August 17th, 2013: Flight and Fancy

My Love,

I woke to the siren song of true night; not the simple dark after sunset, but the deep surging tenebrous tide that encompasses the world when most humans are dead to it. The darkness falls over the world like a gentle silent snowstorm, blanketing all reality with a tantalizing veil of imagination -- what lies beyond? The mystery itself is something wonderful, and who knows how amazing the discovered details might be?  Believe it or not, I am an eternal optimist. Of sorts.

Despite the panacea of night calming me, I was still in a poor state. My muscles were cramped, my mind twisted up in knots of anxiety, and dread freezing my enthusiasm. Too many times I’ve woken in that state, and tonight I decided to do something about it. Unfolding myself with practiced grace from my makeshift lair, a bit like an origami swan reversing itself into plain old paper, I stole up the stairs into the softly moonlit living room. 

I spared only a glance upstairs toward the lair of deceptively stilled fear before darting out the back door into our beautifully shadowed garden: there’s nothing quite like the wild silhouette of slumbering verdancy bathed in mystic quicksilver moonlight to fill one’s head with hopeful dreams. To me it conjures the magical texture of limitless possibility and primordial shapeless enthusiasm; life and longing to be turned to any pursuit, and a deep sense of spiritual unity with all that is, was, and yet could be.

I’ll miss that garden. I had a tomato plant named Heather* who I’d doted on for years, ‘til she was bearing fruit that could have competed in pumpkin contests for size! No one remaining there will water her like she deserves. I feel traitorous having abandoned the plants and the spiders and all the little forgotten out-of-the-way things I shared so many lovey nights with curled up in the basement, but I cannot take them with me. 

I’ve taken nothing, in point of fact, not even water, so this sojourn may well end before I find whatever I’m looking for. I knew I should have prepared; something in my heart, my wise hairy and harried ancestor golden marmoset or whatever, was screaming at me to run now, with neither thought nor hesitation, or else I never would. Until now, I’ve never been one to listen to my instincts: I’ve been all made up of careful consideration and weighing of risks against a featherlight-fragile sense of stability, imagining the wrathful objections of others and retreating from the world. I think it’s about time I started hearing my own voice… so I simply fled into my night.

Fear gave me wings for what felt like hours as I pounded across yards and quiet sleepy streets, caring little for the trail of bloody footprints that followed me doggedly. Every shadow was a sentinel serving the life I left behind, tracking and watching with the giddy tension of a hunting cat, and I just knew that if I let myself slow they would pounce and pull me back from the world just starting to blossom around me. I’m surprisingly fit despite spending most of my time with my mildly beaky nose buried in books; I suppose the effective yoga poses required to fit inside the nooks I like to nest in before losing myself in a good story has helped tone my core or something. Perhaps it was just adrenaline. Regardless, I ran for what must have been miles or hours or both at full panic tilt, hair flying loose behind me in a defiant display of literal and figurative freedom.

Finally I had to stop and heave for breath, leaning on a lonely forgotten fencepost. I gave it a squeeze to let it know someone was thinking kindly about it. The waning summer air was fully sweet for the first time in living memory, and I inhaled great gulps of it with no small amount of desperation. My large turtleshell patterned glasses** slid down my nose on a river of sweat and my hair spilled over my bare shoulders in lanky damp tendrils, but a smile began to grow across my face. Breezes born of shadow played with my hair like curious kittens, except they left fewer claw wounds.

Neighborhoods were long gone in my dust and while I did not recognize the field I’d apparently careened into, I was pretty sure the wild forest at the far edge was a corner of the Whispering Woods. I’d spent most of my childhood dreaming of wild whimsical spirits and animal companions in that wilderness, and I knew deep in my soul it would welcome me. As I crossed the moondrenched grass and entered the shadowy embrace of the trees, a whippoorwill sang out its eerie fluting. I’ve heard they only sing when a soul is passing; whether they call out to serve as guides or heralds or because they prey upon lost spirits is much debated, but every mythology seems to agree they stand half in our world and half in the next. Well, ‘a’ next or a ‘nother world anyway, and certainly someplace beyond mortality. 

Either way, I wanted be friends. I waved to the middle distance in the general direction of the sound, even more glad than usual to be reminded that I’m never really alone in the dark. I don’t actually speak bird***, but I felt a rush of warmth and comfort wash over me like a friendly embrace as it sang, so I resolved to assume it was welcoming me. My outlook on life is growing more positive already!   

As I cleared a small hill, I beheld a valley landscape unlike anything I’d found in the Whispering Woods during my previous adventures. Down a steep slope sprawled a labyrinth of willows and oaks whose canopy was alight with flitting Will-o’-Wisp lights. Canny quester that I am, I knew full well that one should never follow strange lights… but on the other hand, they’re very pretty! It’s a dilemma, for sure. Regardless, the mystery required investigation! I carefully shuffle-rumped my way down the slope on my backside, accepting mud and grass stains and springy spongey moss clinging to my everything to avoid tumbling down and probably breaking my neck.

