SL Fiction

Signs of Summer

2011-12-31T18:51:00.000-08:00

She lay on the carpet right in the middle of one of the science fiction aisles in the bookstore. Not sitting on the floor reading a book as one sometimes finds people doing in bookstore aisles, but laying fully prone on her stomach on the carpet as if beside a fireplace at home. She was dressed in a sleeveless black summer dress, her raven hair off to one side, her bare lower right leg swinging up and down keeping time to some inner music. I stood frozen in pleasant surprise for a few minutes, taking in the contrast between her pale white skin and the black dress, the firmness of her lower leg muscles, the sensible open-toed sandals on her feet, the delicious athletic form of her prone body. Fortunately her feet were towards me and so she could not see me staring at her. Mind made up, I walked the few steps to the next aisle and then across to double back into the science fiction aisle several feet in front of her. I wanted to see her face. She smiled as she read, raising her head up every now and then to drink iced-tea. I pretended to browse the bookshelf whilst looking at her surreptitiously. Her unadorned neck. Her beautiful eyes riveted to her book. The curve of her breasts pressing into the carpet. There was something about her complete abandon that captivated me. She was lost in her book and I became lost in her. I flipped through the random book I had reached for, my attention fixed on her even though my eyes were not.

****************************************

A rush of cold air swept into the bookstore as someone walked in through the front doors. Instinctively, I pressed the front of my down jacket together to stay warm. On looking back down, the aisle was empty. She was gone. Stunned, I sat down in the aisle with my back against the bookshelf. Snow was falling outside. I could see it come down from the sky through the big window at the end of the aisle. How could this be? It had been summer just a few moments ago. I sat there looking out of the window, disbelieving reality.

****************************************

"Found what you are looking for?", she asked. There she was again, laying on the carpet a few feet from me in the aisle. Gorgeous eyes smiling into mine.

I paused for a few moments, searching her face with my eyes. "I may have found everything I am looking for," I whispered.

Other me

2011-12-28T19:51:00.000-08:00

(For a change, not a vignette but a decree).

What use are dreams if I cannot dictate their content? What cruel joke does biology play on us? For when we are most free from the constraints of reality, when we are most free to conjure up any fantasy we wish, we are also most at the mercy of the uncontrollable whims or fancies that seed our dreams. If it isn't me that lives my dreams, then who is this other me? Be he demon or deity, I wish to trade places with him so that he may taste what it is to live within the bounds of reason and society, and I may taste true free will. So that he may walk, and I may fly. So that he may be true, and I may lie. So that he may deal with the world as it is, and I may fashion a world as I want it to be. For if I am to make conversations and have coffee, make love and have fights, if I am to do with others all the things that one does in the realm of daily living, then I want the realm of dreams to be for you and for you alone. If I was the other me then you would be my life.

Does the other me dream? It must be so, for to claim otherwise would make me and my kind special and separate. If nothing else, Occam's razor or in other words the simplicity that science demands of explanations would assume that my other me dreams and then so does his other me, and so on, ad infinitum. I hereby decree that all the other me's inside of me must dream of you and you alone so that I can be with you infinitely.

Fine Line

2011-12-02T20:16:00.001-08:00

It's a dangerous game, it's a very fine line
and if one step is wrong, I'll have no cards to play
That's why I have got nothing to say tonight

--- Riot on an Empty Street by Kings of Convenience

I no longer know if it can happen, you and I. It wasn't that I had no choice, it was that all the choices I had involved disregarding the soft lonely voice of reason.

I put a hand on the top of the barricade and leaped over it bracing for impact as I fell the nearly two-story drop onto the concrete pavement below. Despite landing into a crouching stance, the violence of the sudden stop traveled instantly through my bones all the way into my skull jarring my brain loose, or so it felt. Images, like shards of steel-edged glass, flood into my mind. Rain. You are dancing in the rain on a springtime hilltop, your wet dress clinging to your curves. Summer rain. You are in my arms on our beach watching the sea swell up from the battering coming down from the sky. Glistening sweat. Your raven hair clinging to the sides of your face as you thrust your hips upwards to meet mine, your swollen nipple filling my mouth. I fall over into a fetal position, clutching my head in a futile attempt to shield it from these image fragments. Fear. You looking back frantically while running hard in desperate stumbling strides alongside a long white fence. Frame after frame of fear and running and the pristine white fence. Low moans. Your hands in my hair as I bury my face between your legs suckling greedily on the moist trough between your lips. Frame after random image frame coursed through my mind. Even in the midst of the pain I can tell that some of these images are not from the past. I shake my head to drive these images away but the pain only gets sharper. There is a little bit of you in everything.

An unheralded urgency somehow brings forth the strength from inside me and I get up on my feet. I have to find you tonight. Unsteady, I see both the images my eyes are seeing and what my untethered mind is creating for me. I would have fallen but for my groping hands finding a fence to steady me. An idyllic white fence that seems to stretch endlessly into the future. I stagger back in disbelief. Drawing my dagger from underneath my shirt I run wildly alongside the fence, bumping into it every few steps both to make sure that it is really there and to keep from falling. Suddenly I see you running in front of me, red gashes on your arms. I can see the terror in your face as you look back. This can't be happening for real. I stop and shake my head to be able to see properly again. There is only the fence stretching in front of me. I keep running, dagger gripped firmly in my right hand. I can hear you calling for me.

