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Flying Without Wings, Preface |
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Preface
There was no rain on that dreary day as the young Asian girl watched the people below bow to the picture of the deceased young man. Her deep blue eyes became wet with the longing to join them in their last respects, but she couldn’t. She looked to the family of the fallen, young man who was about to be laid to rest: the same family that she had received a great rejection from. Her eyes were directed to the young man who stood with them, and young man 7 years her elder, and her eyes turned into a fierce, crimson red as she burned with anger at him. His eyes looked from beyond the funeral up into the hills where she stood, and their eyes meet. She jerked around, breaking any chance of an eye locked, and her eyes faded to deep blue once more.
She had to get out of there; she couldn’t stand it anymore. She broke into a tear-filled run towards, well, she didn’t know where, just anywhere, to the place her legs decided to take her. She found her run broke by an old tree whom she was quite acquainted with, and her arms were flung around it. After a few long, heavy sobs, she finally released the tree and leaned against it, looking-up at the almost clear sky, with only a few puffs of clouds floating in the gentle breeze. She wondered in deep sadness why in the world it couldn’t rain today. It did in books, it always did. In every story she read or heard, it always rained at the funeral of a loved one. So, why was this time not important enough to rain?
As she was thinking this, a cloud that looked oddly like a fish swam by in the breeze, stopping before her. She watched as it paused as the breeze paused for half a moment, then it swam off, as if it was causing the breeze, like a fish causes a current in water. Yellow hope began to eat away at the blueness in her eyes. Could that have been him? Could that have been his spirit? She began to smile. Why should she be mad at the day? Why should is be raining? After all, not everyone knew the young man in the coffin, so why should they suffer a rainy day on his account. People died everyday, maybe not in this village, but in other places. Should it rain every time someone died? It was a beautiful day; in fact a day the girl would have considered it perfect if it wasn’t for the funeral. The other people around had the right to enjoy the day as much as she had the right to morn for the one who passed away. She shouldn’t be so selfish.
Besides, the weather was a slight comfort to her in her loss. After all, if the day cried with her, would she be able to bare it? She had lost so much more than the young man; oh so much more. The weight of the world falling in tearful rain would have made things even more worse then they were now. It’s as if he was smiling down upon her, as if the gods were smiling at her, or at least sitting there comforting her, hugging her. She was sure that one of the two was there making it happen so that she couldn’t be in even more pain. With the fish cloud, she was sure it was him behind it all: it was always him behind everything. Another smile found her lips.
In the end, why did it matter if it rained? That was something of stories, and she was of flesh and blood, thus not needing such silly fantasies. Besides, like him, she liked things to be different. She didn’t need the cliché of rain heavy on her mind. It seemed that even in her sadness, her life had to be different; even though she knew that there were probably many others out there who have had to witness a funeral as she had to. She closed her fully yellow eyes as she rested her back on the tree with a smile, and a lone tear being pulled by gravity down her cheek.
 mysticalfairymagic · Sun Dec 21, 2008 @ 03:14am · 0 Comments |
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Name: Iromi (Iromi Kaze, Tonbochi, Iromi Tonbo, depending on time period of life)
Age: "22" (can vary for individual rps)
Race: Fairy (doesn't know though)
Personality: eccentric. She normally acts very hyper and child-like, but underneath the facade, there's a serious girl who's been hurt in her life. She has a problem with letting people in, so either likes to just be by herself or act, well, hyper and child-like. Facade's are her favorite, so she'll often play with them, especially when meeting new people.
Occupations: Ninja, Geisha, Samurai, Dancer, Mid-Wife, Alchemist... looking for more to add for the heck of it...
History: She was a fairy born without wings and aged like mortals do, so her family sent her to be adopted by mortals so that she could live a some-what normal life. A spell was put on her to make her look like the family who took her in. She was found by two Japanese boys, ages 5 and 7. They saw the basket on the back of a pegesus and became curious. after seeing that it was a baby, they brought her to their mother, who then took her in, against the will of her husband. One thing they noticed about this child was that her eyes changed colors with her mood, so she was named "Iromi", "iro" meaning color and "mi" meaning beautiful.
Iromi's father was a samurai, and she was fascinated by the art, so learned by watching him train her brothers. He never would teach her for girls should not hold a sword. So, her second oldest brother, Koi, taught her. Her oldest brother, Ryumaru, didn't want to learn the way of the sword and began studying alchemy, which she decided she wanted to learn too. Koi ended up deciding he wanted to be a ninja, which influenced his little sister. He kept learning the ways of a samurai so that she could learn as well. Her father was not happy with this, so tried to make her too busy to learn how to fight by sending her to dancing school and with her mother, who was a mid-wife. But, that didn't completely stop her, just slowed her down a bit.