I was careful not to technically follow any of the lights, but of course I did keep an eye on them. From above the valley, they seemed to be concentrated in the tops of the trees, but now that I was making my way along the valley floor the lights were peeking out from behind low branches and tangles of roots. They danced about my ankles and puffed whispery breaths through my hair, gestures which I studiously pretended to ignore while I scouted the area to make sure there were no stealthy bogs ready to swallow unwary explorers. The paths and adjacent wilds seemed solidly safe, so when one of the lights finally lost patience and zapped my toes, I gave in and turned my full attention upon them.

“Hmmmm?” I questioned playfully, bending fully double with ease so I could be nose to nose with the zapping light. “My name’s Violet. It’s very nice to meet you. What may I call you pretty fellas?”

The zapping light flushed through with pink, shrinking back and seeming rather abashed. I smiled to let him know all was forgiven and offered my hand, palm-up, inviting him to alight. In the sudden chaos and excitement of this strange whimsical dimension my flight had taken on, I found my panic loosening its grip on my heart. It was beginning to feel like I was journeying towards something rather than just running away. 

The blushing light swiftly forgot its shame and transformed into a tiny jeweled hummingbird, gradients of ruby, emerald, and sapphire feathers perched atop a pair of sharp bronze legs. He bobbed a curious curtsy, hopped up and down a few times, and then zoomed into the air. He flitted up startlingly close in front of my right eye, behind my glasses, before coming to a hovery rest. His little beak teased at my lightyear long lashes, tickling me and making me struggle not to blink. Apparently satisfied, he moved over to my left eye and repeated the procedure. Then, he centered himself at the bridge of my nose and gave me a lightning quick sweet kiss with a flick of his long tongue.

The hummingbird zipped away and half of him pulled to my left and half to my right as he split into a pair of even smaller lights. These spiraled ‘round each other and transformed into glowing neon butterflies, one a hypnotically soothing purple and the other glittering gold. My flutterby friends flapped thrice around each other and then commenced frolicking about my head. They delighted in playing in, on, and around my hair, picking up locks and twirling them in complex interweaving flight patterns. Their wondrous light revealed a shimmery depth I’d never been able to see in my hair before, detail I couldn’t help but call beautiful. In no time they gave me a dozen or more intricate braids! When they finished my makeover, they hovered in front of me for a second and then took off a short distance into the snarly wilds surrounding the path. Immediately off the path, eesh. Thankfully, I anticipated this when I surveyed a ways around the obvious paths while stubbornly playing coy with the buttery lights, so I was confident things were good all ‘round.

My guides led me through an endless tangle of shadowed verdancy for at least an hour judging by the movement of the moon, and all the while soft glowing creatures from the reaches of the valley flitted between veils of darkness at my perception’s periphery. Once, a sparkling sapphire fox with a glowing neon yellow and purple frog balanced on his head leapt across my path so abruptly I didn’t even fully register the event had transpired until I noticed a soft rendition of them had spontaneously appeared sewn onto my cozy pajama top. They had playful yet protective expressions, and a laugh burst from me before my lingering anxiety burnout crash could smother it. Laughter felt good. Really really good!

When I finally stumbled free of the thicket, I found myself in a moon-drenched circular clearing I’d never seen before. Oddly, the surrounding trees seemed bunched up on one another and strangely bowed, as if they had all been pushed away from the center of the clearing by an inexorable force. As I watched, several thick oaks seemed to shiver and shed a few leaves. The long-suffering groan of strained wood floated through the air at fairly regular intervals. Perhaps they were holding themselves aside? Is that a thing trees do? Similarly, the grass tickling my toes wasn’t cut short but rather laid flat in cushy layers.

Other than the magic and so forth, the clearing was unremarkable save for a narrow dirt lane that opened into the trees on the side directly opposite where I’d stumbled in. Exactly directly opposite, even accounting for a few wobbly hops I took before looking up. Before I could ponder on this oddment too long, a brilliant light sprang into being where the lane met the horizon, accompanied by a low grumble-roar that shook the night’s stillness while somehow simultaneously reinforcing it. 

Squinting into the approaching nova, I could swear I saw the outline of a leonine beast with at least eight purple scaly legs and great black-feathered wings that rivaled the trees for height. A vaguely female humanoid face with a soft lavender complexion flashed me a smile all of saber-length fangs from the center of a scarlet sunburst of bushy mane. Two almond eyes and a third amber cat’s eye betwixt and above them sized me up, and a literal tongue of flame peeked out to sweep across plump crimson lips. I was perspiring profusely by that point, and the massive scorpion stinger tail wagging lazily back and forth over the magnificent creature’s equally magnificent rump did little to soothe me. 

