Sweater Weather

These hearts adore
Everyone the other beats hardest for
Inside this place is warm
Outside it starts to pour

 -- "Sweater Weather" by The Neighbourhood

Dear Samuel,

Outside, the snow has just begun to fall. The lampposts in the courtyard stand at attention with their heads sloped downwards, soldiers in mourning whose tears have turned white under the light. There is a melancholy beauty ripe only in winter, a chill breath that permeates even amidst the warm champagne glow of celebration.

It has been a quiet Christmas eve. I burned the roof of my mouth on hot soup last night, and my swollen palate has been tingling ever since. I have lost my appetite for the past week, and I wonder what they will say when I return home. Is it a formality, to always say that someone has changed after a prolonged absence? The last time I returned for the holidays, Mrs. Weston professed her unbridled joy in seeing what a lady I had turned out to be. However genuine the intent may be, such excessively effusive compliments unfailingly lead me to wonder just what a horrid little creature I must have been! But with all candidness, how much can a person truly change in five years?

As I write about dear old Weston, it has occurred to me that I have heard so little about you over the years. I confess, I have gathered a meager collection over time--little pieces of you sifted from the hearsay of our neighbors. On a lonely night like this one, I sometimes find myself toying with the fragments, arranging and rearranging a puzzle to form a fractured image of you that I may never complete. 

Do you remember, Samuel? When we were children, your mother would read us fairy tales from that old book, the one with illustrated pages that smelled of smoke and nutmeg. Your favorite was the one about the Brave Little Tailor, but my favorite of them all was the one about the Snow Queen. If you were Kai, I said to you then, I would be Gerda--outwitting the sorceress, escaping from the band of robbers, riding on a reindeer--all in order to save you. But the boy I knew then grew up to be a man--one who scoffed at the idea of needing to be rescued.

Perhaps you knew the truth--that I have been Kai all along, with a heart splintered by ice and eyes blinded by frost. There are warmer days when those old wounds fade into the reverie of lost time, but on these cold winter nights I feel the sting sharper than ever. Imprisoned in this fortress of ice, I have spent this last eternity arranging and rearranging the pieces in hopes of finally freeing myself from you. There is neither love nor hate in the hollow of my chest--the two words imply an inflamed passion of which my soul can no longer fuel--but rather a numbness that stings with a thousand needles at the slightest touch. For the longest time, I prayed to the gods that we would never meet again, for I knew too well that the mere sight of you would doom me once more.

But on this December night, as the clock strikes twelve, I wonder if seeing you may finally put the unfinished puzzle to rest and sever me from the fantasies conjured to fill the blank spaces of your uncompleted image. Because we both know that the blemished reality is far less enticing than the pristine fantasy we have crafted within our own minds. I imagine Mrs. Weston may marvel at how tall and strong you have grown, but you and I have both changed in our prolonged absence. We are children no more.

Yours,           

Veronica

Sea, Land, Sky

Wrote this for my Fairytales and Comtemporary Retellings class. Based on the Scottish water horse myth, with influences from Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. Will likely revise this in the near future for final portfolio. 

Edit: Revised 3/29/2013, removed the icky romantic dialogue at the end. 
 
----------------
Even in the summer, the wind howls at the seashore where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise out of the Pacific. Roll down the car window as you pass by on Highway 1, and the waters of Big Sur look almost serene, a rippling sheet of blue silk trimmed with white-lace foam as it brushes against the shoreline. Snap some photographs of the scenic view, and roll up the window once more as you continue south from Carmel, glancing at the dashboard to estimate how many hours until you make it to Los Angeles. 

The shores of Northern California are far removed from the sun-baked powder of the south; granitic and basaltic rock form the sea cliffs sculpted by centuries of battering waves. Step into the surf, and the cold saline water seems to seep into your pores and fill your veins with ice. The abrasive wind slices into your face, and if you are lucky, the gray tendrils of fog may have slinked away by the time the sun reaches its zenith. After the winter storms, the tempestuous Pacific rises and bares its great white teeth at the jagged cliffs, lunging with a ferocious snap at the coastline. Daredevils try their luck—some conquer the crests, while others perish beneath the pummeling waters. 

Somewhere along the coastline between Carmel and San Simeon lies a stretch of land that once belonged to a family of rancheros. Brown cattle still graze there, though the lodge that had housed the family for generations has been converted to a picturesque inn—a favorite of artists and writers seeking inspiration. Rumor has it that there is something odd about this particular stretch of the coast. Every so often, something strange washes up onto the beach a couple miles west of the inn. At first glance, it resembles any another sea-polished rock tumbled ashore. But, upon closer inspection, the object brought in by the tide is indisputably confirmed to be a human liver, with no remaining trace of flesh elsewhere in sight. 

-- 

The water horse has a fondness for pretty girls and tender flesh. Rising from the water, his black opalescent coat—gleaming with a tint of kelp green—renders him nearly indistinguishable from the rearing ocean waves. Others like him lurk in the depths of the Pacific among the bones of their victims, dragged from land to drown in the sea. They are shape-shifters, each with a preferred form. Some approach land in the form of a pony or stallion, while others assume the appearance of a handsome man—disarming and debonair in manner and looks, save for the eerie coldness of the eyes. They lure their victims into the ocean, where they immediately devour the flesh, stripping every last sinew from bone—except for the liver, for which they have yet to acquire a taste. 