A laughing man and the sea

2011-11-20T13:42:00.001-08:00

How do I tell the sea that I am not the author of the storm? That this is not my dream, but hers. That swallowing me would give it no respite from her fury. How do I tell it that I am but a laughing man and it is the sea?

I pulled down on the hem of my coat and turned up its collar before I stepped out resolutely into the severe storm. I had waited far too many days already for the downpour to end or for it to at least slow down enough that the sea would stop its furious lashing of the little island of sand that was home, our home. My sleep deprived mind could feel the realm beyond the sea gradually slipping away. I have to find a way to cross over to the other side before it disappeared.

Time became the drumbeat of shards of rain. Time became the pulsing tiredness of muscles. Time became the crest and trough of waves. Over and over.

The sea had gone mad, as had my mind.

Futures Past (v1)

2011-11-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

I could see her waiting for me on the curbside as I drove down the street towards her. Tonight she had chosen a smaller and more athletic body than most other times, a skin that knows only the night, raven hair loose on her shoulders, the twin tops of high pale breasts visible above her strapless off-shoulder mini-dress, her bare legs ending in high-heels. Pulling up to her, I stopped the car and leaped smoothly out of the open top to land close beside her in my tuxedo. I smiled broadly and opened the car door for her with a flourish.

"My destiny!" I said, offering her a hand while gesturing elaborately to the passenger seat with the other.

"My love," she said, smiling in return and held on to my hand as she daintily lowered her body into the seat. I danced around the car whistling happiness and got back in. She leaned towards me and our lips met in a kiss. A kiss full of memories and predictions. A kiss to make this night more real. Before the kiss could make the desperation in our hearts well up and sour the evening, I broke our embrace gently.

"Did I tell you?," I whispered in her ear as I pulled back.

"Tell me what?," she asked. I held her gaze for a few long seconds, each of us fighting separate demons that we could not see clearly.

I turned to pump the accelerator while pressing down on the brakes to show off the low guttural growl of my muscle car. Grinning, I eased on the brakes to set off up the road with tires and brakes squealing. "Did I tell you," I shouted above the roar of the engine, "that you look gorgeous. That you set my pulse racing every time I look at you." Pulse and car raced up the road.

She leaned back in her seat, her body and mind visibly relaxing, her hair catching the wind and billowing about the headrest. We drove in silence through the city in the light of the setting sun. There was no traffic anywhere. There never is. All the lights in the windows of the beautiful highrises shine for no one. We held hands and watched the silent, lovely, uninhabited, and foreboding city go by as we followed the single road to its conclusion.

"You made a beautiful world for us tonight," she said, squeezing my hand.

"Love, I thought it was you that made this for us?"

She was silent for a while. "I don't know. It has gotten so hard to tell." With a visible effort she cheered up and asked, "where will you take me tonight?"

I laughed. "It is always a surprise for both of us, but from the clothes we have on I would guess dinner and dancing."

"Mmmm, my favourite," she said happily.

Don't respond

2011-11-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

"Don't respond to this -- I miss you and I love you, but you left me with no choice. It's lonely here without you."

I lay in the hammock on our beach with the folded note on my chest. The sea churned, the ebb and flow of its recurring waves keeping pace with the swinging of the hammock. The pale light of the setting sun flickered off the waves. The outer peace quieted the inner turmoil.

A gust of wind blew the note off my chest and into the sea, where it skipped a few waves like a stone cast by a playful child before it got caught in the water. I had tried to catch the note as it flew off and had failed. It now lay in the water, soaked and floating. From afar I imagined the words slowly dissolving, their ink leaching out into the water. I imagined the ink-on-water words getting diffuse and bigger but keeping their rough shape as they floated and got pushed and pulled by the waves. Will they reach our beach and mark those words on it for ever or will they float away into the vastness of the sea? The hammock swung back and forth and with it our world, undecided. I lay back against you, our bodies together shaped the movement of the hammock, my hand played with your hair.

Not our Fate

2011-10-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

"But you and I, we've been through that
and this is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
--- All Along the WatchTower by Bob Dylan

Disoriented, I stand in what I think is the middle of a room, but I am unsure for my eyes have not yet adjusted to the darkness. I don't know how or whence I came to be here. I try turning cautiously around seeking outside light from under a door or from the edges of a window but there is complete darkness. With no reference point for the eyes and nothing within reach but the floor I was standing on, all I had were the sensations from my body and it made my distrustful mind unsteady. So I stopped moving and just waited.

The flesh of your high breasts flashes brilliantly as you arch your back. I blink and it is dark again.

I follow with my eyes your up-stretched arms to the scarves tying your wrists above your head to the posts on either side of the bed. Our bed. Your arched back and the urgency of your thrusts meeting his tell me that you are close to release. Darkness again. Fuck.

