*Fancy-Pansy*
The night was aphrodisiac with the bitter sweet aromas of nicotianas and gillyflowers whiffing in the air. The star-spangled sky was velvety black. No sound despite the fact that a highway should be buzzing nearby. It was as though an approach of something enormous which swallowed all sounds, leaving mere clues of what's about to happen. It didn't make me unnerved, but it lent a feeling of a pendulum above my head. And I liked the suspense in a way, because I knew what would happen next. It would be a thunderstorm with a raving rainfall and a wind, unleashed in its fury. I loved winds and rains; they brought changes, new scents and rhythms. They also brought memories, good or bad, yet equally unwanted that night.
My presentiment was right: weather changed, and the next day it rained.
Now, darkness again. An ominous darkness; only a few threads of moonlight piercing it. I am lost and bewildered. Where am I? Why does it feel so weird to be sitting on a bed when I could swear only seconds ago I was walking all alone in the middle of nowhere?
It was all as usual that evening. Tired, I was sitting in the cozy armchair and reading a book, when suddenly I heard a light knock on the window. Wind--I thought lazily and yet for some reason I rose and went to the balcony window. Nobody. Only the bleak trees waving and shaking under the cutting wind like sinister shadows of unknown fiends. Shuddering with chill, I was about to go back to the room, but the air was so fresh smelling of dampen leaves and rain that I leant forward and closed my eyes, only for a bit of a second. And at the moment I opened them, I was falling into a horrifying obscurity of an abyss. I felt my voice too weak to scream and body too benumbed to move. Can you ever imagine how frightening it is to realize that there might be something you can’t resist? Held down by enormous fear, I closed my eyes and reconciled. But strangely, I never fell. I was carried away by something so powerful and yet so airy and weightless that I could only guess what it was. A shadow? A haunted spirit? I never knew. It was like the entire world around me turned into something uncontrollable and wild. All I felt was the wind in my long hair, all I saw was the flickering light of cold and indifferent stars high up in the night sky and some blood chilling ghost-like creatures and innumerable eerie grey shadows who seemed to be everywhere. My frozen mind was incapable to comprehend, incapable to track the sequence of bleak and futile actions, and yet I found strength to try to scream again--and the very moment I attempted that, all this mortifying madness was gone as though it had never existed. I felt myself lying on wet ground and heavy drops of rain falling on my face. Excessively high trees were bending, cracking and rustling under the gusts of wind. I got up and made a hesitant step. I had no idea where I was or at least in what direction to go, but I started walking. It was hard: branches closed my way becoming denser and denser. They scratched my face, ripping my light clothes, hitting me hard, but I didn’t stop as though there was something mighty which was beckoning me to some mysterious place and whispering all the directions into my ears. These trees seemed to be living creatures, obstinate and willful. They didn’t want to let me go and at the moment when I was almost exhausted and lost all my hope, at the moment when the wind became so brutal that the trees started crashing down with great roar and rumble--sudden silence--and I found myself standing on the soft grass, so pleasant to my bare feet. No trees at all. Nothing. Greenish sparkles were flying around like tiny fireflies. The air was heavy and hot as though before a thunderstorm. Unaware of anything menacing me, I made a little step and… plunged in water.
Flash of light--and darkness. No air left. No, nothing I could do benumbed with fear. I had only myself to blame… Darkness. “Awake, awake!”
Have you ever dreamt like this?
Me never.
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*Love’s Labour’s Lost*
I was standing at the window of his bedroom, spreading my wings, which I got from the spirits of the Dark after I took their side. I was a daemon though I never wanted to be an entity like that. How much time had passed since the moment when I fell in love with him? No matter, for my body was immortal now. Now, he was sleeping at home, sleeping serenely like a child. Apparently, it’s a true love indeed as you love a man who much younger than you, and you can feel his mood, and understand his pain. I could hear his long black eyelashes moving in his sleep. He was beautiful, but beauty was no matter if one was truly loved. I recalled the first half a year of my love, when on an autumn night like this, when the snow began to fall on the town, I wanted to walk down the street along with him, looking at his bottomless, sky-blue eyes. I happened to see the best image of his eyes formerly. It’s the sky above Rome. It was, when I went out for walking with another man. I stood on a bridge, and looking up at the sky, I felt a desire to live. And two tears rolled over my cheeks and dropped into the Tiber. But it was so long ago. Now I understand that the Dark, to which I invoked, would never leave me alone. My friend, the jealous god Zephyrus--the West Wind who was also in love with the youth--wanted to be with him too, though the god was interested in the youth’s mental outfit not in the list; all the god wanted was the youth’s body, thumping beautiful, and the god wanted to get hold of him or his body--to get hold or kill. Today, the crucial time had come. Zephyrus would come here at dawn, or rather shortly before dawn. And I was here to ward off mischief. I could stay by him for guarding, but I would never thrust myself upon the human, who I could not make happy. For I had no soul any longer; for I had become a daemon.