The water horse, detecting an unmistakably human scent on the shore, approaches land half-submerged, with the agile stealth of a predator. The tall frothing waves gnash at the sand, falling away to reveal a lean young man with glistening black hair and stormy sea-green eyes. Yards away, he spots the intoxicating source of fresh blood. A young woman sits barefoot on the sand bordering the water’s edge. Her dark brown hair tumbles in curls with the ocean breeze as she rubs her arms with her hands, kneading warmth into her bare skin. She sings a melody the water horse does not recognize, but her crystalline voice is almost as entrancing to him as the smell of her ripened flesh. 

Her singing ceases as he approaches her, his dark hair still dripping with salt water. His sensitive ears hear her heart race with each step he takes, and he smiles, knowing this prey will come willingly. He slides onto the patch of sand beside her, stealing a glance at her face. She is beautiful—skin clear as rose-leaf and wide blue eyes reflecting the light of the full moon. 

“Where did you come from?” Her voice bears a hint of guarded curiosity. 

“From the sea,” he says with a teasing lilt, though there is no mirth in his eyes. “What were you singing? It’s a beautiful song.” 

“A lullaby my mother used to sing to me,” she says. “Shall I sing it for you?” 

“Please do,” says the water horse, sidling closer to the young woman. As she sings, he lays his head on her lap and looks up at the stars in the night sky. Such proximity to his prey drives him delirious with hunger, but the water horse knows that patience has its rewards. As the last verse of the song fades into the lulling of the tides, he asks—“Your mother, she doesn’t sing this lullaby anymore?” 

The water horse suddenly feels a tangle of rope fall around his head. Startled, he acts on his first instinct and shifts into his natural form but realizes his mistake too late. With the rope halter around his head, the young woman now has him trapped under her power. 

 “You ask me about my mother, Water Horse?” she says as she rises, grasping the rope tightly with both hands. “She disappeared into the sea. We never found her body again, but a liver washed onto the shore not long after. Needless to say, I’ve learned how to defend myself since then.” She yanks at the rope, directing him towards the cliffs. “Now let’s go home and figure out what the hell I’m going to do with you.” 

-- 

Her name is Azura. Descendant of the original ranchers who settled the land by the sea, she graduated from university three years ago and now has her hands full with managing the seaside inn as her widowed father recuperates from a fall that re-injured his bad leg. With February nearly past and the summer season approaching swiftly, phone calls for room reservations punctuate every hour of the day. 

It is almost midnight when Azura returns to the inn with the water horse in tow. Anticipating a busy day ahead of her, she decides to keep the water horse in the stables—at least until she can take him to Nana during her lunch break tomorrow and consult her for advice. The other horses in the stables whinny in trepidation, but Azura knows that as long as the halter remains around his head, the water horse is powerless to attack. 

What does a water horse need? There is already plenty of hay in his stall, and the bucket of water is filled to the rim. She wonders if he is hungry, and for a second she is tempted to leave him to starve, in retaliation for his earlier attempt at devouring her. But there is something pitiable about the water horse—such a majestic creature of the sea, left to languish in unfamiliar confines of wood and metal—that stirs a certain sympathy in her heart. She leaves the stables for a moment, and when she returns from the main house, she is carrying a bucket of apples and a whole fish. 

“Here,” she says as she places the bucket before him. “I don’t know what you can eat, but this is the best I can do. Hopefully the cook won’t notice I’ve taken the sea bass from the freezer.” As she rises to her feet, she takes one last look at the water horse before shutting the stable doors for the night. 

-- 

Nana lives in a small cabin a mile’s distance inland away from the inn, sequestered in a shadowy area dominated by California redwoods. She is not actually Azura’s grandmother by blood, but nobody else in town ever seems to remember this fact. 

“Well, child—how on Earth did you find yourself in possession of this beauty?” says Nana, removing her garden gloves as she walks over to examine Azura’s prisoner. Her long silver hair is pinned to the back of her head in a braided bun, and her khaki pants are stained with mud from tending the herbs in her garden. The water horse stares back at her, eyes cold as obsidian. 

“He tried to seduce me,” says Azura, tying a knot around the hitching post. “Good thing I was carrying the rope halter with me, like you’ve been telling me to do for ages.” 

“And it saved your life, I’m willing to bet.” Nana places a hand on the base of his neck, scratching at the withers as she looks the water horse straight in the eye. “You’re damn lucky this girl didn’t shoot you dead on the spot. She’s got a soft spot for animals, killers or not.” 

“That’s what I’m here to ask you about,” Azura says. “What do I do with him now?” 

 Eyeing the water horse thoughtfully, Nana doesn’t respond at first. The call of a mourning dove cries in the distance as the coastal breeze rustles through the redwood trees. Azura would like nothing more than to spend the rest of the afternoon in Nana’s garden, but the ever-growing to-do list back at the inn sinks like a weight on her mind. 

“Have you fed him yet?” 

“I left a bucket of apples and a white sea bass in his stall last night. He barely touched the apples, but the entire sea bass was gone this morning.” 

“I guess we can’t help it—water horses are natural carnivores, after all. He’ll need more fish than that for a day’s meal though. Beef and lamb should be fine as well.” 

Azura’s eyes widen in disbelief. “Wait, you want me to keep him?” 

“Bring him back to me in six months,” Nana says. “In the meantime, find a saddle and take him out riding, every morning when the sun rises and every night when the sun sets. But whatever you do, don’t take him back to the beach. The closer he is to the ocean, the weaker your power over him will be. The smell of the sea will be enough to drive him mad.” 