Is this my room? It ought to be for you were on my bed. Yet it cannot be because nothing else is right. I lurch forward gingerly but the ground is unsteady and alive under my feet. As I struggle for balance I see you again.

You are kneeling on the floor, nadu, before a standing man. Your white naked flesh against his dark trousers. Your knees pressed against his dirt-streaked boots, your breasts pressing into his knees. Even though I see you from the side I can tell what your upturned face is begging him for. My body responds, blood rushing into my barometer of desire that knows your pretty mouth so well.

I hear you moan close behind me and swirl around, almost falling in the dark. Your hair clings to and covers your tears-streaked face as you lean forward straining the ropes that tie your hands on the bar above your head. I cannot tell if you are trying to escape from or grind into the dark-haired face pressed between your legs. My eyes are drawn to the leather whip lying near your feet on the floor and then to the raw marks on your breasts and stomach. I search your face and wish I could look into your eyes. I wish I could ask you why you are crying. I wish I could ask you why you are moaning with pleasure. I wish I could ask you if this darkness is within you or within me.

I wish it could just rain down on you and I and wash all this darkness away.

You are close, so close, and I lean forward to whisper into your ears, "You belong to me." But you don't hear me.

The dark covers me.

Hide me

2011-09-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

At the edge of a steep cliff with the sea a hundred or so feet directly below, waves extending as far as the eye could see, there was a single wooden bench to which I returned each evening and sat alone to watch the setting sun paint its silent death throes all over the sky in shades of deep purple and red. Starting a few feet behind the bench and stretching back far into the horizon was a meadow of motionless flowers in riotous colors atop tall unyielding stalks. A solitary bonsai cherry blossom tree adorned the edge of the cliff to the left of the bench, a carpet of lilac petals surrounding its base. Nothing stirred on land, the only sound a faint din of the waves reaching up the face of the cliff from the sea below. There was a quiet madness in the air that captivated me; it was as if everything stood still with bated breath awaiting something or perhaps someone.

It was the most incongruously beautiful place you could imagine and since discovering it I had had it all to myself. This evening was no exception and I sat at my usual spot at one end of the bench playing with shadows. She must have come out of the meadow and sat down wordlessly at the other end of the bench. I don't know when she came and I didn't look at her, unsure what her arrival meant both for this place and for the madness in my heart. In my thoughts she sat cross-legged, her bare feet and ankles visible below the long silk skirt that embraced her legs. I thought that her neck was unadorned, that the swell of her breasts arose and fell with each breath in steady harmony. I thought that in her downcast eyes was an image of me. I thought that I knew that she must be humming my name over and over in her mind and that I was the cause of the smile at the corner of her mouth. I thought that her hands ached to be in mine and that her heart was calling out for me. In that strangest of evenings I thought that she must have sat with me for every sunset.

"Will you hide me within you?," she asked. I turned towards her.

Break your heart

2011-09-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Skye always drew large crowds to his shows and tonight was no exception. In the dark of a moonless night, the open-air amphitheater lit by torches all along the periphery was full of beautiful young bodies, most dancing either as couples or in groups as friends, a few dancing alone or milling about seeking dance partners. I stood alone at my customary back corner near the inexhaustible supply of cheap wine, nursing a glass and listened to Skye sing, eyes flitting from one sashaying skirt to another.

"Come dance with me," she said extending her arm to me with a shy smile on her upturned face and the flicker of hope burning in the flames reflected in her bright eyes.

I hesitated, smiling sadly into her eyes as I struggled to find the right words. Before she could withdraw her arm, I caught her hand in mine and bringing it to my mouth kissed it gently before letting it go. "Please don't be upset Laura. After all these months at Skye's shows, you know well that I don't dance."

"Damn," she said turning away from me with a bitter laugh. "I saw how much wine you had tonight and was hoping that you were drunk enough to break down and finally say yes." I stepped forward close behind her wanting to hug her from the back but resisted the urge for it would just make matters worse. "I hate how pathetic I am to ask you again and again," she whispered, her voice catching and I could sense the unseen shimmer of tears in her eyes.

After a few minutes of desperately trying to figure out how to help my friend, I leaned forward and whispered playfully into her ear, "You know how it is. We will dance. You will fall for me. We will fuck. And I will break your heart!"

She burst out laughing, her body shaking with a mixture of hurt and absurd merriment. "You are one cocky bastard!"

I could sense the tension flow out of her and stepped back a half step.

She turned around to face me with a wicked smile on her face, "And what if I want to take that chance? What if I want the dancing and the fucking even if it means getting my heart broken?"

I tried hard to smile back but instead after an anguished pause whispered, "Perhaps you want that, but this isn't about you, it is about me. I don't want to break another heart."

She stood still and watched the struggle of emotions on my face before reaching up with her hand to caress my face, "She hurt you very badly, didn't she?"

I unsuccessfully tried to suppress a short manic chuckle and shook my head, "No. No. She didn't hurt me at all. There may not even be a she at all."

She smiled sadly into my eyes, coming closer still. "She broke your heart, didn't she?"

"I am not hurt, Laura. Really. Not lovesick, and not heart broken."

I took another small step back and laughed, "And not married and not gay either."

"I just don't dance."

