't let go.

You're mad, you know that, right?

We were sitting outside, I began to think of the man that's been living in my head.
'Six inches', I said to myself, out loud.
'What?' My friend asked, pausing.
'He will only sleep if he's six inches off the floor.'
'Who?'
'Well, his name is Peter, but because the girl he loved as a child was French, he prefers Pierre.'
'You know him?'
'Of course I do, he's been living in my head all day.'
'So he isn't real?'
'Well technically not flesh and bone, but real in my head.'
'Okay... So six inches including the mattress?'
'Yes.'
'Yes including the mattress?'
'Why not?'
'Well, A mattress is almost six inches thick. So is the gap six inches and then the mattress starts?'
'Hold on, I'll ask him.'
'Huh?'
'He says the gap has to be six inches.'
'Who says?'
'Pierre.'
'Peter?'
'Yes, but shh, it's Pierre now.'
'Oh.'

For Gabrielle

We are transitional, sojourners in the wilderness.

We are naught but a breath, we are but shadows here.

We wait for the signal, we pitch tents and build altars.

And when the divine speaks, the mountains stop to listen

Beneath that star-strewn night, we hear the words over and over again 

Throughout the ages, it speaks, 'Go, and be blessed.'

So we walk, we move towards a goal that whispers rather than shouts.

All the while listening, waiting, following.

'And where will you go?' they ask,

'Towards life. Always towards life' she said, as she turned towards Him.

And He calls out to each of his chosen,

Waiting for the one who will step forwards. 

The one who declares, 'I will.'

For Love or For Nothing

In contradiction

The tiles were abnormally cold for such a hot day. She felt the smoothness against her back as she lay, staring up at the ceiling. She wondered at the inclination of humans to look up. When fascinated, when lost, when tired, when dreaming. Always looking up. She wondered what was up there that everyone was looking for. Maybe they had already found it, and were just checking that it was still there. Is that how people find Jesus, she wondered. No, she concluded. It’s probably how they lost him. She always thought of Jesus as elusive, an enigmatic shadow hovering over the future, concerned mostly with her death and what good and bad things she was doing. 

The white-walled studio and the hard knotted wooden floors on which she lay held her whole life. Her art, her battered guitar, her soul in the walls, in the floor. The suitcase full of hardcover books splattered with paint. Odd socks, a family portrait of happier times, her toothbrush. As she lay there, aching on the inside, she wondered if this studio was more alive then she. But I can speak, if the walls could speak... she thought. If the walls could speak, they'd set fire to a forest with all they've seen. 

She winced and licked her lips and began to speak, first tentatively, as if expecting reprimand from the walls, then continuing on stronger, "I guess I like pain because I like the relief you get when it goes away. It reminds you that you’re alive, that you’re still breathing, living. And when it gets too much, when the fire feels like it’s going to consume you, it stops, and it’s the most wonderful feeling you could ever imagine. Like jumping into the water on a blistering hot day. Two extremes. And somehow, you find yourself again, in the middle of the two."
Her lungs contracted, eyes scanned the ceiling, watching for a reply. Nothing. Breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was still ... sane. The very word sent chills up her spine, and her insides squirmed uncomfortably. If you were actually sane, would you be lying here, talking to yourself? She questioned, and found no answer.

It was only a fortnight ago that she had been released from the hospital. Two weeks and she was already trying to justify what reasoning and logic never could. Two weeks of being alone every second moment. Visiting the doctors on Tuesdays and Fridays, yes I'm fine now, it was just an accident. No, the pain isn't too bad. It's not comfortable, but it's bearable. Yes, I should be able to remove the bandages within the month. Bathing herself with these false assurances, she felt each lie as a blow to the wall she saw built up around life. To keep her out, to keep everyone else safe. The wall was there for a reason, but she still wanted to destroy as much of it as possible. For fun. For relief.

...

