On approach, the sunny beams enveloped an unvarnished door, one born in evergreen forests yonder. My hand raised, fingers tight-tucked, breath catching in my chest, I rapped and rapped again. My heart raced. My brain fizzed. Then, it opened to reveal her sweet sesame eyes; in those orbs I once lived and died. More yet in time, with love, I pray to be reborn. For they are my kindling and crucible; into them this lost phoenix submits. Come flame. Come ash. With a willing heart, I am home to stay.
Firelight was holding parlance with the living room. A flicker here, a flicker there, warmth and light giggle-chattered on. Crackle and spark. Crackle and spark. The carriage clock ticked merrily on. Whispers of smoke wood-fragranced each breath. To this hearth-side scene, this place of soulful rest, autumnal boughs were its audience; for as the November sun surrendered to its scheduled slumber, ‘twas a square of warm golden light as inviting as any other.
A cashmere butterfly alighted upon a bloom, a bloom of dollar roundness and of dollar-hue. Above it shone a daytime moon, for the sun though flambeaux bright was quite out of sight: cosseted, cosy, ensconced within a fresh wash of cloud. And, then in greatest number, as if each were summoned by a different blossom, a flock fluttered down. Upon that green disc, they were nature’s living crown. There was something so transporting in the expanse of that idle post-noon: a dream, a wish most pleasant, a sauntering sense of wonder. And so it was with blithest serenity that the advancing lit hours bowed to starlight’s entreaty.
The book had rained onto the park bench one paper-drip at a time, or at least that is how Ariah imagined it. Born of a storm cloud dense enough to cut out all light, she mused. Though all about it the wood was drenched and rotten, from front cover to back, the novel was as dry as it would be on the hottest of summer days. To her adventitious fingertips it was baked to such a searing heat that she retracted her hand with a scream. Sadness. Anger. Danger. What in the world could create a book such as this?
Slumped on age-bowed rails, was a train of deep set misery. It’s one dirt encrusted eye did dim at twilight’s howling hiss-command. It hunkered squat and low, for gravity had cowed it, lashing with wintry-whips. How it did moan! How its wheels did whine! How its soul rattled at bars skank-grim. In diesel bouquets, as burnt and morbid offerings, it crept in as the very death nell of mirth. Involuntarily I stepped away, stumbling almost to the ground. Around it all was cold and becoming colder still. Is this how it moved? Did it steal heat? Did it bring hearts to a hypothermic stutter-halt? It could not be a thing of this world, yet a ghost train, a spectre made of evil’s song.
Pavement-cracks flower-grinned beneath a blue sky, their shadows lightly dancing. Birdsong was maypole ribbons. Even the tree canopies did giggle. Dogs greeted in their wagging frenzy. Cats dozed in sunlit pools. Traffic kept its beach-wave percussion. Schools emptied. Playgrounds filled. Garden parties began, barbecues alight, aromas wafting. Come one, come all. Summer in the city had arrived.