Her brother was killed on a mission soon after Iromi's 17th birthday. That's when she found out she was adopted, and she felt as if she was unwanted. She dropped the family name of "Kaze" and joined a ninja clan. In the clan, she trained to be a geisha as well, and when she left the ninja, deciding that was not the life for her,
she became a geisha for a short while.
She left under courious cercomstances and went to Spain, but later decided to go to a University in an English nation. She left not too long afterward to continue her search for her brother's murder. That's when she became the captain of a pirate ship, until the ex-captain wrecked it. She was taken prisoner in a castle, which she escaped from with the help of the prince, and thus was charged with kidnapping royalty, but she doesn't really care.
Companion (other than the ones you can add): A pirate named The Square Root of Negative One (she calls him "Imaginary), a Japanese Alchemist - "Isaac" (she calls him "Ni-san" wink , and Prince David. (I may or may not drop some of these, depending on how I feel when I start the rp off. I also have others that I can add, like, girls...)
mysticalfairymagic · Mon Nov 10, 2008 @ 02:55am · 0 Comments |
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True Journal Entry #1: Apethetic feelings... |
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yep... just as it says....
I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I must face my first year of college at PJC... I was hoping to avoid it... but it's too late now.
Wensday my family went over to visit UNT, and we had alot of fun. It's a nice campus, definatly not this huge amazing college of my dreams, but I long before decided I'd have to settle for something smaller than that... my family can't really afford for me to go to a private college, which would be amazing in my opion to go to. So, a more public school had to become my option. In the end, I picked UNT. Why? It has Asain studies and it's closer to home. You see, my other option was USM. However, it did not have Asain studies, and it was further from home. Of course, what I failed to realize at the time was that going to USM would mean not having to spend my first year at a Junior college and a house to live in. It's too late for that now, though...
You see, my father was about to place a bid on a house that was just a block away from the school. A good fixer-upper with a "mother-in-law" room that my brother was to have, and 2 bedrooms in the main house: 1 for me and the other either for the parents or a room mate. Right as my dad was making the bid, I decided on UNT, so he canceled it... now the house is out of the question...
This would have solved the whole problem of housing, the main reason my parents can't afford both my brother and I to go off to college. If we had gone to the same place, the parents could easily bought one house for the two of us and not have had to worry. With us going to 2 different places, well... yeah....
Now, my dad had decided he was going to put me in an RV for my college years. There was a nice RV park that was about $400 a month that was about 1.5 miles from the school. When we went to visit Wensday, we discovered that in order to live off campus as a freshman, you have to be married, live with a parent/gardian, live with a married siboling, have a kid, be married, or suport a family/other people... I don't have those option, expecially (and most deffenatly) not the having a baby one... Who knows though, maybe I'll marry someone and tell them to live in a different room of the house and stay away wink Gotta love evil financial stuff like that.
Actually, I wouldn't really consider it. I'm too young to marry, at least maturity-wise for myself.
Anyways, so... unless my dad sells everything he owns or comes out of retirement, then he can't afford me to live on campus paying $800 a month.... 'cause he has to pay for Ty as well... Ty'll have a job, so will I. Ty will be making more money, since he's just transferring from one Radio Shack to anther. Me? Well... I haven't worked anywhere but my dance studio. Megan knows some girls who own studios in Denton, so I could look at there... but it still wouldn't be enough... my books, true... but how quick do you think those will take off, if they ever do?
Anyways, i've come to the conclusion it's my own darn fault. I've been broken... my spirt feels down... I was crying and yelling at myself this morning... saying nasty things to myself... like.... "I hate you!" and... 'You're a failure!".... yeah... serious self-esteem issues....
Do I hate myself or really think I'm a failure? well... I'm deffinatly mad at myself... hate is such a strong word.... failure? .... failure.... well, let's just see if I can't turn this around... it may be true now, but that still doesn't mean there's not time to fix things... I believe my dieing day is not tomorrow, or the next day, or a year from now, or so on and so forth. I'm hoping God has a litte bigger plan for me than death at a young age.... Anyways, if I must die at a young age, God, come on, let it not be tomorrow.... Aldona's already paid the church to have me babysit her daughter tomorrow... Oh, and, let's wait 'till after the church trip if You don't mind... Katie would have to go alone without me, and I think the other church kids scare her... when she thought she may have to go alone 'cause I hadn't turned my stuff in, she was freaking out... Yeah, I'm sure You remember that....
Ah, yeah... i guess for Katie's sake I can't die soon anyways... she'd be so lonely without me... I'm not sure if I should put her worst fear down, but God, hey, You know it.
