L'Anima, LilyRose [the first e reader TXT] 📗

L’Anima

by LilyRose


This is how he first sees me:

The night is warm. The moon is full. It hasn’t quite cleared the treetops, but its orb can be seen through the thin, uppermost branches. It’s a golden moon, a warm, living golden: honey; amber; the warm golden glow of lamplight seen from a distance. The sky is pale washed denim. The moment at which the last of daylight fades and moonlight claims the night is impossible to call.

I am in the meadow, between him and the moon rising over the trees. The ground here is even, and I glide over it as though floating. I know this way well. The tall fern and meadow-grasses are waist-high, for me, their swollen tops brushing the ends of my hair, marking me with seed and pollen. He cannot see my face; I’m too far away from him for that. All he sees is pale skin framed by long dark hair, with the moon rising behind her.

My long skirt pulls out behind me, dragging on the long reeds. My hair shifts to a sudden breeze. My blouse is loose, draping my shoulders and breasts, long bell sleeves shivering the grasses as I go. I whisper. I float. I am of this place. He is silent. He watches me.

There are fireflies, here, in the meadow. When you see them up close, they are lazy little stars, drifting, brightening and dimming with languid ease. From a distance, though, there are too many for that, and so what he sees is a brilliant spangling of sparkling light. Tiny bursts, pop-pop-pop, like iridescent dust tossed into the twilight. My fairy-fire retinue, my ghost-light accoutre, as though the night itself were my tiara.

I stop, not turning toward him, only there, that is all. Before me is a small stand of young pine saplings, nearly invisible in the gloaming. There is such fragrance here; I know he smells it too. The night is perfumed with a thousand scents, some as subtle as a breath of Jasmine tea, others as sharp as mint and spice, or as oily and rich as flowery musk. It is, truly, intoxicating.

What happens to a timeless moment like this? This world turns – even now, we leave behind the place where it all began, never to return there again. Here is this moment, so perfect and still, it embraces the universe, you can feel yourself as a part of everything else. He feels like a part of me. Or that I’m a part of him. He’s never seen anything like me before. How can the answer to this mystery be anything as coarse as base physical matter? Something else must be at work here. Something miraculous. It’s the only acceptable explanation.

I close my eyes and breath in slowly; I want to taste the air; take this fragrance into me until it saturates my blood. I want my soul to expand until he feels it from across the field; let the moonlight carry it to him, let the liquor of the night fill him with it. The moon crests the tops of the trees, and now the light falls upon the meadow like a cascade. It spills around me, casting my shadow on the pale green stalks. We are dark and light, shadow and substance in the moonlight. Only now do I raise my head and turn toward him at last.

It is easy to find his gaze. It locks onto mine like a hunger, like a yearning impossible to ignore. I allow him to hold me this way, for what seems like an eternity. He will never reach this pinnacle again; never, ever, ever in his life. This is the apotheosis; this is the Holy Grail; seen from afar but never achieved. The universe will be a descending series of strivings and disappointments from this moment on. From this moment on, he is damned. And he is mine.

There is movement by the trees; a doe emerges, most likely with young behind her. She freezes, sensing our presence, he and I. It’s enough for him to notice, and it breaks his gaze from mine. I move swiftly, into the stand of pine saplings, all taller than I am. It is as though the night itself has opened its arms to take me in. I can feel him searching, uncomprehending. I shall not pass this way again tonight. Can there ever be any other ending to such a perfect moment as this?


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Publication Date: 07-06-2010

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