| Recent Novels |
| Recent Stories |
| Recent NonFiction |
| Recent Poetry |
|
|
|
|
SOFT PARTING
Author: Guillermo Arbe
I am on the plane home and drunk (after having indulged in a glass
of champagne and two or three or four or more, of wine) and, since
I am drunk, I thought it appropriate to write to you.
So, let me tell you about a dream I had. I remember it as something
that happened to me long ago and oh, so far away.
In the dream I was walking through a garden, buried in my thoughts,
becoming slowly solipsized under the spell of paradise (I know
the "garden-paradise" theme is all too obvious, but
bear with me, for, more than a theme, I felt it as a paradigm
at the time).
Holy or not, the garden, a sanctuary of sorts, exuded a mixture
of saintliness and sensuality that played on my senses (the lust
and love of Eden, subtly suggested by the shadows and smells,
shades and sounds, of the garden), transforming my serene thoughts
into the unholiest of libido-dreams.
There I was, feeling saint and martyr, my hands deep in my holy
pockets, when, suddenly, the frenzied bubble of my lonesome daydreaming
was burst (an orgasmic shiver ran down my back) by a twig snapping
under the feather-weight foot of a woman etched in black and white.
That's how I recall first seeing her.
She, no doubt noticing my confusion at this unexpected apparition
intruding ever so sweetly and daintily on my solitudinal solace,
addressed me in greeting, thereby rescuing me (a fool again) from
my own embarrassment and lack of initiative. I blurted out some
nonsense in response (much in the same fashion that my misguided
pen, trying in its ineptitude to combine medieval chivalry and
modern-day irony, ends up with neither, but scrawling an ode to
anon it must be the wine that's talking!)
In any case, I found myself adopted. It took me a while before
I realized as much, though, thrown off as I was by her Eastern
European speech. We performed in terrible English, she due to
it being her nth language, me in clumsy imitation of her, under
the absurd notion that I had to talk like her for her to understand
me. As befitted her Serbian upbringing, her speech was absolutely
devoid of emotion. To my untrained ear, it actually sounded as
if she were impersonating some movieland Count Dracula. Same accent,
same pitch, same cadence (or lack thereof) and same sentiment
(or lack thereof). My veritable Comtesse Draculina! With time
she was to seduce me, disturbing my sleep, perforating my bloodline
to extract my own natural acidic disposition and replace it with
sweet, melancholic rapture.
(Don't take the vamp allegory badly my petite Comtesse, there
is nothing more sensual and alluring than the surreal contrast
of white-pale skin and night-black dress of a Vampiress.)
And you, reader, be not misled by her emotionless intonation.
Feeling was there, beseeching me. How to describe it? Ah, but
I have only words to use, and, as the poet would say:
If feeling is first,
whoever cares about the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you,
wholly to be a fool while spring is in the air.
I was that fool again.
At night I went to sleep wanting so much for her to come to me.
And so she did, only ever so fleetingly, teasing me with her ephemeral
appearance. A dream herself, she interrupted my, rather explicit,
dreams of her. Insinuating, she tempted me in all innocence (not
all innocence my petite Temptress, I suspect you also would have
wanted to stay). And, alas, in the time it takes a bat to flutter
its wing, she was gone. Both my dreams had vanished!
The following day we talked and stayed together, walked and played
and prayed together. The town courted us with its beauty and calm,
mixing the sea and the sand and the sightings of spectres all
dressed in French, dancing around us amidst the tender chords
of piano sonatas (which played for us!). Alas, the day was much
too short. At night she left.
And, as we said goodbye, she hugged me tightly and we endearingly
fared our well, and I didn't want to say goodbye and I sensed
the same in her.
Then, as I finally turned to walk away, I felt that I hadn't really
felt her hug the way I would have wanted, messed up as I was in
the midst of mist and mixed emotions. I turned back, "one
last hug", I said. I wanted not to just hold her perfunctorily
in my arms as I had, but to feel her, hold her body, consciously
feel it press against mine. And so we hugged yet again, as her
understanding car awaited patiently. Then she left. And I have
always felt that I should have kissed her then. I know, as we
said goodbye, that that's what I wanted to do.