Unsay

2011-04-13T20:53:00.001-07:00

If I inhaled so deeply and for so long

that I took back all the words I ever exhaled,

would that then unsay all your memories of us

and let me keep mine?

Why baby?

2011-04-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

(A vignette I started about a year ago and then set it aside because I wasn't happy with it. Now it is out of place with where the blog's writing is currently, but here it is anyways.)

Setting: The camera swoops down from on high onto the flat open roof of a sprawling castle that has clearly seen better days. Its dark moss-covered outer walls have regularly spaced fire-torches and their flickering glow adds ghostly shadows to the dying light of the sun. Two figures stand several feet apart, the man facing the woman who has at her back the long shimmering golden dagger cast by the last rays of the setting sun on the expanse of water surrounding the castle. Our viewpoint descends low enough for us to be in eavesdropping range but not close enough to see the emotions flickering on their faces in the low light.

The couple stands motionless staring into the distance. The silence is broken only by the shrill cries of a large falcon circling the castle, riding an unseen current of air. The predatory bird swoops down into the water with a desperate cry of triumph. The man and woman turn together to watch the bird grappling with a large fish in its beak as it struggles to break free of the water.

Woman: Why baby?

The man does not answer but stands in place, fidgeting.
The bird approaches the roof, its wings flapping noisily, and deposits the fish still convulsing in its death throes at the edge of the roof and stands near it eyeing the couple with open hostility and challenge.

Woman: Why?

The man shakes his head, quickly suppressing a desperate laugh.
The bird breaks the fish apart and swallows large pieces all the while emitting sharp bugle-like calls as if to warn them against approaching closer.

After a few more minutes of the couple watching the bird demolish its prize the woman teleports away startling the bird. It flies away, leaving the carcass of the fish on the roof, voicing its protests in a cacophony of anguished cries.

The man stands motionless for a long while, watching the sun die. The fires burn through the night.

You and I

2011-03-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

There are only so many stories in the world. And the truth is that none of them are true. I am not who I am. I never was. There probably is a real you. But the you that lived and laughed was the you that I created. The you in the story. The you in the story that met the I in the story. The you and I that fall in love over and over in so many words, few of them true. The you and I that go our separate ways in so few words, many of them true. Of course those words, they don't write themselves. Or do they? Does the I in the story have free will? Does the you? Perhaps the I in the story is a puppet, soulless and thus guileless, pulled by the strings of good story writing, a slave to dramatic flourishes. You and I wouldn't write an inelegant story, now would we?

--------------------

In the unending rain, morning blurs into midday and so I wasn't sure what part of day it was when I stepped out of the house. Turned up collar and a hat provide meager shelter against the downpour, as I crunch my way in boots on the graveled walkway past the bed of flowers that you had planted and onto the path leading into the forest on the hill behind our house. Today I am going to meet you for the first time, again. I don't know why for our chance encounter, for this first of impressions, I cannot seem to make it bright and sunny and flowery and have butterflies and singing birds. Instead, for all our first meetings all I have is rain, never ending rain. I walk up the soggy sloping path into the forest, rivulets cross the path to disappear into the thick undergrowth, the canopy of weather-bent trees blot out the diffuse sunlight so that it feels like it could be late evening. Blinded by the rain and a potent mixture of desire and apprehension about what was to come, I blunder along the path seeking you.

A flash of color, incongruous in the rain, and yet anticipated makes me quickly step off the path and into the shadows of the trees. There you are, in gorgeous if soaked colors, standing in the midst of the path as if looking for something or perhaps someone. Streams of raven hair cling to the side of your face, rivulets of rain trail off down your throat and onto your bare shoulders to disappear into the embrace of your warmth under your gown. Your eyes sweep back down the path towards and then past me. There you are, the one who will envelop my words with hers, intertwine my desire with hers, and plant the seeds of perennial flowers in our garden. I stand completely still, eyes riveted to your face, suddenly the rain not blinding and blurring but instead washing everything down to its purest essence.

We stand again at the threshold of a first encounter, you and I.

I know where my story goes. I wonder what happens in yours?

More than before

2011-02-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

Today, more than before, I feel like writing you into my life.

You blush when I reach for your pretty face. Words, fragments of program code compiled into long sequences of ones and zeros and interpreted by scores of feverish machines in far away data centers: how does the heartless certainty of machine logic reflect the hopeful flutter of human emotions on your face as I pull you in for a kiss? Will the next few words write a kiss consummated or a shy demurral?

In my words, there are only you and I.

In my words, all dreams are about you.

In my words, I give up everything
for the world inside of me.

And yet,
in my words, is love unrequited.

Perhaps,
my words, they can't say enough.

Cold

2011-01-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

(This is the third in a series of very short stories inspired by an AM Radio build in SL; some pictures are included here. If you haven't seen his work, you should!)