Anyways... where was I? oh yeah, failing and turning things around.... well... another thing I said this morning was that I have nothing... other than God, Jesus, and my books... so... I'm about to publish the first one... yeppers... as soon as Shannon gives it back as well as his suggestions... I'm crossing my fingers it's good enough... 'cause if it ain't... dang... there goes one hope of mine to pay for college... and who knows... if it's good enough, I may not have to go to college... I'll probably still go anyways... just for the heck of it... have some bs degree like my father... ha... yep... they made-up a degree just to get rid of my dad.... lol...
I hope I don't end up like that.... it's a fun story to tell, but... yeah...
so... my mom wants me to be a pharmist. I'm afraid I'd kill someone with how I loose track of things... plus... biology... *shivvers* and after AP chem, I'm not sure if I like science as much as I use to think I did.... but I went to a Chinese restraunt today, and before opening up my cookie (okay, it was actually after I opened it, but before I pulled the paper out), I made a prayer that God would give me a message on it... 'cause I feel no direction in my life... so I was kinda hoping, even though fourtune cookies aren't normally connected to God, that He'd make sure it was a message I needed... thinking it'd be some "Yay, you get money" or something like that-sorta-thing.... ... : "You could make a name for yourself in medcine" .... .... ... what do you think? I was thinking more of design, and computer design, or just some kind of designing 'cause I like art and designing things and messing with computers... but... that message was rather creepy if you ask me.... what do you think?
peace
God bless
ps
Chelsey called herself a failure because she didn't do what she was told to do and didn't really get any scholarships... if she had done the right thing, she'd have had plenty of scholarship stuff from UNT, expecially that top 10% deally, and she would have tried for art scholarship, but no, she goes and decides that she's only going to apply to this one college she knows she's not going to get to go to anyways, so she ends up... failing at scholarships, so it's her own fault that she didn't apply to all colleges she was looking at and applying to scholarships for them and such and such... so she considers herself a failure because of that
And that is which she needs to turn around. She may not be able to go back and get what she has lost, but she can save and work hard to get money to go to college on so she's not that big of a burden on her family... she'll still be one, but she's hoping... she also may look into student loans... hmmm....
well, God bless, since God's blessings... well... you can never get enough of God protection, eh?
mysticalfairymagic · Sat Jun 07, 2008 @ 05:38am · 0 Comments |
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Roman Fever
by Edith Wharton
I
From the table at which they had been lunching two American ladies of ripe but well-cared-for middle age moved across the lofty terrace of the Roman restaurant and, leaning on its parapet, looked first at each other, and then down on the outspread glories of the Palatine and the Forum, with the same expression of vague but benevolent approval.
As they leaned there a girlish voice echoed up gaily from the stairs leading to the court below. "Well, come along, then," it cried, not to them but to an invisible companion, "and let's leave the young things to their knitting," and a voice as fresh laughed back: "Oh, look here, Babs, not actually knitting—" "Well, I mean figuratively," rejoined the first. "After all, we haven't left our poor parents much else to do.. . ." At that point the turn of the stairs engulfed the dialogue.
The two ladies looked at each other again, this time with a tinge of smiling embarrassment, and the smaller and paler one shook her head and colored slightly.
"Barbara!" she murmured, sending an unheard rebuke after the mocking voice in the stairway.
The other lady, who was fuller, and higher in color, with a small determined nose supported by vigorous black eyebrows, gave a good-humored laugh. "That's what our daughters think of us."
Her companion replied by a deprecating gesture. "Not of us individually. We must remember that. It's just the collective modern idea of Mothers. And you see—" Half guiltily she drew from her handsomely mounted black handbag a twist of crimson silk run through by two fine knitting needles. "One never knows," she murmured. "The new system has certainly given us a good deal of time to kill; and sometimes I get tired just looking—even at this." Her gesture was now addressed to the stupendous scene at their feet.
The dark lady laughed again, and they both relapsed upon the view, contemplating it in silence, with a sort of diffused serenity which might have been borrowed from the spring effulgence of the Roman skies. The luncheon hour was long past, and the two had their end of the vast terrace to themselves. At its opposite extremity a few groups, detained by a lingering look at the outspread city, were gathering up guidebooks and fumbling for tips. The last of them scattered, and the two ladies were alone on the air-washed height.
"Well, I don't see why we shouldn't just stay here," said Mrs. Slade, the lady of the high color and energetic brows. Two derelict basket chairs stood near, and she pushed them into the angle of the parapet, and settled herself in one, her gaze upon the Palatine. "After all, it's still the most beautiful view in the world."
"It always will be, to me," assented her friend Mrs. Ansley, with so slight a stress on the "me" that Mrs. Slade, though she noticed it, wondered if it were not merely accidental, like the random underlinings of old-fashioned letter writers.
"Grace Ansley was always old-fashioned," she thought; and added aloud, with a retrospective smile: "It's a view we've both been familiar with for a good many years. When we first met here we were younger than our girls are now. You remember!"