He was sleeping. I would love to touch his hand, but I never did it, for he could wake and see me, and then I could catch his fancy if not endear, and then this would make me waver at the upcoming crucial moment. I wondered what did he dream about? Silly question. “Penetrate through this stained glass pane, through this dark close curtain into his bedroom, enter his brain and know!” I could say this to myself. But I never did it. I wanted to kiss him now, but my kissing could attach him to me for ever, and in this instance... But wait… The pre-dawn freshness--it’s my westerly rival approached along with the daemons belonging to him. The daemons were weaker than me, because I had stepped over all my maxims to improve the Lore of the Dark. It was quite difficult to do for me, a female. Perhaps you would laugh, but like most of girls I dreamt about family happiness, wishing to become a wife. It’s so silly, isn’t that so? But now I know that a long ago I had been intended for other, much more sublime mission.
Now, the morning sky turned black again, and I looked at the window of his bedroom for the final time. He was sleeping. And I was not entitled to let my love down.
It was a horrific battle, but the humans never noticed it. For them it was but an unexpected autumn thunderstorm. I won, for I should do it. The cost was an awful wound. The tempest subsided, and the sky above the silent town got purple. It was my blood. Black feathers began to fall from the sky; like snowflakes they whirled slowly in the air, falling on the ground in the soft-crimson sunrays. It was feathers of the daemons’ wings. While going to work people talked about the radiation, changeability of the climate, global warming and so forth… Here he opened the window of his attic and stared at the sunrise in parade in purples and pinks.
He could not know of truth, but he could guess that an unearthly battle took place this morning. Whirling from above, a white feather fell on the palm of his hand. It was a feather of my black wings, the only white feather, and it was like a symbol of the love that lived in my heart. He was quizzing at the feather for a minute or two, and then he turned round and called somebody in the room.
A youth appeared from behind his back. The youth, with whom he spent last night and about whom he dreamt the nightlong.
Both Zephyrus and I had lost.
The End
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*The Viper*
In the shade I was waiting for a long time till the scorching disc was replaced with the cold and white one. I can watch the white reflected light. It paints the grass in silvery, and my body merges with the world. Yesterday I felt my skin was too tight for my body; my body wanted to tear itself away, but I didn’t let it go, I waited till the moon rose. The earth soaks up the pale fire that pulls all skyward, and the high tides are at the sea, and I can soar over the surface of the Eternal. I feel somebody’s voices--it’s humans, they love the moon too, they take away its energy, though the sun is given to them, they demagnetize the white disc. I hate the humans. I steal up to their dwelling, lean against the wall that protects them from me, and I slough off my old tight skin. With the new young skin I imbibe the moonlight till the morning light. At dawn I creep in a split and fall asleep. And then I hear cries--it’s the humans have found my skin, and it has frightened them--for it is my mark, it is a piece of evil beside them. I am near by, I am here, I am dangerous; they know of that now, and they can’t change anything, do anything but burning my slough in the fire.
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*”Rather a joke to fill up on coke.”*
Time reveals verges--the first phase of the dream. A feeling of an involving power, warm and tender. It makes you dip into the world of contemplation where any verges disperse like mirages. You feel involved in a wonderful travel, and all is possible in the future. Desire on the verge of contemplation--a moment of intense passion and tenderness. Seeing without touching. Sinking in the mystery of the passion, you feel your desirous heart opens to meet something great, something unknown. Night dreams open the way, the pagan treasure, the travel to sombre pyramids and night forests, a touch to the legend, of which enigma is shining oddly and beautifully like a raven’s feathers against the red sun. The travel to Shangri-La. All of us are from Shangri-La. All of us have lost our Shangri-La, one day, in order to begin searching it in the labyrinths of our consciousness and legends from books and somewhere beyond the skyline. The white flower under the snow--a moment of fear, a moment of pain. You contemplate the white flower as a symbol of peace. The alarming phase of the dream, as you feel relentless flurries and the brittleness and defenselessness of the world. The sea is open--you feel warmth. You rush to the warmth. Now you walk along a road, and a light train of white butterflies fly behind you. The road opens the sea as an endless valley of the emerald and azure light before your eyes. While standing amidst this infinity, you have a chance to look at the face of eternity. Close your eyes, and you’ll see the white shaman’s dream blown round with ancient winds and glittering incantations of white sand, framed with misty rocks and silvery foam, glowing and descending in infinity.
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