Huddled inside an oversized thick jacket and yet cold to the bone, I watched warily from afar the smoke-filled fire burning in the field of grass. The incongruous fire burned in separate straight line strands several feet apart as if some fiery demon had raked the earth with three giant finger nails. Eventually, despite my unease, I walked up close to the flames hoping that they would yield some of their warmth to my shivering body, but to no avail. The flames hissed and crackled and lapped at unseen ethereal enemies that somehow held the fire at bay robbing it of its warmth and preventing it from spreading through the field. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing or of the relentless cold that seemed buried deep inside me and just stood in place rocking slowly on my heels. What added to the sense of strangeness and foreboding was that the odd scene before me seemed deeply familiar even though I was sure I hadn't set foot on this immaculately desolate place before.

After several minutes of indecision, the desire to walk eastwards broke free of the hold the cold had on my mind and I ambled off in that direction expecting to find a fence separating the field from railroad tracks even though I could not see either from where I stood. I made my way past a small unoccupied house and further eastwards to what surely would be a very odd sight to anyone, a table and a chair in the middle of the field far from the house and just a few feet from the wire fence. Just past the fence were the railroad tracks I had been expecting. It all felt quite natural and right to me and without thought I went and sat on the chair to look about me. The fire, the house, the fence, the railroad tracks, and now this table and chair in the middle of the field; what was this place? It felt like I had never been here, and at the same time like I had forever been here.

The wind picked up a little and the rustle of the pages of the notebook on the table finally got me to pick it up. It was more than half-way filled with what seemed like diary entries. The last entry read

You are not here. This is not real. Don't come back. Don't you come back.

There were pages and pages of such drivel. Some of the earliest entries from years ago were longer with rambling text about her being gone and never coming back, about the trains not running, and about being cold. Whoever this madman was, I was glad he wasn't here anymore. I got up to leave this crazy forsaken place and only then noticed the flapping scraps of white silk caught in the wire mesh of the fence. A flood of images came rushing into my mind. She in her wedding dress, the sound of the approaching train, the look in her eyes as she turned and ran away from me, the skirt of her dress catching and tearing as she jumped over the wire fence, the open freight car of the train that carried her away. She was gone, and I was here forever without her.

Defeated, I collapsed back into the chair and picked up the pen.

Bare feet

2010-12-26T18:38:00.000-08:00

"May I sit with you?"

I turned and looked back over the bench for the source of the voice. It was difficult to focus on the sea of tall flowers and grasses in the meadow after staring at the light of the setting sun on the waves for so long.

"It is such a beautiful spot. But if you'd rather be alone, let me know and I will come back some other time." My eyes found her. Bare feet, a summery white dress with a slit on one side showing an athletic leg, an unadorned lovely long neck, auburn hair on fire in the rays of the dying sun, she smiled and waved.

I sat up straight and smiled back gesturing towards the bench, "Please come sit. It will be my pleasure."

"I am Carol", she said walking out of the meadow towards me. The long stem of a sunflower clutched in one hand, she crossed the few feet of gravel that marked the waterfront and sat down on the far side of the bench. Her eyes were fixed, as mine had been only a few moments ago, on the long shimmering flame that stretched from the horizon to nearly our feet as the sun set over the water. She watched the flame flicker on the undulating surface of the sea and I watched her. Her upper body hugging a folded leg raised so that its foot perched at the edge of the bench, her skirt pulled up so that the other lower leg was free and swinging in time to some internal music. Her chin rested on the raised knee, the sunflower plucked from the meadow caressing her hair, her eyes reflecting the slowly deepening colors of the flame she was so intently watching.

"You don't have company often, do you?", she asked eventually, turning her face towards me with her eyes full of mischief.

I laughed briefly in response and looked away shaking my head. "Fact is that I don't. But that don't excuse my rudeness in staring at you Carol". It was as if my internal compass swung from the setting sun to you, I thought to myself.

"Michael. That's my name."

"Michael", she said softly and turned back to face the flame. Extending an arm out towards the sea, she pursed her lips into an oval and exhaled deeply and sharply. The sun died.

Wish you were

2010-12-20T16:47:00.001-08:00

In the light of the moon, I sit by your side.

"I wish you were...", I say so softly that you don't hear me. It is high tide and the waves lap gently at our bare feet. It was your inspiration to place the bench in our little corner by the sea just so that at high tide the waves of water would crest exactly at our feet. After all these years the memory of how excited you were when we did this still makes me smile. It was one of the last things we had bought together in setting up our home, the old bench from the garage sale with its wooden slats pockmarked as if each sea-storm of the past decade had written its history on them in Braille. You had loved the bench at first sight and I have always loved you and so it was that most nights we sat on the bench watching the iridescent waves in the moonlight.

"I wish you were...", I say faltering mid-sentence as you turn to look at me, your eyes searching my face. I ache to reach for you, to pull you into my arms, but resist for I can already feel the grains of sand slipping away from under my feet with the receding waves. Soon there will be nothing to stand upon. Before this can all drift away, I force myself to break your eyes embrace and pick up my flute to begin playing our favorite song. I play looking straight ahead, willing the music towards the sea with a quiet desperation. I play for each grain of sand that holds up our world. The waves of music, emotion, and the sea, all crest and fall battling it out for their own versions of reality.

In the small hours of the night, I sit by your side.

"I wish you were...", I whisper as I turn back to meet your gaze. "I wish you were, by my side".