"Oh, yes, I remember," murmured Mrs. Ansley, with the same undefinable stress—"There's that head-waiter wondering," she interpolated. She was evidently far less sure than her companion of herself and of her rights in the world.
"I'll cure him of wondering," said Mrs. Slade, stretching her hand toward a bag as discreetly opulent-looking as Mrs. Ansley's. Signing to the headwaiter, she explained that she and her friend were old lovers of Rome, and would like to spend the end of the afternoon looking down on the view—that is, if it did not disturb the service! The headwaiter, bowing over her gratuity, assured her that the ladies were most welcome, and would be still more so if they would condescend to remain for dinner. A full moon night, they would remember....
Mrs. Slade's black brows drew together, as though references to the moon were out of place and even unwelcome. But she smiled away her frown as the headwaiter retreated. "Well, why not! We might do worse. There's no knowing, I suppose, when the girls will be back. Do you even know back from where? I don't!"
Mrs. Ansley again colored slightly. "I think those young Italian aviators we met at the Embassy invited them to fly to Tarquinia for tea. I suppose they'll want to wait and fly back by moonlight."
"Moonlight—moonlight! What a part it still plays. Do you suppose they're as sentimental as we were?"
"I've come to the conclusion that I don't in the least know what they are," said Mrs. Ansley. "And perhaps we didn't know much more about each other."
"No, perhaps we didn't."
Her friend gave her a shy glance. "I never should have supposed you were sentimental, Alida."
"Well, perhaps I wasn't." Mrs. Slade drew her lids together in retrospect; and for a few moments the two ladies, who had been intimate since childhood, reflected how little they knew each other. Each one, of course, had a label ready to attach to the other's name; Mrs. Delphin Slade, for instance, would have told herself, or anyone who asked her, that Mrs. Horace Ansley, twenty-five years ago, had been exquisitely lovely—no, you wouldn't believe it, would you! though, of course, still charming, distinguished. . . . Well, as a girl she had been exquisite; far more beautiful than her daughter, Barbara, though certainly Babs, according to the new standards at any rate, was more effective—had more edge, as they say. Funny where she got it, with those two nullities as parents. Yes; Horace Ansley was—well, just the duplicate of his wife. Museum specimens of old New York. Good-looking, irreproachable, exemplary. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley had lived opposite each other—actually as well as figuratively—for years. When the drawing-room curtains in No. 20 East Seventy-third Street were renewed, No. 23, across the way, was always aware of it. And of all the movings, buyings, travels, anniversaries, illnesses—the tame chronicle of an estimable pair. Little of it escaped Mrs. Slade. But she had grown bored with it by the time her husband made his big coup in Wall Street, and when they bought in upper Park Avenue had already begun to think: "I'd rather live opposite a speakeasy for a change; at least one might see it raided." The idea of seeing Grace raided was so amusing that (before the move) she launched it at a woman's lunch. It made a hit, and went the rounds—she sometimes wondered if it had crossed the street, and reached Mrs. Ansley. She hoped not, but didn't much mind. Those were the days when respectability was at a discount, and it did the irreproachable no harm to laugh at them a little.
A few years later, and not many months apart, both ladies lost their husbands. There was an appropriate exchange of wreaths and condolences, and a brief renewal of intimacy in the half shadow of their mourning; and now, after another interval, they had run across each other in Rome, at the same hotel, each of them the modest appendage of a salient daughter. The similarity of their lot had again drawn them together, lending itself to mild jokes, and the mutual confession that, if in old days it must have been tiring to "keep up" with daughters, it was now, at times, a little dull not to.
No doubt, Mrs. Slade reflected, she felt her unemployment more than poor Grace ever would. It was a big drop from being the wife of Delphin Slade to being his widow. She had always regarded herself (with a certain conjugal pride) as his equal in social gifts, as contributing her full share to the making of the exceptional couple they were: but the difference after his death was irremediable. As the wife of the famous corporation lawyer, always with an international case or two on hand, every day brought its exciting and unexpected obligation: the impromptu entertaining of eminent colleagues from abroad, the hurried dashes on legal business to London, Paris or Rome, where the entertaining was so handsomely reciprocated; the amusement of hearing in her wakes: "What, that handsome woman with the good clothes and the eyes is Mrs. Slade—the Slade's wife! Really! Generally the wives of celebrities are such frumps."
Yes; being the Slade's widow was a dullish business after that. In living up to such a husband all her faculties had been engaged; now she had only her daughter to live up to, for the son who seemed to have inherited his father's gifts had died suddenly in boyhood. She had fought through that agony because her husband was there, to be helped and to help; now, after the father's death, the thought of the boy had become unbearable. There was nothing left but to mother her daughter; and dear Jenny was such a perfect daughter that she needed no excessive mothering. "Now with Babs Ansley I don't know that I should be so quiet," Mrs. Slade sometimes half-enviously reflected; but Jenny, who was younger than her brilliant friend, was that rare accident, an extremely pretty girl who somehow made youth and prettiness seem as safe as their absence. It was all perplexing—and to Mrs. Slade a little boring. She wished that Jenny would fall in love—with the wrong man, even; that she might have to be watched, out-maneuvered, rescued. And instead, it was Jenny who watched her mother, kept her out of drafts, made sure that she had taken her tonic...