When Azura still looks unconvinced, Nana smiles and gives the water horse a playful pat on the side. “Cheer up, Azura. Your father will be pleased to see such a beautiful and powerful horse in his stables—though you might not want to tell him you’ve captured a water horse just yet.” 

-- 

Early the next morning, Azura zips up her riding boots and tucks her dark curls in a loose ponytail under a faded baseball cap. She barely notices it during the bustle of day, but in the quiet hours of the chill morning, the sound of the ocean waves washes over her fatigue like a cool salve. When she opens the stable doors, the water horse is already awake. Hoisting the saddle over his back, she cinches the straps and pulls herself onto the wide, muscled back of the water horse. 

In the beginning, they regard each other with distaste. Azura cannot lead the water horse with any confidence, for his hide—cold and clammy to touch, like a body that has been submerged in ice water for too long—makes her squeamish. The water horse, humiliated by the human contraptions strapped all around his body, seeks out any possible way to defy his rider. Yet in time, the routine becomes bearable for both of them, and as the months pass, both begin to anticipate the sunrise and sunset of each day with eagerness. The water horse, possessing the strength and endurance of ten horses, roars across the grassy terrain with thundering hooves as Azura laughs in delight, locking her fingers through his kelp-green mane. 

At night, she grooms his coal black coat as she recounts her day to the water horse. She complains to him about the neurotic wedding planner, who harangued her with voice messages all day about details for a reception to be held in mid-June. She tells him about the major repairs needed on the roof of the main house, racking her brain for a way to procure the money for repairs before May. She tells him about her father—how the medical bills for his injury had depleted their funds and forced their plans of remodeling the inn to an abrupt halt. 

 Sometimes, Azura tells the water horse about her life in the seaside town. She tells him about how she spent her entire childhood wishing to leave, only to realize after heading south for university that this place is where she truly belongs. 

She tells him about her mother. She doesn’t remember her very clearly—she was only eight when her mother disappeared. She tells the water horse that she grew up hating his kind. She tells him the Scottish story of a blacksmith who successfully killed an each-uisge with red-hot metal hooks, and how she had asked Nana to teach her how to trap a water horse. But something changed when she got older. Anger, hatred, vengeance—none of these remained in the foreground. She could not fault a water horse for its innate nature to kill. 

Some nights, Azura sings her mother’s songs to him, her voice ringing in the sea breeze like wind chimes. The water horse listens, and with every passing night, the coldness in his sea green eyes disappears, the storm dissipating to reveal a calm glow slowly pulsating within him. 

-- 

Winter abdicates its throne to spring, and a handsome man with golden hair appears at the inn. He does not dress like one of the bohemian artists who usually frequent the inn, but wears a white crisply laundered shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and dark tailored slacks. When Azura sees him, there is a faint gleam of recognition in her sky blue eyes, but the water horse cannot decipher what relationship links her to this man. Hostility surges through him, and the water horse knows instinctively that this man poses a threat to Azura. 

 The blond man appears at the inn again a week later, and then a third time not long after. Azura treats him with the same tempered politeness that she offers every guest of the inn, but the water horse notices with alarm the gradual softening in her demeanor. The man begins to visit Azura almost every day, and then finally one afternoon, they have lunch together on the veranda before walking towards the beach and out of sight. The sky is already streaked with pink and orange from the setting sun when Azura finally returns. She does not say a word to the water horse during their ride, and only when they return to the stables does she speak. 

 She tells the water horse about Rowland—the man who has been courting her for the past month. She and Rowland met as children, back when his affluent family first purchased the upscale beach house on a nearby sea cliff, in which they resided every summer before driving back to the city in the fall. They lost touch with each other after he went off to attend one of the prestigious universities on the East Coast, while she went to school in southern California not long after. He returned to the seaside only recently to look into the real estate market and was pleasantly shocked to find Azura, who had talked of leaving for so often as a child, managing the inn almost entirely on her own. 

As Azura speaks of Rowland, the water horse feels a sharp wrenching in his gut, her words rattling meaninglessly in his head. The ache only worsens the next morning, when they return from their sunrise ride and the blond man stands at the gate waiting for her with two paper cups of steaming coffee and a dashing smile that rips through the water horse like a bullet. 

Though the water horse grows leaner and stronger from his daily excursions each day, inside his mind he grows delirious with longing. Banished from his ocean home for months, the water horse realizes only now how much he has come to take solace in the girl with sky blue eyes—his captor in more ways than one. But his words cannot reach her. Cursing his mute equine form, the water horse can only look upon her with sick, melancholy eyes as each day she grows more enraptured by gold. One day in early June, the couple returns hand in hand from the beach and the water horse catches the sparkle of a diamond on her finger. 

With the wedding set for the end of August, Azura grows more absent-minded during the hot summer nights as she grooms his coat. Sometimes she tells the water horse about Rowland’s great plans for the inn after they are married, or the honeymoon they have planned to take in Europe. On other days, she does not say a word. She no longer sings her mother’s songs to him. 

The week before the wedding, she forgets to lock the gate when she leaves the water horse in the stables for the night. Instead of running towards the sea, the water horse heads in the opposite direction towards the redwood forest. 

Nana is standing outside under the moonlight when the water horse arrives, as if she has been expecting him all along. The water horse dips his dark head before her, and without a word the old woman removes the rope halter. Instantly, the water horse transforms into a dark-haired young man, light green eyes as dazzling as sea glass, infused with the warmth of love. 