"I just couldn't handle her at the moment. I had to get out." He sighed, running one hand wearily through his dark hair. "After seeing her like that, having to wait until she was unconscious so I could call the ambulance. It's just too much."
"She is too much. She's always been that way." The other said. "Think of the most intense person you know, okay? You’ve got it? Yep, now multiply that by one hundred. It’s like, everything that you could ever possibly feel, everything you could possibly think, all at once. I think she feels things more than others, she sees colours that we don’t. And sometimes, it gets too much. You know that, you’ve been there, picking her up off the floor, holding her as she slips between reality and whatever world her mind has taken her captive with. And the thing is, you never really know what’s going on up there. Whether she’s lonely, or tired, or desperate for attention, or if that’s just the way she is." 

The two men sat in rickety chairs, facing the street, smoking cigarette after cigarette. She was the only reason they were there. One, an old war veteran in the life of her, the other, her newest victim.

"I don’t know how to tell you about her. I wouldn’t even know where to start. She’s like ice on a cold day. Coffee in the middle of summer. Like silent pauses, expectant. Unmerciful. Awkward."
A silent pause proceeded, as if to emphasize his point. You could see the pain built up in his light eyes. The weight sitting on his shoulders, as if the memory of her hadn't entirely left yet.
The darker man broke the silence, "She never leaves. She's there, waking me up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, thinking that I've heard her scream out." His dark hair only emphasized his tiredness. You could see the dark circles under his eyes. Hear the tired slur of his words. 

"She doesn't scream out." The lighter man stated, matter-of-factly. "Not once will she ask for help. I thought you'd have realised that by now." 

"I know. But I still think that she might."
He shook his sandy-coloured head, slowly as he sighed.

Maybe you knew

'It's like we carry the world in our silences.' you said.

I thought that what you said was true, but couldn't bring myself to tell you.

You valued my opinion too much.

So we waited.

Forty-three minutes, holding out, waiting for all the sorts of nothing that we could never gain. Even the thunder held out, and the world stood still.

And the lighting froze in it's tracks, leaving melting cracks in the night sky.

'I'll bet that those cracks are just glimpses of heaven or something.' you said.

'I'll bet that the world would stop turning, if you asked it to.' I replied.

And you smiled coyly to your feet, a faint blush creeping up your neck.

With all eternity held stationary in our silence, my mind ran away with you. And my surrealist mind saw light falling in love, swans and willows dancing to the shouts of rebel gypsies.

We ran to sunlit hills and watched the stars. I took you beyond the seas, where underneath a coverlet of new-fallen snow, I stared into your eyes and saw everything that held my misgivings and fear.

Then my heart said relent.

And I watched as all the Mondays of the world carried you away from me, and brought me back to this dreadful silence, where even my name lost all meaning, and none could battle through the walls erected in commemoration of the time that time stood still.

And maybe you already knew.

Maybe you saw all that I did, days, months, years before I.

And maybe you knew of the cities that would come, all the fires that would destroy, the floods that would wash away the ashes. Maybe you saw it all in the moment you took your first breath, in the evenings when it was too hot to sleep, in my eyes, the day we first met.

And maybe you, somewhere along the line, convinced yourself that it wasn't that bad. 

Or maybe you knew it was, but continued.

"...

...

I found you in my childhood. In the daydreams that I thought I had forgotten, in the moments of calm.

I’ll wait for you in my desert. Waiting for you to bring the long awaited rains to this dry, parched heart.

...

In everything

...

I know you said it once, twice, a thousand times. In all the places of all the lives that we've lived, you said it. In every room I've ever been in. In every place I've ever opened my eyes, in the places I've fallen asleep.

In the history of us you said it. In the history of everyone that came before me, kings, queens and beggars, you said it. To each as you say it to me.

Over the ages you sang it to me. And at the moment when you lit up the world, knowing that by it I would see, you declared your love for me.

And sometimes despite the light you gave, I still struggle to see you. Though I know you're there, calling out to me.

So I search. I'll search all my life for every moment, every whisper you spoke, knowing that one day it would come to me. In the rising of the sun, in the fire that blazes the clouds from the setting sun. In the way you did things because you knew that I'd like them. In the dappled light that dances on forest floors, in our countless cups of tea. In pauses, commas, full stops. In the times we have with friends, In the crashing of waves, heavy and joyful on the shoreline. In the pattern the rain makes as it falls boldly on a parched and thirsty land. In the dark rim of eyelashes as I sleep, in the way your hand lingers over mine as I whisper goodbye, yet again. In the moments of silence we have, in the creases of elbows, grazes on knees. In the mountains that come crashing into the sea, in the clear night skies, in the movement of the stars. In the embrace you give me, holding me fast, when I come running back to your door. In the memory of you, holding fast to the tree on the hill, for me. In our laughter, in our tears.