Mrs. Ansley was much less articulate than her friend, and her mental portrait of Mrs. Slade was slighter, and drawn with fainter touches. "Alida Slade's awfully brilliant; but not as brilliant as she thinks," would have summed it up; though she would have added, for the enlightenment of strangers, that Mrs. Slade had been an extremely dashing girl; much more so than her daughrer, who was pretty, of course, and clever in a way, but had none of her mother's—well, "vividness," someone had once called it. Mrs. Ansley would take up current words like this, and cite them in quotation marks, as unheard-of audacities. No; Jenny was not like her mother. Sometimes Mrs. Ansley thought Alida Slade was disappointed; on the whole she had had a sad life. Full of failures and mistakes; Mrs. Ansley had always been rather sorry for her....
So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope.
II
For a long time they continued to sit side by side without speaking. It seemed as though, to both, there was a relief in laying down their somewhat futile activities in the presence of the vast Memento Mori which faced them. Mrs. Slade sat quite still, her eyes fixed on the golden slope of the Palace of the Caesars, and after a while Mrs. Ansley ceased to fidget with her bag, and she too sank into meditation. Like many intimate friends, the two ladies had never before had occasion to be silent together, and Mrs. Ansley was slightly embarrassed by what seemed, after so many years, a new stage in their intimacy, and one with which she did not yet know how to deal.
Suddenly the air was full of that deep clangor of bells which periodically covers Rome with a roof of silver. Mrs. Slade glanced at her wristwatch. "Five o'clock already," she said, as though surprised.
Mrs. Ansley suggested interrogatively: "There's bridge at the Embassy at five." For a long time Mrs. Slade did not answer. She appeared to be lost in contemplation, and Mrs. Ansley thought the remark had escaped her. But after a while she said, as if speaking out of a dream: "Bridge, did you say! Not unless you want to.... But I don't think I will, you know."
"Oh, no," Mrs. Ansley hastened to assure her. "I don't care to at all. It's so lovely here; and so full of old memories, as you say." She settled herself in her chair, and almost furtively drew forth her knitting. Mrs. Slade took sideways note of this activity, but her own beautifully cared-for hands remained motionless on her knee.
"I was just thinking," she said slowly, "what different things Rome stands for to each generation of travelers. To our grandmothers, Roman fever; to our mothers, sentimental dangers—how we used to be guarded!—to our daughters, no more dangers than the middle of Main Street. They don't know it—but how much they're missing!"
The long golden light was beginning to pale, and Mrs. Ansley lifted her knitting a little closer to her eyes. "Yes, how we were guarded"
"I always used to think," Mrs. Slade continued, "that our mothers had a much more difficult job than our grandmothers. When Roman fever stalked the streets it must have been comparatively easy to gather in the girls at the danger hour; but when you and I were young, with such beauty calling us, and the spice of disobedience thrown in, and no worse risk than catching cold during the cool hour after sunset, the mothers used to be put to it to keep us in—didn't they!"
She turned again toward Mrs. Ansley, but the latter had reached a delicate point in her knitting. "One, two, three—slip two; yes, they must have been," she assented, without looking up.
Mrs. Slade's eyes rested on her with a deepened attention. "She can knit—in the face of this! How like her. . . ."
Mrs. Slade leaned back, brooding, her eyes ranging from the ruins which faced her to the long green hollow of the Forum, the fading glow of the church fronts beyond it, and the outlying immensity of the Colosseum. Suddenly she thought: "It's all very well to say that our girls have done away with sentiment and moonlight. But if Babs Ansley isn't out to catch that young aviator—the one who's a Marchese—then I don't know anything. And Jenny has no chance beside her. I know that too. I wonder if that's why Grace Ansley likes the two girls to go everywhere together! My poor Jenny as a foil—!" Mrs. Slade gave a hardly audible laugh, and at the sound Mrs. Ansley dropped her knitting.
"Yes—?"
"I—oh, nothing. I was only thinking how your Babs carries everything before her. That Campolieri boy is one of the best matches in Rome. Don't look so innocent, my dear—you know he is. And I was wondering, ever so respectfully, you understand ... wondering how two such exemplary characters as you and Horace had managed to produce anything quite so dynamic." Mrs. Slade laughed again, with a touch of asperity.
Mrs. Ansley's hands lay inert across her needles. She looked straight out at the great accumulated wreckage of passion and splendor at her feet. But her small profile was almost expressionless. At length she said, "I think you overrate Babs, my dear."