Penance

2010-11-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

(Appears on pages 46-49 with beautiful photography by Thereaver Barrymore accompanying it in the second year anniversary issue of InnerWorld magazine.)

I set the glass of whiskey, ice cubes clinking, down on the wooden side table and settle into my usual couch for the night. The warm moisture in the air creates a band of condensation on the outside of the cold glass. Reaching towards it with practiced ease, I use a finger to carefully trace her initials onto the moist outer surface. And as happens every night, the drops of moisture slide, move, mate, coalesce into tears that flow into the letters and slowly find their way down the path I traced, collecting into a small pool at the base. In time, the downward flow will bleed through the outline of the letters and blur them, but I know that if I don’t touch the glass, it will remain possible to make out her initials for a long time. As the night settles around me, I sit watching her slowly dissolving name, a bottle of Talisker for company and the drumbeat of rain on the roof for music.

The sound of the screen door swinging open and banging shut startles me and I stand abruptly, picking up the glass and bottle instinctively as if protecting them from an intruder. I stand in place, undecided whether to just sit down again or go investigate the noise. Resentful of this interruption, I drain the whiskey in one swallow, feeling the cold amber liquid spread its fire downwards inside my throat as I walk out through the screen door and on to the back porch. There is nothing, no one outside but the rain.

I can’t remember a night without rain. At least, not since she left. The lone bulb on the back wall of the house fights the oppressive rain as it presses down into the ground, its light barely managing to penetrate a few feet from the covered porch. In the darkness beyond, the world disappears into rain. Not having left the house for weeks, I suddenly feel deeply unsure if anything exists beyond the house, our house. Uneasy that everything has been washed away, I toss the glass aside and walk out into the rain, taking swigs directly from the bottle. In a few feet I can see nothing but press onwards, lurching, fighting the downpour. In a few more steps I’m forced to stop as all my senses completely focus on the intense feeling of rain beating down on me. There is nothing but the rain. Even the whiskey is finished and I let the bottle drop and stand absorbing the blows, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting the rain as it tears into me. The barrier of the clothes between the rain and my skin becomes unbearable and I rip them off. Naked now, I stand completely still with my eyes closed, head tilted back, and my arms raised towards the sky embracing what will happen. There will be nothing but the rain.

Save me

2010-10-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

(Appears on pages 50-51 in Issue 18 of Inner World Online Magazine)

The crowd roared its approval as the singer's voice came on over the plaintive notes at the beginning of the next song. "And now a song that hasn't been requested for months. Wicked Games goes out to Chloe." Shouts of "love this song" and hoots and whistles echoed from all over the dance floor. Like me, many here were regulars at Ed Kyomoon's live music events.

"I have been watching you for many weeks now, and you always just stand alone at the back", she said as she flowed into my arms. With her bare shoulders and cascading raven hair safely within my embrace, I smiled into her eyes. "So what made you ask me for a dance tonight?", she asked smiling back at me.

Memories faded in and out, this song, our song, her dark hair and flowing dress within my arms as we danced. I pulled my love in closer still, body swaying with hers in our effortless slow dance, my face nuzzling her hair, and waited many heartbeats for the start of the right phrase in the song to whisper along with the singer, "My world was on fire, and no one can save me but you".

She giggled, her hands squeezing my back. "Mmmm, you seem fine enough to me Stranger. No fire and no need for saving."

Using the swinging motion of the dance I lifted her up by the waist, and still swaying with the familiar music kissed the length of her bare shoulders inwards towards her throat. Each kiss tinged with memory. In response, she arched her body back so that my kisses trailed down her throat and into the valley between her breasts. Her hands reached up to press my face into her soft curves.

"What a wicked game to play", she intoned along with the singer, "to make me feel this way".

"What a wicked thing to say", I responded with the singer, "you never felt this way".

She laughed happily while I set her back down straight. "I had liked this song before, but now I am going to love it for ever".

With lyrics perfect for slow dancing, the moonlit night, the glow of the warm fires surrounding the dance floor, and the mingling of breath with unspoken memories and unhinged desires, all conspired to give meaning to every scripted dance move. She rested her head on my shoulders and gave in fully to my embrace.

We danced together alone, each in our separate world, silent feelings emanating like ribbons, connecting, twisting, colliding, unraveling our fantasies. In the silence, passion. In the silence, pretense. In the silence, possibilities.

In the silence, song.

In the song, ghosts of dances past.

(The lyrics used are from the song titled "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak. Edward Kyomoon does indeed sing regularly in SL.)

Tell her

2010-08-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

(This story appears in Issue #17 of Inner World magazine starting at page 60)

I smiled into her eyes, my body stretched on hers, and reached for the scarves that bound her wrists to the bed. "Maybe I should not release you," I whispered into her ears and kissed the strands of hair clinging to the sweat on her face. "Maybe I should keep you bound here until you confess your love for me."

She laughed giddily "and what if I never fall in love with you?"

"Oh you will love me" I said as I undid the scarves and released her from under me, "you will love me more than you have ever loved anyone."