But still, all the while I'll search for the whispers. I've known your shouts for longer than I've known myself, but it's in your whispers, the quiet declarations of your love, that I see you the most.

And in these places, I find you. 

...

All for the love

All for the love, sang the firing squad.
The love of a life over another's, you nod.
How many times in a lifetime so long,
How many times must we sing such a song?
And how many times must an old sinner pray,
for the forfeit of life that dreamt Him away.

Oh, when you come back to my house,
And knock on my door,
Will you find me in your heart,
Will you find me at all?
For what I once had means nothing to me,
And what was once dear may never be seen.

But the time that we take between truth and the grave,
Holds the hour, the moments of our judgement day.
And you hold him in your heart, and storms shan't prevail,
You hold him with your heart, through muck and the hail.
And whether it feels like I'm shouting lost calls
You'll stand by my side, always, through it all.

Life, and everything in it.

We are

We are ephemeral.

We are silence.

We are the pause before the plunge.

The calm before the storm.

We are the release of tension,

Just before it gets too much.

We are equal parts honey and lavender,

Salt-wood and the air.

We hold the promises you made

And nothing, all the same.

The dividing of the paths

If you look in the woods, slightly south of where the sun rises each morning, you will find underneath the thistles and overgrowth a suggestion of a pathway, long since abandoned.
On a fair morning, you know the type, where you wake up before daylight, and the sun comes up nice and early and although there’s a slight chill in the air, the view is always fresh and you feel there would be nothing better than a nice run through the vanishing morning mist, drenching your socks with the dew before coming in for breakfast, bright-eyed and alive. On that sort of morning, if you follow that pathway towards the sea, past all its twists and turns eastward, always and ever moving onward towards the ocean, and you and your company decide the destination is well worth persevering through the now midday warmth you will eventually reach, at about mid-afternoon, a distinct fork in the road, one path leading true south, one a little northward and towards the east, and the last the direction from whence you came. You and your company may at this point, debate heavily as to which direction you choose to take, with one third of your party determined that southwards is where your adventure should take you, and third wistfully lingering towards the eastward path, and still the last third adamant that this trek was barren and your party should return along the path you came, for it will be dark soon, and if we leave it too late, we may find it increasingly difficult to find our way back, to which your south-called friends will scoff in their adventurous way and accept the warning as a challenge, and your eastward friends will optimistically declare that there isn’t much chance of getting lost, and plus, it is a full moon tonight, so we shall have plenty enough light to return if need be. At this point, should you wish to encounter such an adventure as any will have in this age, I would suggest to you to take the eastward path. As the saying goes, ‘If you follow the dreamers, the stuff of dreams is what you will find’. And if, at this point, your party resolves to go south, advise them to keep far from the rock caves, for bears and other creatures who make such temperamental friends dwell there, and though make excellent company when well advised, do not much appreciate unexpected visitors (They are quite fond of hospitality, you see, and there is nothing they quite value as much as giving a guest a splendid reception. And this is the reason that they so much as detest pop-ins and unexpected visitors, they find their cupboards bare and their kettles empty, and the last thing they would want is to be known for terrible hospitality). And if the homeward-bound friends are the most persuasive, and the most dominant, and that is the direction your expedition finds, suggest that the roundest stones across the river are the most sturdy, and the least without moss and other slippery things you may happen to slip on in half-light. However, if each of your party (save one, for there is always one who takes longer than the others to convince, and has to be dragged along reluctantly until the spirit of adventure finally fills him or her up and inspires them to take the lead, just at the moment all else are losing hope) each, one by one, decides that the eastward path is the most attractive, and one’s intuition seems to tingle with anticipation for something unspoken, giving your party an extra bout of life to follow the eastward path, then by all means, go!