Mrs. Slade's tone grew easier. "No; I don't. I appreciate her. And perhaps envy you. Oh, my girl's perfect; if I were a chronic invalid I'd—well, I think I'd rather be in Jenny's hands. There must be times ... but there! I always wanted a brilliant daughter ... and never quite understood why I got an angel instead."
Mrs. Ansley echoed her laugh in a faint murmur. "Babs is an angel too."
"Of course—of course! But she's got rainbow wings. Well, they're wandering by the sea with their young men; and here we sit ... and it all brings back the past a little too acutely."
Mrs. Ansley had resumed her knitting. One might almost have imagined (if one had known her less well, Mrs. Slade reflected) that, for her also, too many memories rose from the lengthening shadows of those august ruins. But no; she was simply absorbed in her work. What was there for her to worry about! She knew that Babs would almost certainly come back engaged to the extremely eligible Campolieri. "And she'll sell the New York house, and settle down near them in Rome, and never be in their way ... she's much too tactful. But she'll have an excellent cook, and just the right people in for bridge and cocktails ... and a perfectly peacefuI old age among her grandchildren."
Mrs. Slade broke off this prophetic flight with a recoil of self-disgust. There was no one of whom she had less right to think unkindly than of Grace Ansley. Would she never cure herself of envying her! Perhaps she had begun too long ago.
She stood up and leaned against the parapet, filling her troubled eyes with the tranquilizing magic of the hour. But instead of tranquilizing her the sight seemed to increase her exasperation. Her gaze turned toward the Colosseum. Already its golden flank was drowned in purple shadow, and above it the sky curved crystal clear, without light or color. It was the moment when afternoon and evening hang balanced in midheaven.
Mrs. Slade turned back and laid her hand on her friend's arm. The gesture was so abrupt that Mrs. Ansley looked up, startled.
"The sun's set. You're not afraid, my dear?"
"Afraid—?"
"Of Roman fever or pneumonia! I remember how ill you were that winter. As a girl you had a very delicate throat, hadn't you?"
"Oh, we're all right up here. Down below, in the Forum, it does get deathly cold, all of a sudden . . . but not here."
"Ah, of course you know because you had to be so careful." Mrs. Slade turned back to the parapet. She thought: "I must make one more effort not to hate her." Aloud she said: "Whenever I look at the Forum from up here, I remember that story about a great-aunt of yours, wasn't she? A dreadfully wicked great-aunt?"
"Oh, yes; Great-aunt Harriet. The one who was supposed to have sent her young sister out to the Forum after sunset to gather a nightblooming flower for her album. All our great-aunts and grandmothers used to have albums of dried flowers."
Mrs. Slade nodded. "But she really sent her because they were in love with the same man—"
"Well, that was the family tradition. They said Aunt Harriet confessed it years afterward. At any rate, the poor little sister caught the fever and died. Mother used to frighten us with the story when we were children."
"And you frightened me with it, that winter when you and I were here as girls. The winter I was engaged to Delphin."
Mrs. Ansley gave a faint laugh. "Oh, did I! Really frightened you? I don't believe you're easily frightened."
"Not often; but I was then. I was easily frightened because I was too happy. I wonder if you know what that means?"
"I—yes ..." Mrs. Ansley faltered.
"Well, I suppose that was why the story of your wicked aunt made such an impression on me. And I thought: 'There's no more Roman fever, but the Forum is deathly cold after sunset—especially after a hot day. And the Colosseum's even colder and damper.'"
"The Colosseum—?"
"Yes. It wasn't easy to get in, after the gates were locked for the night. Far from easy. Still, in those days it could be managed; it was managed, often. Lovers met there who couldn't meet elsewhere. You knew that?"
"I—I daresay. I don't remember."
"You don't remember? You don't remember going to visit some ruins or other one evening, just after dark, and catching a bad chill! You were supposed to have gone to see the moonrise. People always said that expedition was what caused your illness."
There was a moment's silence; then Mrs. Ansley rejoined: "Did they? It was all so long ago."
"Yes. And you got well again—so it didn't matter. But I suppose it struck your friends—the reason given for your illness. I mean—because everybody knew you were so prudent on account of your throat, and your mother took such care of you. . . . You had been out late sightseeing, hadn't you, that night"
"Perhaps I had. The most prudent girls aren't always prudent. What made you think of it now?"
Mrs. Slade seemed to have no answer ready. But after a moment she broke out: "Because I simply can't bear it any longer—"
Mrs. Ansley lifted her head quickly. Her eyes were wide and very pale. "Can't bear what?"
"Why—your not knowing that I've always known why you went."
"Why I went—?"
"Yes. You think I'm bluffing, don't you? Well, you went to meet the man I was engaged to—and I can repeat every word of the letter that took you there."