“Water Horse, something led you here, when you could have returned to the ocean you loved,” Nana says softly. “What do you seek?” 

The deep voice of the water horse trembles, brimming with emotion as he says her name for the first time. 

The old woman beckons him into the cabin, leading him to the kitchen where a glass vial sits on the oak dining table, filled with a strange liquid the color of goldenrods. “I began preparing this potion six months ago—the day that Azura first brought you to me,” Nana says, picking up the vial. “It will put you to sleep for six days. When you awaken, you will be human and no longer a water horse. You will no longer thirst for the blood and flesh of humans. 

“The choice is yours, Water Horse. I have freed you from the imprisonment of the halter. You may return to the sea and leave all of this behind, a distant memory in your long life. But if you seek a future with Azura, you cannot remain a water horse. You know very well that you cannot live away from the ocean for much longer, and your love for her remains in danger of being overpowered by your hunger for her flesh.” 

Without hesitation, the water horse reaches for the vial. In a single movement, he swallows the entire contents of the bottle and falls to the floor in deep slumber. 

-- 

It is almost midnight when the he stirs from his sleep. The moonlight casts eerie shadows on the bed as he stretches his arms, flexing as he examines his transformed body. The warmth of his skin feels surreal. He inspects the pile of neatly pressed clothes on the dresser by his bed—presumably left by Nana—and puts them on. 

He leaves Nana’s cabin as quietly as possible—she is already asleep in her rocking chair, book open in her lap—and returns to the inn by the sea. The chattering of nocturnal animals hums in the darkness. The pale light of the moon filters through the redwood trees, illuminating a path through the forest in the direction of the Pacific. 

The rustic inn looms into view, rows of windows emitting a soft yellow-orange glow in the distance. When he walks into the stables, he sees Azura leaning against his empty stall, gazing into the emptiness. The rocks shift under his feet, and she whips around, startled by the sound. Her mouth is open but the cry is stillborn when she suddenly recognizes his face—the man who had rest his head in her lap on the beach six months ago. 

“It can’t be…” she says, murmuring. “The water horse?” 

“Yes… and no.” Towering over her height, his body is tanned and muscled from six months of riding, though a sickly weariness in his face hints at the damage inflicted by his exile from the sea. “I’m a human, Azura. I can be with you now.” 

Her eyes widen as she processes his words. The diamond gleams in the moonlight, and he resists the urge to tear it from her finger. Silently, she reaches up and touches his face with her hand, as if confirming he is truly standing before her and not some apparition sprung from her imagination. Her breath inhales sharply when she discovers the warmth of his skin. They stand like this with bated breaths, fragile uncertainty suspended between them like a thread of spider’s silk. 

“I’m getting married tomorrow,” she says finally, after what feels like hours. “The caterers are coming in the morning and the flowers will be delivered by noon.” 

The odd tone of finality in her voice rings in his ears. Desperation pools in the pit of his stomach as he grips her shoulders. “Forget about all that” he says quickly. “You love the ocean just as much as I do. Rowland doesn’t understand that. He will never understand it, not while he has both feet planted firmly on the land.” When Azura doesn’t respond, he spits out the pleading words. “Stay with me, Azura. Can’t you see that he’s completely wrong for you?” 

“What else am I supposed to do?” she cries suddenly, voice crackling. “I mean, my father isn’t young anymore. Maybe his leg will get better, but that doesn’t mean all the other problems will go away. Money keeps slipping away, and I can barely manage the inn on my own as it is. Everything was falling apart, and then Rowland comes back into my life and promises to turn everything back around… ” 

“So, is this what it’s coming down to?” he asks, fighting to keep his voice level. Her head dips downward to hide her face as her shoulders begin to shake in his grip. “Is this really what you want, Azura?” 

She doesn’t move at first, save for the tremor of her shoulders that feel fragile in his hands. Then slowly, she lifts her head and meets his gaze, wet lines glistening down her face. In that moment, he remembers the first time he looked into her eyes, the light of the moon reflected in her wide blue eyes, and he knows what she will say before he hears the words in the salty air. 

-- 

The waves of the Pacific roar in the night, clamoring against the sea cliffs as a coyote howls in the distance. The August night sky is warm and clear, with a waning gibbous moon suspended among the shining stars. He stands on the sand bordering the water’s edge, dark hair tousled by the ocean breeze as he sings a melody that he heard for the first time on this very beach. He has watched the sun rise and set, barely moving an inch all day. He cannot stop picturing her. There she is, dressed in a flowing gown of organza and white Chantilly lace, taking the hand of the groom as the people raised their sparkling champagne glasses in a toast to their happiness. There she is, holding the hand of the groom as he leads her to the honeymoon suite, removing her silver jewels and unfastening the back of her dress as carnivorous lips descend upon bare skin. Both sea and land fell for the sky, but it was the sea that would reflect the sky’s image for eternity. 

The dark vast expanse of the sea ripples before him, but he knows he cannot return to its cold embrace without the black iciness filling his vulnerable lungs. He belongs neither here nor there—perhaps he will be a specter, doomed to haunt the rocky beaches where livers polished by seawater are said to ominously wash ashore. The tall frothing surf crashes onto the sand, and a dark equine figure emerges from the veil of water, kelp tangled in its dripping mane and black eyes cold as obsidian. It rises from the water without a sound, muscles rippling under slick black hide. Still singing the lullaby, he approaches the water horse with no fear. 

The song ceases abruptly mere moments later. 

The next morning, another human liver washes ashore.