At about seven o’clock, when the sun is drowsy and orange, the light dappling horizontally through the trees, you will begin to notice that your path begins to widen, and the way becomes a touch, only a touch at this stage, mind you, more sandier than it was, and the air feels slightly, only slightly more saltier, and in the distance you may possibly hear the whisper of a cry of a sea albatross or gull or other coastal bird. Your party will perk up their ears, and sniff the air, and turn to each other and whisper, ‘I say, is that the sea we can hear?’ to which others will reply just as softly, ‘Golly, I don’t know, but it sure feels like we’re getting closer, what do you think?’. You will notice that all conversation has dulled down to whispers, I believe that has something to do with the air around there, it is a touch more pure than elsewhere, and those who aren’t used to it may be rendered, at least for a while, breathless and full of a silent, unexplained excitement, the sort you get on the first real days of a new season, where everything in the world seems to cry out in celebration and breathe with genuine earnestness the season they have been proclaimed (for however long before) to be.
You will all wonder silently within yourselves what adventure this path may bring, and the more adult-like ones of the group will wonder also whether this adventure should happen to reach them before nightfall, and if not, will it not wait until a fire is lit, and victuals are provided, and perhaps a small doze is taken. After these thoughts are thought, once, twice, three times, you will happen on a sea-cottage to your north. Made from the whitest, smoothest timber, its windows will be larger than usual, so at first glance it will appear lit and lived in, the golden light from the setting sun filling each room. At this point you will try to convince yourself that the path that you trod all the day was almost overgrown, and no-one could possibly live here, it just wouldn’t be convenient, or accessible, and your mother would almost faint at the thought of living so isolated from everything modern and civilised, and that it was just a trick of the light and the glass and your eyes, trying to convince your mind that this isolated house could actually be inhabited. However, as these thoughts only take a moment when thinking them, and before one of your more daring declares it to be an adventure in itself, exploring this abandoned house, and others reply that at least it’s still light, because they could not bear to go in when it gets dark, you will notice movement near a thick, brick chimney you hadn’t observed before, painted white a long time ago and chipping to show a copper and turquoise colour underneath. That movement will be a slight trickle of smoke, appearing almost like fire or tangible light when mixed with the setting sunlight, and flickering when rising through the dappled shadows made by the trees. One of you will of course cry aloud, yet still with their hushed tone, ‘Goodness, someone does live there! Fancy that!’, and each of you will look into each other’s eyes, briefly searching for the confirmation there that each had seen the same unlikely thing.

Although you all won’t have realised until this moment (a party who finds this cottage has reason enough to be unobservant of what else is going on around them, for it indeed is a mystery, and the beginning of an adventure if one so chooses to pursue it), the air has indeed become more salty, and the path has almost turned completely to sand, and one can hear the waves crashing, heavy and joyous on the shore, and if one looked carefully in the trees on either side of this mysterious house, one would see and indeed, hear, the various sea birds calling out to each other, flitting and soaring through and above the golden illuminated branches, and each would say to each other, ‘I believe we’ve reached the seaside!’ for this is the place where after walking all day, you reach water and the rest of the world begins, even if not in the way you originally thought it would. And after looking around in wonder, breathing deeply and laughing quietly amongst yourselves, your party would turn back to face this cottage with a bravery only one or two of you would have known before, the sort of bravery that makes you confident to swim an ocean in its entirety, or climb one hundred and four trees and swing from branch to branch laughing at gravity, or run up to the one you’ve loved since you were young and take them by the hand and look them in the eye, victorious and full of joy, or undertake some magnificent adventure, with no heed to any misfortunes or dangers that may arise (which with most adventures, is more than likely). It is the sort of bravery one gets when one stares into the depths of the midnight sky and comes out victorious, holding one more of the universes secrets, or when one becomes a parent for the first time, and sometimes, when one sees that look in a particular somebody’s eyes.  And when you would look at this house, you would step forward a few steps, and backwards a few more, and wonder at how large it actually is, and marvel at how it still managed to stand, as it was slanted and ramshackled in more than one direction, and eventually, one of your party, most likely one who wanted to go east all the way, would wander a little bit closer than the others, and although the other four would hiss that ‘we should all stick together’, and ‘not to be foolish, now’, and ‘please, don’t be a fool, Lou’. 