While Mrs. Slade spoke Mrs. Ansley had risen unsteadily to her feet. Her bag, her knitting and gloves, slid in a panic-stricken heap to the ground. She looked at Mrs. Slade as though she were looking at a ghost.
"No, no—don't," she faltered out.
"Why not? Listen, if you don't believe me. 'My one darling, things can't go on like this. I must see you alone. Come to the Colosseum immediately after dark tomorrow. There will be somebody to let you in. No one whom you need fear will suspect'—but perhaps you've forgotten what the letter said?"
Mrs. Ansley met the challenge with an unexpected composure. Steadying herself against the chair she looked at her friend, and replied: "No; I know it by heart too."
"And the signature? 'Only your D.S.' Was that it? I'm right, am I? That was the letter that took you out that evening after dark?"
Mrs. Ansley was still looking at her. It seemed to Mrs. Slade that a slow struggle was going on behind the voluntarily controlled mask of her small quiet face. "I shouldn't have thought she had herself so well in hand," Mrs. Slade reflected, almost resentfully. But at this moment Mrs. Ansley spoke. "I don't know how you knew. I burned that letter at once."
"Yes; you would, naturally—you're so prudent!" The sneer was open now. "And if you burned the letter you're wondering how on earth I know what was in it. That's it, isn't it?"
Mrs. Slade waited, but Mrs. Ansley did not speak.
"Well, my dear, I know what was in that letter because I wrote it!"
"You wrote it?"
"Yes."
The two women stood for a minute staring at each other in the last golden light. Then Mrs. Ansley dropped back into her chair. "Oh," she murmured, and covered her face with her hands.
Mrs. Slade waited nervously for another word or movement. None came, and at length she broke out: "I horrify you."
Mrs. Ansley's hands dropped to her knees. The face they uncovered was streaked with tears. "I wasn't thinking of you. I was thinking—it was the only letter I ever had from him!"
"And I wrote it. Yes; I wrote it! But I was the girl he was engaged to. Did you happen to remember that?"
Mrs. Ansley's head drooped again. "I'm not trying to excuse myself ... I remembered ..."
"And still you went?"
"Still I went."
Mrs. Slade stood looking down on the small bowed figure at her side. The flame of her wrath had already sunk, and she wondered why she had ever thought there would be any satisfaction in inflicting so purposeless a wound on her friend. But she had to justify herself.
"You do understand? I'd found out—and I hated you, hated you. I knew you were in love with Delphin—and I was afraid; afraid of you, of your quiet ways, your sweetness ... your ... well, I wanted you out of the way, that's all. Just for a few weeks; just till I was sure of him. So in a blind fury I wrote that letter ... I don't know why I'm telling you now."
"I suppose," said Mrs. Ansley slowly, "it's because you've always gone on hating me."
"Perhaps. Or because I wanted to get the whole thing off my mind." She paused. "I'm glad you destroyed the letter. Of course I never thought you'd die."
Mrs. Ansley relapsed into silence, and Mrs. Slade, leaning above her, was conscious of a strange sense of isolation, of being cut off from the warm current of human communion. "You think me a monster!"
"I don't know ... It was the only letter I had, and you say he didn't write it"
"Ah, how you care for him still!"
"I cared for that memory," said Mrs. Ansley.
Mrs. Slade continued to look down on her. She seemed physically reduced by the blow—as if, when she got up, the wind might scatter her like a puff of dust. Mrs. Slade's jealousy suddenly leaped up again at the sight. All these years the woman had been living on that letter. How she must have loved him, to treasure the mere memory of its ashes! The letter of the man her friend was engaged to. Wasn't it she who was the monster?
"You tried your best to get him away from me, didn't you? But you failed; and I kept him. That's all."
"Yes. That's all."
"I wish now I hadn't told you. I'd no idea you'd feel about it as you do; I thought you'd be amused. It all happened so long ago, as you say; and you must do me the justice to remember that I had no reason to think you'd ever taken it seriously. How could I, when you were married to Horace Ansley two months afterward? As soon as you could get out of bed your mother rushed you off to Florence and married you. People were rather surprised—they wondered at its being done so quickly; but I thought I knew. I had an idea you did it out of pique—to be able to say you'd got ahead of Delphin and me. Kids have such silly reasons for doing the most serious things. And your marrying so soon convinced me that you'd never really cared."
"Yes. I suppose it would," Mrs. Ansley assented.
The clear heaven overhead was emptied of all its gold. Dusk spread over it, abruptly darkening the Seven Hills. Here and there lights began to twinkle through the foliage at their feet. Steps were coming and going on the deserted terrace—waiters looking out of the doorway at the head of the stairs, then reappearing with trays and napkins and flasks of wine. Tables were moved, chairs straightened. A feeble string of electric lights flickered out. A stout lady in a dustcoat suddenly appeared, asking in broken Italian if anyone had seen the elastic band which held together her tattered Baedeker. She poked with her stick under the table at which she had lunched, the waiters assisting.