Endymion

Really, she thought, glancing at the magazine rack by the check-out line with a bottle of organic, non-fat, hormone-free milk and a bag of baby carrots she had managed to convince herself she would snack on instead of the leftover quarter of apple pie waiting on her kitchen countertop. I’m following two diets at a time.

At the peak of the pyramid of beauty were those glossed magazines, with Cover Girl puckering her ruby candy-coated lips, her skin unblemished and creamlike with a tint of strawberry in the cheeks, and the cloud of headlines like mindless speech bubbles chattering of “Score a Slammin’ Bod in 60 Days” and “25 Naked Truths About Guys’ Bodies” around Cover Girl’s head. Strata underneath were the scattered assortment of cosmetics, clothes, accessories, hair salon appointments, pedicures, manicures, and spa treatments. But at the base of the pyramid was the staple of which she had been bred and fed ever since she had been but a pigtailed toddler, peering into tulips in search of Thumbelina and her fairy prince. She knew the fairy tales by heart. The prince would enter on his white horse, riding in on the wingtips of such words as Fate and Destiny declaring eternal youth, eternal beauty, eternal love. How would the princess know her prince had come? Snow White never questioned whether the prince who had kissed her deathly lips was the One. Sleeping Beauty never questioned whether the prince who had slashed through the thorn hedges and slain the dragon was the One. Swept away on the white horse into the distant sunset implicit of a happily-ever-after – they just knew.

She knew it too then, that moment when she looked up and set eyes on him for the first time. It was something more than the way he carried himself like Michelangelo’s David, eyes agaze with a look of expectant confidence, set into a face chiseled from the finest marble framed by dark Grecian curls. It was more than the way she felt as if he had struck her in the chest with a crushing stone that left her gasping like a leaping fish.

She knew it then, that summer night when she waited for his shift to end and he took her to the ice cream parlor downtown where she ate all the toppings from his sundae and he ate her unfinished ice cream (she had suddenly become self-conscious of the calories) before leaning across the table to lick the sugar from her lips. She knew it then, the time they wore matching leather jackets to the opening night of Spring Awakening at the performing arts center and he held her hand through the show as she pretended not to cry and he pretended not to notice the wet patches where her face had been pressed against his sleeve. She knew it then, the first time he cooked for her at his apartment and he served her lemon-herb salmon filets and rosemary potatoes with red wine and poached pears (taking her diet all into account) and afterwards she reluctantly agreed to watch the horror films he loved so much and spent the rest of the evening with her eyes shut clutching his arm in fright. (She soon had the sneaking suspicion that his love for horror had more to do with her frightened antics than the blood and gore on the television screen). She knew it then, that same night when she couldn’t sleep with all the images of dismembered body parts rattling in her head and how he cradled her in his arms on the couch until they were both lulled to sleep by the rhythmic way their breaths drew in and out in unison like the tide.

She knew.

She knew it then, as they lay under the stars inventing their own constellations and he pointed into the sky and said, There’s you and me – like Cepheus and Cassiopeia, like Perseus and Andromeda, like Fate and Eternity. She knew it then, when before his two-week trip he bought her an enormous teddy bear spritzed with his favorite cologne and how she would breathe in the scent of him late at night, shivering with the craving emptiness of an addict in withdrawal. She knew it then, when he blindfolded her on her birthday and all she could feel was his hand leading hers, and when he finally undid her blindfold she saw him kneeling before her on one knee. She knew it then, the moment her three-letter answer left her lips and transformed his face into a Cheshire smile of bliss as he lifted her into the air towards the sunset and let her feel as if she could fly forever.

No.

She thought she knew.

She knew it then, when the years passed and the layers of the pyramid began to crumble to ruins. She knew it then, when the hairdresser began recommending dyes to conceal her graying roots. She knew it then, when the lines began to settle into her face and neck, eroding from etches to crevasses in her aging skin. She knew it then, when she stood next to him in front of the bathroom mirror and saw the same, proud, timeless, statuesque face she had first seen on him so many years ago, looking decades younger than her graying visage.

She knew it then, when they sat together on the couch watching another film without roaring gun fights or blood-spurting murders (lest they trigger palpitations in her heart) and she fell asleep beside him long before the movie ended and the credits began to roll. She knew it then, when she no longer wore her leather jacket (because nobody at her age wore leather with the exception of clogs and handbags) when he took her to the performing arts center and she heard whispers of “cougar” and “cradle robber” behind her back and she pretended not to crumple like a tissue as the lights began to dim. She knew it then, when she was bedridden after surgery and he spoon-fed her strawberry ice cream with each bite powdered with all of her favorite toppings as if she were the child among them.

She knew it then, as she lay awake beside his sleeping form, wondering if he dreamt of that cute, twenty-something waitress who had commented how gentlemanlike it was of him to take his mother out for dinner, or that pretty saleswoman whose eye had lingered on him seconds longer than what would be deemed professionally appropriate.

She knew it then, when the pent-up misery inevitably unleashed itself, clawing at his timeless skin and pounding at his immortal bones. She said nothing when he packed his bags wordlessly and left, to wander for another eternity.

She knew it then, when she could no longer look upon his ageless beauty without reminder of what she had once been.

--------------------------
Merry Christmas, everyone. Yes, a little depressing -- but that's my style.

Pygmalion

Pygmalion off'ring, first approach'd the shrine,
And then with pray'rs implor'd the Pow'rs divine:
Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want,
If all we can require, be yours to grant;
Make this fair statue mine, he wou'd have said,
But chang'd his words for shame; and only pray'd,
Give me the likeness of my iv'ry maid.