For there were indeed five that have already taken this path, and we find them at this exact moment approaching this mysterious sea-cottage, with absolutely no idea of the adventures that lay before them, or even what resides in this abode. For the sake of those with gentle dispositions, that may choose to give up reading rather than persist through the suspense, I shall reveal to you a little, only a little, for otherwise the story would prove to be told in the wrong order and would no longer make sense, for it may be a while before these five know that what lies in the cottage is completely harmless, as harmless as an ancient and mottled, headstrong woman can be.

These five, I should introduce to you, for the sake of our story and for your information. Timothy, the eldest and most sensible (though a few would also say the most foolish), was the one who determinedly declared that their party should go south at the dividing of the paths (as that is what we must now refer to that vital decision as), yet soon enough felt that eastward would be equally as good, and as long as it was not homeward that they traversed, he would be content. Dark haired, dark eyed, tall and a little thin, Timothy is a natural leader, yet not stubborn as some may know leaders to be, but gentle, humble and generous. Anna is second eldest of the group, and has been best friends with Timothy since birth, their mothers have tea together each Tuesday afternoon and she was, as many said but she refused to believe, a rare beauty. She has bushy, untamed red hair, as alive as a mid-day sun, and just as hot, eyes as green as the grass in spring, and white skin that never seemed to tan, but brought forth light, sparse freckles. Anna, in her youthful folly, thought herself to be the mother of the group, and by taking on this role, had suggested to go homeward at the dividing of the paths, and had been the one to think of such things as victuals, fire and rest, which are rather sensible things, though at the start of an adventure not things that most like to dwell on (for there are always so much more exciting things to be doing). Luella and Esther are identical twins, younger sisters of Timothy and inherent of the dark hair, eyes, and elongated limbs. Luella, or Lou as she prefers to be called, is thirty two minutes younger than Esther, two inches taller, and more of a dreamer than her elder sister. As curious as the sea is wide, Lou was the first to wistfully suggest that they follow the path eastward, the first to notice the movement inside the cottage and the first therefore, to draw near. Esther, or Es as she demands of all who use her name in full (‘it’s pronounced “Ezz”, with a “z”, like Ezekiel’) is the eldest twin, and bossy, tomboyish and always flicking the pesky fringe her mother had cut her for Christmas out of her eyes. She did so when, at the dividing of the paths, she had sided with Timothy, and had been the stubborn one of the party, sulking at the back of their winding, eastward line until the glorious spirit of adventure finally conquered her spoilt side and she became rather enthused with their direction. Lastly, we have James. The same age as the twins, James is Anna’s younger brother, yet at first, or even second glance, has no resemblance to his sister. Brown, skinny limbs, blonde hair that was a little too long and laughing eyes as clear as the sky. However, when you know both siblings, you begin to see similarities in their mannerisms, in their laughs, in the crinkles of their eyes and in the movements of their hands. James had, being more of a dreamer, felt that Lou had the right idea about going eastward, and had loyally sided with her.

Now that we have been introduced to each of our adventurers, although only as mere acquaintances (though that will change as we begin to get to know them more thoroughly) we can continue on to find out what is in this isolated cottage, and how they found out. For when we left them, Lou was waltzing in her dreamy, curious manner up to the cottage, paying no heed to the hisses and whispers of the other three, (for James had not said anything in discouragement), peering along the length in search of a door. Lou so happened to be peering along the deep side of the house, for when she craned her neck around the corner she came face to face with the most curious veranda made of the same whitened, smooth timber as the rest of the building, more windows of the same sort, and a door, left open, she supposed, to let the cool sea breeze flow in through the house. She exclaimed with joy and disappeared from the others view, creeping eagerly through the overgrowth to get to the door, which looked at once familiar and friendly, inviting and strange all at the same time.

Part of something larger. Scarier. Unknown. Incomplete and directionally challenged. Exciting.

The book of faces.

And today, you come bursting back into my life. The noise is amazing.

But somewhere along the way, I began to like the silence, the mail-by-post.

The cups of tea without wondering what you were doing with all our friends.

I guess you could say I stopped caring.