The light shifted suddenly and the lioness-lady-beast sort of thing was washed out and her rider revealed: a gorgeous woman sat side-saddle atop the general vicinity in which I’d seen the creature, technically totally nude. I say technically because in addition to demurely crossed legs and glittering gold Godiva hair, shining eyes of every shape and color imaginable dotted her flesh like eerily perceptive freckles and gave the impression of coverage. Or at least a distinct lack of vulnerability.

There must have been hundreds of eyes over the whole of her, though the space between her nose and bangs where human eyes typically go was eerily empty skin. But she had a generous smattering of freckles, just like mine! Though hers were coppery star motes and mine are more like a lovely puff of cocoa dust. I digress.

Every one of those eyes was trained, unblinking, on me. As I raised a hand to wave, she smiled broadly and tossed her hair back, exposing her slender elegant neck and the interesting fact that her small breasts bore two large eyes in place of nipples. I wasn’t sure how to follow that, so I waved harder.

As my magical hopefully-new-friend approached, the blazing light blinded me completely and I had to look away. When I looked back, the erstwhile phantasmagoria had been replaced by the relatively familiar form of a human woman in riding leathers astride a beast of a motorcycle. She gave me a quizzical look and I made an effort to stop looking all over for signs of extra eyes on her or legs on her bike. Also, I realized my mouth had been hanging open in wonderment and closed it with an audible click.

“Hey,” she said simply. “You lost?”

“Meep,” said I, with all the confident swagger I could summon. Clearing my throat, I elaborated, “Not lost. Well, not more than most, I guess? Actually less than I usually am. Just… wandering.”

She nodded in the manner one might use to indicate understanding or perhaps to humor a madwoman. “Looks like you’re running away from something,” she pointed at my moss n’ mud accessorized PJs and bleeding bare feet.

“Yeah. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re moving forward.” My voice had a foreign quality of self-assured defiance that I quite liked.

Shrugging, she patted the seat behind her. “Wanna ride?”

It occurred to me that I had no idea where I was going or where she was going, and that I obviously had no reason to trust her. Still, this scenario felt more right to me than anything in living memory. 

“Ok,” was all I said before clambering awkwardly on behind her.

She took my hands and wrapped them around her waist. “Hold tight,” she quipped, winking back at me. “You’ve got glitter on your eyelashes, you know. Very chic!”

“Must’ve been the hummingbutterbirdiflies,” I said after searching my memory banks for a beat. 

Then, in a curious burst of confidence, I batted said sparkling lashes at my new friend and grinned broadly. I didn’t get to see her reaction as I began to blush like a tomato at the heart of a supernova and hid my face against her back, wrapping my arms about her waist as she’d bidden. It was amazing how she managed to be firm and soft and taught and relaxed all at once. I could even feel the rhythm of her heartbeat if I slid my grip just a touch higher than she’d guided; it was racing, as was my own.

We sped off into the darkness of the lane she’d entered from and the forest’s collective leaves rustled a sigh of relief as the clearing behind us closed in on itself. The motion of the motorcycle was strangely loping, more like a bounding animal than a smooth rolling machine. It was reassuring rather than upsetting, however; I felt like the warmth gripped tightly between my thighs was alive, convivial. The organic gait made me feel cared-for and protected.

“If you close your eyes, you’ll feel like we’re flying,” my host suggested, a note of fey laughter in her voice.

Seeing no reason not to acquiesce since I’d already gotten on a moving vehicle with her, and suspecting that our mount might actually be a magical womanticore who was a bit on the shy side, I laid my head on best-big-sister’s back and closed my eyes. Instantly I felt us soaring off the ground and into the frosty-tickling fabric of the cloudscape far above. I dearly wanted to open my eyes, but feared that doing so would break the spell; it always does in stories.

“May I open my eyes? I want to see the stars up close!”

“Hush now, sweet girl, you know it doesn’t work like that. Slumber now and I promise you’ll be amongst the stars in no time at all.”

Vaguely threatening, at least in retrospect? Ah well, in that moment I trusted her with all my heart (I still do!) and believed only the best possible wonderful interpretation of her words could be my destiny, so I allowed the gentle flapping motion of our vehicle to lull me into dream. 

Meet me in the sky and I’ll save a dance for you,

Violet

*No end of confusion caused there, which amused me for some reason; my field of marigolds all named Rose and roses all named Marigold were even better.

**A Mean Girl™ back in my school days once said my spectacles make me look owlish. I think she meant it as an insult, but I beamed and hugged her because I take comparison to the mighty owl as a profound compliment. A hug in response to her nonsense left her speechless and quite possibly broke her brain.

***Yet! I’ve been making good progress, mostly with my squawking so far, but warbling is comin’ on up.