-- translated from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book X

--

There is a song of yours. I listen to it at least once every day, whether in the stillness when the dawn has barely breathed its first breath or late in the night as the murmuring darkness tucks the covers over me. I listen to that voice of yours wash over me like holy water, the words rolling off your tongue like a trickling waterfall of the finest wine.

I think that’s how I first fell in love with you. The first time I heard this song, I thought your voice was the only thing on this Earth that could nurse a broken heart back to life.

--

Back then, I'd always laughed when my classmates complained about being sent to their room. My room was my haven, my four-walled bubble, impervious to the sound of broken glass, of slammed doors, of venomous cursing, or worse -- of fuming silence. I'd lie there on my daisy-dotted bedspread, pretending not to hear the warring voices downstairs as each barbed accusation rang in my ears like the bellows of a gong announcing the arrival of imminent doom. I'd used to worry if this time would finally be the last -- the beaming faces in those family pictures would become a relic, an endless slideshow of fragmented memories flashing past like a ghastly carousel, until the years would pass by and all that's left would be the sliver of a Cheshire smile.

But that night, all I could think of was how much happier everyone would have been if they had never married -- even at the expense of my existence.

I should have never been born.

I hated the noise, but I hated silence even more. Silence was an inhaled breath, a point of no return. Silence was two strangers in the same house, a fleeting glance over the morning newspaper with no flicker of emotion or recognition, two lives intersecting at one precise moment only to diverge infinitely evermore. I needed something -- anything -- to block out the screams and swallow the silence whole.

That night when your song came on the radio and I heard you for the first time, the static of the airwaves buzzed like insects hovering over a dying animal that had drawn its final breath. The sounds of destruction had crept in from under the door, rattling the pictures on the wall, but all I could hear in that moment was the sound of your voice, kissing my tangled crown of hair and bandaging my festering wounds with lyrical lines and melodic motifs that seemed as if they had been written for me and me alone.

--

I kept a picture of you in both of my rooms. The one where you cradle the guitar in your arms -- I'd glance up at you as I'd throw myself across the bed after spending twenty minutes walking home from school each day. On the weekends, you'd be there waiting for me with your tousled hair and teasing grin on that magazine cover I'd stolen from the dentist's magazine racks. My life was now defined in terms of two's but the sight of you on my bedroom wall almost made it feel like one again.

I'd greet you each morning with a smile, confiding in you my hopes and dreams for the day. At night, I'd whisper to you my confessions and my greatest fears. You knew all my secrets. I'd lie there under the covers in the night, glancing at the face illuminated by moonlight as you sang to me from my bedside stereo. I listened to all of your songs, but it was that one -- your voice so deep I felt myself drowning in you every time -- that always reverberated in my head right before I'd close my eyes and surrender to sleep.

--

"Why won't you go out with me?"

He had a mouth that reminded me of an overstretched rubber band, drooping at the corners while the rest seemed to hang limply around his teeth. His voice was low and husky like yours, except he spoke in a grating mumble that would have been incapable of articulating a string of lyrics in one swooning legato. I shook my head and pressed my sweating palms against the fabric of my skirt, afraid to look up at the faces staring down in taunting derision.

"C'mon, why don't you answer me? You think you're too good for me, is that it? I'm not good enough for you, huh?"

Someone else laughed. "Of course you're not. Don't you know? She's obsessed with that singer -- the one who came out with that big hit almost four years ago. Remember it?"

"Oh!" Another voice exclaimed loudly, "The one that was on the radio all the time, and they used it in all those commercials -- God, that was ages ago! What the hell happened to him?"

"Shut up, you fish heads." He knelt down beside the bench where I sat, leering like a predator licking its lips at its cowering prey. "I've heard some funny things about you, Evie. They say ever since your parents divorced, you haven't been the same. You don't let anyone touch you." I froze as I felt his hand creep onto my thigh.

"Such a shame, isn't it?" I shut my eyes but the low, guttural voice wouldn't go away. He must have felt my fear bristling underneath the fabric of the skirt, for he grew bolder and I felt the incriminating trail of fingerprints ascend. "A girl like you, running away from all guys as if they were dogs."

I shuddered as he leaned into me. "It'd make sense if you were a lesbian," he murmured. "But that's not right, is it? 'Cause you fucking worship that guy. Lilian went to your mom's house for a project last year -- she said your wall was covered with his pictures, and the only thing you ever played on your stereo were his songs."

My eyes snapped open; I tried to stand but he laughed and held me down like a lead anchor. "It's true, isn't it? Tell me, do you pray to him every night before you go to bed? Is that his picture in your locket? Do you wear him around your neck like a fucking cross?" A chorus of laughter erupted before me, but the only thing I could hear was the roar of my own silence.

--

They were dogs, all of them. Ravenous, fanged, slobbering creatures ravaging for a piece of meat.

Except him.

They were right, weren't they? I was sick in my delusions. I'd never see you standing before my eyes, hear you say my name as if it were the most beautiful word in the English language. I'd never be able to touch you with my bare hands, prove to myself that you were more than a mirage in this lifeless desert.

But I could see him standing across the quad, his face grinning when he'd managed to catch my eye. I could hear him call out my name like a declaration, a love letter encompassed in two syllables. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest when he pulled me against him, the lurching of my stomach when he swept the hair out of my face with a casual brush of the fingertips, the electric jolt shooting through my body when he pressed his lips against mine.