I stopped becoming restless. Well, almost. The restlessness became shorter though, more bearable.

You became a side-note, instead of someone we once all assumed would be with me constantly.

Now, someone I don't actually need.

And now you are back. I'd say I don't want you, but the fact is, I thought about you, almost every day you were gone.

Lesser and lesser though.

You could say I found life while you were gone.

I found the unmistakable certainty of a heart, larger than mine, desiring all of me, the good and the bad.

I can say now that I don't need you.

If you were to go away, I wouldn't miss you.

The overwhelming noise. The unnecessary wondering.

I find I can't handle it as well now.

I like the space you left. I like the silence.

The ten per cent of the three hundred and sixty five days.

I think we should just stay friends. Distant, rather than constant.

I just don't want things to go back to the way they were.





Image of the beyondherebedragons persuasion.

Things that make me deliriously happy, part one.

One of the things that makes me the most happiest I could ever be is discovering connections between things.
Like the escapade with Mr. William-Heath Robin's Son, and that obscure but not so reference to my all time favorite illustrator. (but I did that myself, and consequently wrote about it, here, so it doesn't really count).

The thing is, as much as I love discovering there things, I also love telling people about them. Which sometimes doesn't end all that well.
'Oh, my goodness, do you know what I realised?!'
'What, Crystal? What did you realise this time?'
'Well', I reply, disregarding any sarcasm that may have found a home in my companions tone. 'I was reading so-and-so last night, and the author makes a reference to this-particular-work-done-by-a-different-yet-equally-as-brilliant-artist-slash-writer-slash-genius. !!! Oh my goodness, isn't that fantastic?!'
To which they reply monotonously, 'I guess. I haven't read one/the other/both. So I don't really know.'
Cue all excitement and life rushing out of me in one disappointed sigh. 'Oh. Okay. They're both brilliant, though.'
'Yes, I know. You've told me before', just in case I didn't get the earlier snub. (Which I did, I just chose to ignore it).

But because you are my blog, and I can tell you whatever I like without being snubbed, I'm going to let it all out in one cross-referenced delirium! Hoorah for literature-induced highs!

Okay, picture this, Annabel Lee, written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1849. She's a child, he's a child, in a kingdom by the sea. She dies, the highborn kinsmen come and bear her away from thee. He's pretty devastated about it, that's why he wrote one of the planet's most beautiful poems to conciliate his loss.
Now, jump forward to one hundred and six years, to 1955. Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Young Humbert Humbert, and his childhood love, Annabel Leigh. What? you say, a blatant variation of the name? Just wait, it gets better. He lives in his father's seaside hotel, as he calls it, his own kingdom by the sea. Both children, they fell madly in love, in a way adults could never understand. Yes, and wait for it, she dies of Typhus.
How beautiful to use a poem in such an obscure way. You don't realise until you do what Nabokov has done.

Cut to black. New scene.

C.S Lewis's 1953 novel, The Silver Chair, Ettinsmoor is a long, lonely land to the north of the River Shribble, and north-west of Narnia, populated mainly by giants.
J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, beginning in 1954. Ettenmoors, a desolate unknown to the north-west of the Misty Mountains, had been laid waste under the dreaded domain of the witch-king of Angmar.
Now, we all know Lewis and Tolkien were great friends, so coincidence? I think not. Both to the north-west. Desolate country in their worlds.

Fade out. New Scene.

J.K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007. Apart from the incredible cross referencing she does with all the other seven books and their story-lines, tying up loose ends and characters that you didn't even know needed tying up (not to mention how she gives each character significance in the story) Harry and Hermione go to Godric's Hollow, looking at his parent's, Lily and James Potter's headstone. Know what it says? Of course you do.
''The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death"
Know where that one's from? The Bible. 1 Corinthians 15.26.
Oh, wait, there's more?
Albus Dumbledore's mother Kendra, and his sister Ariana. Their headstone says,
'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"
Matthew 6.21. Jesus says that one.
Sorry, what's that? Harry Potter is evil? Uh, I think you'll find you're wrong there. Bam.

Fade to black. Run Credits.

That's all I'll give you right now, but doesn't it make you excited on so many levels?

No? There's something wrong with you.