She stood and dressed quietly before turning back and sitting next to me on the edge of the bed. "Is this what you told her too? Does she love you more than she ever loved anyone?"

I took her hand in mine and looked into her eyes. "Babe, you know that I don't love her. That you are the one for me."

She turned her face away avoiding looking at my eyes and my naked body. "But when are you going to tell her that?"

I reached out and with a hand under her chin gently forced her to look back at me. "She will be hurt love, and I am trying to break from her as gently as I can. You know this."

"Yes, I do know this, and if she feels for you half as much as I do, I know that she will hurt. Hurt for a long long time." She rested her head on my shoulder, "and yet this isn't right. Your making an alt to see me. It isn't what the man I love would do."

We sat at the edge of the bed, my hands caressing her hair. "I don't know how it is so different from what you are doing. You have another lover too. What about him? You and he have been together for even longer than I with her."

She sighed and sat up straight. "It is different. We have an open relationship."

I laughed softly, shaking my head. "And yet he does not know about us. You meet me in secret too."

"I never loved him. You loved her. That is the difference." She leaned forward to kiss me quickly and got up from the bed. "Look, I know the real person behind this alt and the avatar I met first is one and the same, but somehow it feels dirty for you to be using an alt. It just does."

* * * * * * * * * * *

"Sorry I am so late love. The wireless connection is so flaky" she said laughing apologetically, "and you know there is no one I can complain to since I am stealing it from a neighbor." She sat down next to him on the couch, leaning over to embrace him, kissing his face. "It is good that you are going through a busy phase at work. I don't feel quite so guilty about being online so little." He sits unmoving while she kisses him. "What is the matter love? You are quiet."

"There is something difficult I have to tell you," he said, turning towards her.

I first made you

2010-08-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

I first made you.
Not from whole cloth,
and not from textures stolen.
Not from billions of polygons
in a souped up graphics card.
Not from faerie dust, and
not from the ephemera of dreams.
I made you from conversations.

I first made you
for conversations.

(They say that short short fiction is really prose poetry. Well, this one just came out that way.)

Memories

2010-03-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

(This story appears on page 50 in Inner World Magazine #16)

Today I set fire to all my memories. Memories of you and I. Memories of me remembering you. Memories of your being with me every day despite our separation years ago. I felt the reassuring clasp of your hand in mine as we stood watching the fire spread to anything and everything that harbored the memories that so marred my mind. Our land burned, the tall grasses that used to hide our intertwined bodies from prying eyes, the twin cottages where we lived and loved, the clumps of bamboo trees under which we spent all those hours talking, the flames removing all color and life and reducing them to charred skeletons. It took time for the fire to burn itself out, especially in those spots where the weight of our memories was heaviest; several hours of raging fire to turn years of whispered conversations under the bamboo grove into so much smoke that it despoiled even the clouds in the sky with soot, with dark particles of fragmented memories. In time and in fire, all the flesh of memories was gone leaving behind only the hollow bones of imagined substance.

You leaned into me as we watched the fire burn itself out, and I felt the wetness of your tears on my shoulder as you whispered, "Free... finally free." I pulled you closer, held you tight against me for a few silent moments before kissing the top of your hair and pressing your hand onto my heart answered, "I carried out your wishes my love, but these flames, these flames did not burn down this heart's desire". Hand in hand, we walked silently through the charred ruins of our former lives all the way to the far horizon. In the blackened sky, our doves, now ravens, struggled in an endless cycle of flapping wings as if held in place by invisible anchors, unable to escape. We watched their struggle to be free for a while before turning back. I could feel your steps faltering and stopped. "All of this," I gestured around us, "all of what was, was not memories." I wrapped my arms around you, whispering "You are not a memory, my love. You are my heart's desire. And all that is born of desire cannot be so easily erased." I could feel your quiet sobbing, your face against my chest as I held you for a long while. Desire surged, and not long after there was a flash of color under the bamboo grove behind you and even from the far distance I could tell that it was back, the big floral-print chair that was our very favourite place to hold each other and talk. The cycle had begun anew.

(*The above story was inspired in part by an SL Sim shown here in two relevant pictures.*)

Rain

2010-01-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

The drumbeat of the pouring rain on the roof kept me from falling asleep. I finally gave up and stood at the side of the bed looking at her sleeping form, the gently rising and falling swell of her breasts, the bony curve of her hips, the long languid softness of her inner thighs, and the taut muscles of her lower leg leading to the arch of her beautiful feet. Desire flaring, I fought the tumescent urge and walked out to the porch with a bottle of Talisker for company. The thick moist night air had awoken deep swollen desires in both of us and we had spent the better part of the night satisfying our primal urges. I had taken her for my pleasure over and over again and in the blurring of lust and love had been more demanding and rough than I usually am. And so, wishing to let her body and mind rest, I sat alone in my favorite wooden chair on the porch near the steps leading to our beach, just out of reach of the rain, nursing my whiskey. It was still a couple of hours from daybreak and in the dark of the night the rain came down in endless sheets nearly invisible to the eye except at the point of impact where the carpet of white churn marked the union of sky with sea. For all the fury of the rain, the sea was strangely calm and spent with the waves washing gently ashore just a few feet from my chair. Perhaps the incessant rain had beat even the vast sea into submission.