I'd fallen so many times in the past and you were always there to lift me up again. But this time, I didn't reach out to take your hand.

--

It hurts so much.

I'm so sorry. I was stupid. I'd clouded my head with swollen, ripened illusions of love and fulfillment, but as soon as I'd gotten close, the mirage vanished before my eyes. He left me in the middle of that wasteland, sucked dry to the point that not even vultures would have anything to scavenge from my bleached-white bones. I have nothing... no, I am nothing. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I haven't stepped outside my room in nearly a week.

Is this my penance? My punishment?

Your songs have been on replay, blurring the days into one unending soundtrack. Your morphine voice is the only antidote to my excruciating pain.

Forgive me. I won't ever lose sight of you again.

I'm sorry.

--

For the longest time, I doubted its existence.

What is love? I can't see it. I see manufactured sweets wrapped in pink tin foil, mass-produced paper cards in red and white hues, bouquets of flowers grown and raised by strangers those fawning lovers never met. I can't feel it. I feel the static in the air, the unspoken tension between two people who once promised to love one another until death do them part. He told me he could show me what it was. In a way, he did. He humiliated me, bruised me, stripped me of everything until I was left with nothing.

But that's not true. Because he couldn't take you away.

In the stillness of the night, your voice is the lullaby that cradles the newborn stars. You've never left me, even in those moments when I turned my back on you. When I woke up that morning to find my life had split into two; when I dreaded going to school because I knew they were waiting for me with their unrelenting jeers; when he used me, then tossed me aside without a second glance; when I was stressed about exams; when I was tired; when I was lonely -- in my highs and in my lows, you've never abandoned me.

I'm not afraid anymore.

It exists. All I have to do is close my eyes and listen.

I can hear it. The purest form of love.

--

It felt as if I was underwater. All the sounds were blended together the way my watercolors used to swirl round and round until you couldn't tell the paint apart from the water. Even the nurses in their white caps, the doctors with their bizarre instruments -- they seemed to form one monstrous ripple of color, darting in and out of sight.

The pain in my head wouldn't go away. It was as if the inside of my skull was plated in slate and a horrid little creature was dragging its claws against it, ten squealing talons of chalk. Before, the pain had at least been tolerable, but now all I wanted to do is crack my head open and rip the creature to shreds with my own two hands.

I remember crawling into the bathroom in the middle of the night. It was a Saturday night -- I was at my father's house. I couldn't sleep -- my head was throbbing, I was nauseated to the point that the flickering of the bathroom lights made me sick. I'd barely made it to the toilet when everything poured out my mouth. I must have fainted then, because the next thing I knew, people I had never met were bending over me, asking me all these questions I couldn't comprehend, when all I wanted was somebody to turn off those damn red and blue lights that wouldn't stop blinking in my face. I threw up again.

The only thing I can remember after that is the image of my mother and father standing beside my bed. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen them standing in the same room together like that, his arm around her like a life ring, her eyes clouded with tears she'd once been too proud to show in front of him.

Am I going to die? The mistake that should never happened, retracted sixteen years too late?

--

I once hated silence. Silence was the beginning of the end, a question with no answer, a white room with no furnishings, extending on into infinity.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the attending nurse, whose eyes widened in shock when she noticed I'd been staring wordlessly at her. I watched her frantic gestures as she beckoned somebody into the room. Moments later, the doctor came in, followed by my mother and father whose faces were flooded with a swirling mix of relief and exuberance. They crowded all around me, all their mouths opening and closing like gasping fish.

I could hear nothing.

They tell me, through written words and signed gestures, that I was lucky to have survived. They call me a fighter, a warrior, a miracle. At least you didn't end up like Helen Keller. At least you're still alive.

There is a song of yours. I used to listen to it at least once a day, whether in the stillness of the dawn as the world drew its first breath, or in the murmuring darkness as the world exhaled in a calming sigh. I can't hear your voice anymore. I used to wonder if in exchange for my life, I had no choice but to let you go.

I lie there on my daisy-dotted bedspread, imagining the chatter of the television downstairs as my parents are curled up together on the couch, watching the movie they'd rented together the night before. I look up at the picture of you on my wall, and when I close my eyes, I swear I can hear the sound of your voice, kissing my tangled crown of hair and unwinding the bandages that have held me together all these years, those lyrical lines and melodic motifs falling away, revealing bare, unblemished skin.

You're still here.

------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Took me three days to write this, and still not at all happy with it. Last line feels like a cop-out. Will return to this sometime in the future.

Interview

INT. ROSECRANS HIGH SCHOOL, VACANT CLASSROOM - DAY

Lights flicker on, revealing two students sitting face-to-face at a table. Lighting is dim, illuminating only the two figures in the room, ALEXIS and ISABELLE. ALEXIS hovers her hand over the tape recorder.

ALEXIS
This interview will be recorded. Do you have any objections?

ISABELLE
None.

ALEXIS presses the button down with a CLICK and the tape begins to roll.

ALEXIS
January 1st. Interview with Isabelle Hart for the Rosecrans Reporter, reporting done by Alexis Kelly. So Isabelle, it is no exaggeration to say that the entire population at Rosecrans High School is aware of your rising career as a model. How did you first get your big break into this business?

ISABELLE
(impatiently)
Why are you asking, Lexi? It's not as if you don't already know the story.

ALEXIS
(coldly)
Don't call me Lexi, Isabelle. We are strangers now.

