The Thing

There was no prophecy that foretold what came to pass, yet in an abandoned warehouse the thing hid, among sour barrels of beer and rotten nuts and figs; a fugitive from madness, like a spider in a frenzy trying to piece together the broken strands of a web. Peeking through the windows the swallows came and went unheeded.

One day the blue eyed boy arrived with his insolent lips and his swaggering hips. He unpacked his sleeping bag on the floor, he turned on the ceiling lights. He occupied the warehouse with conviction as if he had lived there all his life. At first the thing recoiled in the shadows, but later approached him carefully and sat at his feet while he pretended to be half asleep in the middle of a pool of light.

Mesmerized, the thing stood there, counting the pulse of his breath, staring at his naked chest. Slowly, teasing, he opened his piercing eyes and the thing was hypnotized: those eyes were bottomless lakes, to drown in them and be lost forever was a minor hazard. Time had stained the turquoise shades with metallic tinges but still they flashed dimly, promising paradise.

“There you are!” The boy said, and his voice forced the thing to recall random old places where things had names instead of being empty charred iron cases disguised as hearts...

Despite the wasted years and the madness, despite the longing and the sadness... despite being well over fifty he didn't look a day older than twenty five.

“Dream with me tonight.” His voice had the certainty, the exuberance of those who no matter how lost can command the setting sun to linger above the horizon on serene coral beaches nature arranged for lovers.

The thing smiled and crawled into the sleeping bag curling at his side like a satisfied kitten granted solace. Feeling the leanness of his body, tasting the long forgotten familiar scent of his skin, the thing slept and remembered.

They both shared the dream, it contained the unframed portrait of a woman in a blue landscape, like a forgotten statue in the wilderness. Proud horses grazed on the grass everywhere, and in the distance, people galloped standing upright on horses back's. Ferociously they giggled at the lashes of the summer breeze on their naked bodies.

At the feet of the painting, half buried in the grass, there was a book made of copper which was written in elaborated letters of glass. The thing caressed the letters one by one, they made the fingers itch, but in them could be found at last the missing paragraphs of the mind.

She was one of them, the fearless wind riders, until the day she slipped and fell from her horse, astonished. She hit her head swearing at the total lack of premonitions or evil portents that could have spared her that fate. She had overslept, she had missed the warnings, never noticing the dawn reticence to let the new day arrive.

When her head hit the ground she forgot everything: the joy of the races, the boy's face, her mighty spells and her wishing well... All was a blur, an abyss vomiting shadows who pricked her all over with venomous wasps.

After so many years of oblivion, in the dream, she recalled her name, she recalled her face and she recalled their story:

The boy was the artist, the alchemist, the dream weaver, and she was the only woman he painted, in long winters by the fireplace... Her hands on her lap embroidering fiery swans and fishes.

Now the honeysuckle, the ivy and the rosebushes create a blanket over the warehouse in multiple shades of yellow and green, protecting the dreamers from prying eyes, gracing their nostrils with their scent. On the branches, owls come to perch, and keeping tempo with the owls, storms and stars compose strange lullabies which they sing at night, until they wake up from the dream and rise.

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• This story is my entry to the contest by @isaria.
• It is dedicated to X, a long lost friend I had a glimpse of last month from a speeding car window.
• It was started yesterday and finished today, 19.04.2018.

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Self Portrait In Blue

Self Portrait In Blue was created yesterday with Sterling2 fractals, photographs, Deep Dream Generator and Gimp.