Without a single blow her walls began to crumble and from the debris our foundation was laid.
Wedged between the harsh light of notebook and the warm embers of fireplace a sleeting gale threw handfuls of tiny ice crystals against my windows. We shared our paternal grief, our optimism and the joy that our winding wanderings had intersected.
On recycled timber table I lay her gifts of heavy hammer and needled cloth. Peering inside I contemplated the task ahead and listened, not to the voice inside my head but the melody of my heart. Its counsel was simple and succinct; create love with every action and all will swell.
With fingers nimble she embroidered onto crimson velvet a heart in copper thread and with an innocent sigh she offered it to the breeze. A warm northerly gratefully accepted the gift and lifted it south across waves, fields and mountains before carefully depositing the cloth during a monochrome sunset on the beach outside my unhinged backdoor.
I whispered her name and briefly her veil lifted. Through the parapet atop invisible walls her new blue eyes drank golden meadows of endless sunflower, and in that moment, she felt her skin hungry.
Three days passed. She was slowly and carefully erasing herself from memory. Unexpectedly, an apology with invitation arrived. She had been under the weather and now feeling better she craved to hear the song in my heart. She was moved by its rhythm in the crowd and now across an ocean its faint winsome melody softly seduced her like a chimerical siren.
Reading beneath and between her words I saw walls constructed with bricks of experience, each one glued to its neighbour by the gritty, gripping, grotty fear of city existence. She thought them invisible yet handed me a sledgehammer and asked ever so sweetly, “Do you feel inclined?”
She found me in a crowd where a robot passed me a note.
The message simply said, “I’m with eight other girls. If you find me I’ll give you the stars.”
Immediately, I scanned the crowd while trying to catch my breath as my heart leapt from my chest. There were so many beautiful women yet one seemed more composed, more self assured, more resilient than all the others.
Without expression she was staring nonchalantly at me and it appeared as if she was surrounded by a golden glow. She was literally shining.
I wrote a note that asked, “Is it you?” and directed the robot to give it to her.
It was three anxious days before I received a reply.