ISABELLE
Fine.
(leans back and crosses her legs)
I got my first deal when I was a freshman. My neighbor, who owns a clothing boutique in downtown Eden, offered me a part in her television commercial, and I accepted. And after the commercial began airing, I started receiving calls from agencies in the entertainment business. One thing led to another, and that's how I got this far.

ALEXIS
Ah, of course. No mention of how you seduced your way out of this valley and into the international arena.

ISABELLE
(sits up in rage)
What the fuck are you talking about?

ALEXIS
Oh, stop pretending that people don't already know. Let's just say you performed some favors for the right people, and they paved you a yellow-brick road to the wizards who could bring you fame.

ISABELLE
How dare you-

ALEXIS
So tell me, how was it? What's it like to fuck with money? How did it feel, Izzy, when you fucked the guy who used to bully the shit out of us? That spoiled jerk who flaunts his wealth like a peacock? Did he make you scream, cry out like the way he used to when we were young?

Speechless, ISABELLE glares, fuming. ALEXIS laughs dryly at her silence.

ALEXIS (cont'd)
Really, I'm curious. What did he do? Cuddle, whisper sweet nothings in your ear after the deed was done? Or immediately hop out of bed and offer you your contract with the biggest modeling agency in Eden?

ISABELLE
Fuck you.

ALEXIS
He fucked you, not me. Did you even love him?

ISABELLE
You could have picked any of your staff writers to do this job. Why are you the one interviewing me?

ALEXIS
Oh, trust me. I wasn't skipping like Dorothy into this room. But we have unfinished business to settle, don't we?

ISABELLE
I was told I would be interviewed. Not interrogated by a nosy former friend!

ALEXIS
"Nosy former friend"? Is that what I am now?

ISABELLE
Shut up, Alexis. The sooner we get this over with, the better.

ALEXIS
Alright. As you request, Miss Hart.

ALEXIS pauses thoughtfully for a moment, as if in deep thought. Both girls avoid making eye contact.

ALEXIS (cont'd)
You were the subject of much speculation last week when you were absent from school for more than a week last month. Care to shed light on the events of that week?

ISABELLE bites her lip nervously before speaking. ALEXIS notices her behavior.

ISABELLE
There was a photo shoot in New York for a fashion magazine. The director of the shoot asked for me to arrive as soon as possible. I requested a week's leave with the school administration.

ALEXIS
Don't lie to me. You've always sucked at telling lies. You weren't in New York. Those girls you call your friends would have known, and they had no idea where you were.

For what seems like hours, neither girl speaks. ALEXIS appears to be in deep thought before she suddenly speaks.

ALEXIS (cont'd)
(quietly)
You're pregnant.

ISABELLE
(in a mixture of confusion and shock)
What?

ALEXIS
No, not the one you're thinking. Again.

ISABELLE
(suspiciously but with a hint of panic)
What are you talking about?

ALEXIS
(leans back and sighs)
Now I get it. There was something you had to take care of that week, wasn't there? Something that would ruin your career if you let it stay. But that's not what I'm talking about. You were out partying again last night, weren't you?

ISABELLE
How do you-

ALEXIS
Izzy, Izzy Izzy. Despite all those years since the last time we talked, I didn't think you would forget about my gift so quickly.
(pauses)
I had a dream last night. There was a little girl crying out to me. She kept tugging at my shirt, asking to be picked up. And when I did, she cried, saying how her mommy is going to have another kid again, asking why she wasn't good enough for Mommy. And you know what? That girl looked exactly like you did the day we first met.

ISABELLE
Those.. those are just dreams. They don't mean anything!

ALEXIS
No. Perhaps not.

The tape recorder ends with a CLICK.

FADE TO BLACK

A Very Real Story

Lookbook ici

It happened that a young woman walked out of the clothing store with a face rosy with post-shopping euphoria, only to discover that the rain clouds had crept in sometime during her indoor self-indulgence. As she pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and shivered, wondering how wet she would be if she attempted to return to her car parked somewhere down the distant street, the young man standing beside her offered to walk her to her car under his umbrella. He was a tall attractive fellow, with a crown of golden curls tucked under his cap and deep poignant eyes. Obligingly, she accepted his chivalrous offer and the two walked side by side along the wet concrete sidewalk.

Somehow, she felt deeply at ease around this young man. As they filled what could have potentially been an uncomfortable silence with light-hearted chatter, the young woman caught herself stealing multiple glances at the charming stranger. His good-natured expression let her feel trusting and amiable towards this man, and the mysterious smile on his face -- as if there was a private joke he was having with himself -- caused her to feel like a curious child wanting to be let in on a secret. When a blast of wind hurled a barrage of frigid rain into her body, he automatically pulled her closer to him so that his body shielded her from the cold. The arm around her shoulders felt warm and protective, and she thought idly, "How wonderful this all is!"

At last, when they had arrived at her car, she felt strangely sorry as the warmth around her shoulders receded. Thanking him profusely, she asked if there was anything she could do for him, to which he replied that it had been his pleasure to accompany her. She would have loved to ask him to meet again sometime, but he had already turned and stalked off in the other direction. As she sat in the driver's seat waiting for her car to heat up, she suddenly thought to phone her friend about the handsome fairytale stranger she had just encountered. But alas, as the young woman burrowed through the pile of shopping bags he had helped her load into the car, she soon discovered that her purse, along with its invaluable contents, had all but vanished along with her excitement of encountering a real Prince Charming.