The corner where Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley sat was still shadowy and deserted. For a long time neither of them spoke. At length Mrs. Slade began again: "I suppose I did it as a sort of joke—"
"A joke?"
"Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially. And I remember laughing to myself all that evening at the idea that you were waiting around there in the dark, dodging out of sight, listening for every sound, trying to get in—of course I was upset when I heard you were so ill afterward."
Mrs. Ansley had not moved for a long time. But now she turned slowly toward her companion. "But I didn't wait. He'd arranged everything. He was there. We were let in at once," she said.
Mrs. Slade sprang up from her leaning position. "Delphin there! They let you in! Ah, now you're lying!" she burst out with violence.
Mrs. Ansley's voice grew clearer, and full of surprise. "But of course he was there. Naturally he came—"
"Came? How did he know he'd find you there? You must be raving!"
Mrs. Ansley hesitated, as though reflecting. "But I answered the letter. I told him I'd be there. So he came."
Mrs. Slade flung her hands up to her face. "Oh, God—you answered! I never thought of your answering. . . ."
"It's odd you never thought of it, if you wrote the letter."
"Yes. I was blind with rage."
Mrs. Ansley rose, and drew her fur scarf about her. "It is cold here. We'd better go.... I'm sorry for you," she said, as she clasped the fur about her throat.
The unexpected words sent a pang through Mrs. Slade. "Yes; we'd better go." She gathered up her bag and cloak. "I don't know why you should be sorry for me," she muttered.
Mrs. Ansley stood looking away from her toward the dusky mass of the Colosseum. "Well—because I didn't have to wait that night."
Mrs. Slade gave an unquiet laugh. "Yes, I was beaten there. But I oughtn't to begrudge it to you, I suppose. At the end of all these years. After all, I had everything; I had him for twenty-five years. And you had nothing but that one letter that he didn't write."
Mrs. Ansley was again silent. At length she took a step toward the door of the terrace, and turned back, facing her companion.
"I had Barbara," she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs. Slade toward the stairway.
mysticalfairymagic · Mon Mar 31, 2008 @ 04:22am · 0 Comments |
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"Ah, Are you Digging on My Grave?" |
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Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?
Thomas Hardy
"Ah, are you digging on my grave
My loved one? -- planting rue?"
-- "No, yesterday he went to wed
One of the brightest wealth has bred.
'It cannot hurt her now,' he said,
'That I should not be true.'"
"Then who is digging on my grave?
My nearest dearest kin?"
-- "Ah, no; they sit and think, 'What use!
What good will planting flowers produce?
No tendance of her mound can loose
Her spirit from Death's gin.' "
"But some one digs upon my grave?
My enemy? -- prodding sly?"
-- "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate
That shuts on all flesh soon or late,
She thought you no more worth her hate,
And cares not where you lie."
"Then, who is digging on my grave?
Say -- since I have not guessed!"
-- "O it is I, my mistress dear,
Your little dog, who still lives near,
And much I hope my movements here
Have not disturbed your rest?"
"Ah yes! You dig upon my grave . . .
Why flashed it not on me
That one true heart was left behind!
What feeling do we ever find
To equal among human kind
A dog's fidelity!"
"Mistress, I dug upon your grave
To bury a bone, in case
I should be hungry near this spot
When passing on my daily trot.
I am sorry, but I quite forgot
It was your resting-place."
mysticalfairymagic · Mon Mar 31, 2008 @ 03:51am · 0 Comments |
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Sweet like a kiss sharp like a razor blade
I find you when I'm close to the bottom
You cant appreciate the time it takes
To kick a love I always knew was kind of wrong
And as I'm putting out the flame
Somebody brings up you name
Oh oh oh oh
Baby baby baby bring me down
I want to be right where you are
Baby baby baby bring me down
You can look me in the eye and break my heart
Break my heart
Six AM unruffled pillow
Laughs out loud at my trusting heart
It's like I didn't see the penny
I missed the fountain by a couple yards
If you would only stay gone
Maybe I could move on
Oh oh oh oh
Baby baby baby bring me down
I want to be right where you are
Baby baby baby bring me down
You can look me in the eye and break my heart
Break my heart
OH! Baby baby baby bring me down
I want to be right where you are
Baby baby baby bring me down
You can look me in the eye and break my heart
Break my heart
OH! Baby baby baby bring me down
I want to be right where you are
Baby baby baby bring me down
You can look me in the eye and break my heart
Break my heart
Bring me down!
mysticalfairymagic · Mon Mar 24, 2008 @ 08:33pm · 0 Comments |
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