Tag: romance

The Teahouse Dance

Posted on by RDP

The rain drives down straight in a torrent, and there is no movement in the air. The humidity of the day threatens to devour a person whole. Everything swells and drips and sweats. The wet wood of the teahouse floor catches and shrieks under the soles of his feet despite his best efforts to honor the serenity of the space, but he is anomalous in this place — clumsy and fraught in his distraction and discord.

Alone, he settles onto a cushion at a low table next to a sliding shoji opened halfway to the falling rivers outside. In the distance, fog rises ethereally from the tall forest; everything is vibrant and verdant for miles. His eyes slip against the vast lushness, struggling to reflex and allow the wholeness of the environment to reach his mind to become experience.

He draws a deep breath, consuming what the environment offers — ions and lumber, damp earth, steam, and brewing leaves and spice. Slowly, the life in his chest steadies, and he allows himself to take in the distant roll of thunder and gentle beat of the rain; such balms for the crashing ocean of his thoughts, one stacked against the next like waves climbing atop waves, colossal and imminent.

Tea is poured; he cradles the petite porcelain cup in his hand and watches the heat drift and swirl into nothingness. The room is filled with similar ghosts, and ones less apparent, shrouded behind his eyes in the root of his memory. Discomfort descends as he tips the liquid against his lips. His body burns, not from the tea’s heat, but the flavor it deploys, crashing into his cheeks and down, coursing through channels to his very core, awakening in him vivid ruminations of their last time together and all the things that had gone so devastatingly wrong.

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Thrones & ghosts

Posted on by RDP

It is a late afternoon sleep that brings her to the cathedral once again, and he’s there, she knows. The winter wind blows relentlessly, touching the most hidden spaces. Frosty fingers like those of a thousand phantoms follow her through the structure’s heavy wooden doors; she shakes on the inside from a chill that originates in her heart and dances with the music of nature’s unkind bellowing.

The church is abandoned, but consistent; she knows every stone and unearthly whisper — every blasphemous thought that brought it into being. The cavernous interior is perfumed with the reminiscence of holy incense that still clings to the rafters. There are recessed niches on two sides of the space, inset with gothic-style glass panes, and at the far back of the structure, an altar is carved into the very rock of the foundation, framed in the chancel area by three slender oblong windows, and crowned with a simplistic rose window of clear flower petals that filter the sun’s rays with muted textures to give the sensation of a slowing of time that one could feel deep within the core of the chest. Misplaced in its perfection, the altar’s sentinel takes the shape of a bright white throne upholstered in black velvet. Its high back is flanked by two matching points topped by shimmering golden orbs that seem to sparkle from within as though stars are suspended there waiting on celestial cues from their creator.

She pulls her coat around herself more tightly and paces cautiously into the nave — the soles of her boots connecting with the granite floor, each step like a slow heartbeat reverberating into the bones of the old structure, threatening to waken it from sleep. There is no warmth in the space, but her palms sweat, and her face feels hot. She is anxious and a bit afraid. Consuming the air here feels like sinning; the scene represents legions of noisemakers in her mind, only some of which are rooted in the real world.

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From Red to Black

Posted on by RDP

In the camp of the undead soldier, torches blaze with great fury as though an anger hides on the wind, whipping embers and dragging flames into the air with great points that swirl in funnels toward the blackness of night.

The air is dense with the fire’s heat, but the ground grows cold and there is a damp chill in the air that makes mortal flesh yearn for shelter and comforts. There is nothing like that in this camp, however — no relief or fellowship, at least not for her. She pauses in the distance and takes a last look at the velvet blanket of sky above and beyond, speckled with celestial diamonds. She must force her heart to stone. As much as she wishes to recall their time in the pale caress of the star-cast glow, she leeches the feelings from her very bones. The sun and moon have danced across the sky many times since that time, and he has changed from light to dark; from red to black.

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