My eyes closed, I let the whiskey speak to my blood, while my mind slipped slowly back in time into the night that was. Glimpses of her eyes as I tore into her with my need. Her desire yielding, giving, meeting thrust with embrace. The sounds from her throat echoing mine. Blood surged as I could feel her breath and the softness of her hair surround my need, her kisses up my thighs breaking my reverie. I opened my eyes, pleased to see her kneeling in the pose that was her favorite way to sit on the porch with me. I caressed her hair back from her forehead, cupped her beautiful face with both hands and smiling into her eyes I whispered, "You needn't have woken, my love". "I am bound to your need, my Master," she replied.

Dream, Interrupted

2009-12-29T13:36:00.000-08:00

After a few months had gone by and the sharpness of memories had dulled somewhat, I went back to our home. It was still there, of course, and I walked through all the rooms systematically as if giving a tour to my own self. Nothing had changed except in one respect, her leaving had robbed every object of all meaning. For she was the one who had taught me how to suspend disbelief, to want these things to be real, and for that want to give them meaning. I stepped out through the wire-mesh sliding door off our living room and down the few steps to our private beach, just as I had done many a time in the past, only this time I was without her at my side. No more racing her to our hammock suspended between the palm trees. No more catching her clothes laughingly flung as she disrobed ahead of me on her way to diving into the water. No more wrestling her down to the sand naked. No more urgent coupling in the warm wash of the waves. No more whispered conversations that outlasted the moon. No more. Never more.

And yet, as I stood leaning against the wood siding on the wall with eyes closed, listening to the periodic sound of the waves washing ashore, I could hear her laughter. I could see us both entwined in the hammock talking. I smile as I tell her that in my dream we dance on this very beach many decades from now, when we are both old and infirm. I have told her this dream many a time. And like always, she laughs and kisses me, telling me that she has every intention of staying just as young and supple as she is now for all that time. The feeling of her kiss lingers on my lips as I open my eyes to the empty beach. Nothing is real. But then, it never was. She was my reason once to suspend disbelief and manufacture reality out of unhurried words and stilted animations. And all I have to do to have her back with me is to make reality again, only this time out of nothing except for memories. Then she would be mine. For ever more. And I can keep the promise of my dream.

Fall with the stars

2009-12-12T16:50:00.000-08:00

(This story appears on Page 58 in Issue 15 of the online SL magazine Innerworld.)

I watched the stars fall. Standing at the very edge of the wind-swept cliff that dropped straight into the water on the Isle of Farias, I looked out west over the ocean. This was the westernmost island created so far and there was nothing but the surf of mildly choppy water to be seen out to the far horizon. Nothing, except for the stars. They fell at random intervals, the trajectory of their descent tracing a brilliant searing arc through the dark nighttime sky. They had different hues, the falling stars, some had more yellow and some had deep purples. I figured the color had something to do with how far away they fell from my vantage point. I stood motionlessly at the edge of the cliff ignoring the faint din of the celebrating throng on the amphitheater somewhere behind me in the distance. It was new year's eve. The third since she left my world, this world that we had shared for what now seems like an eternity. I had walked out very near the beginning of the singing and dancing unable or perhaps unwilling to share in the joy. I had walked up the steep steps and out into the surrounding ruins. I had walked for long without purpose, and yet instinct or perhaps some unknown and stronger force had drawn me to the water's edge.

I stood rooted, my mind slowly emptying of emotion and thought, focusing just on the falling stars that disappeared over the horizon. The wind had died shortly after I had arrived and nothing stirred. The stillness burned at the edges of my consciousness. I gazed westward steadfastly, holding the stillness at bay, keeping it from consuming me. I don't know how long I had stood there when the emptiness left by the receding mind was replaced by the single overpowering flood of emotion created by the sudden knowledge that in her world she was out at the water's edge too, that she was at her cottage by the beach. Improbable as it was, I was consumed with the certainty of knowing that at that very moment she was outside, her feet soaking in the waves, her eyes fixed on the nighttime sky of her world. She was on the other side of the horizon. She was there. She was watching the stars fall. And I knew. I knew just how to get through to her world. How to get through to my love. I had to fall. Fall with the stars, straight into her arms.

(Inspired by the lines "I want to fall from the stars, straight into your arms" in a song by Simply Red.)

Restless

2009-11-03T18:05:00.001-08:00

[Setting: The camera pans over a forest and into a clearing on the north-east corner of a small island. At the water's edge is a hammock between two palm trees. In the hammock lays a man who is using his body to swing the hammock back and forth in time with the gently breaking waves. A woman walks out of the forest into the clearing and up to the hammock.]

M smiles at W and reaches for her with his arms as she comes close.
M: How do I tell you, my love, how restless my heart feels without you.
W accepts M's hands to help climb onto the hammock and lays down. M gently pulls W's head onto his shoulder, kissing her hair with his lips. In the ensuing silence, M takes W's hands in his and holds them tenderly. The hammock continues swinging with the waves. It seems peaceful.
W: God, baby. I wish you didn't love me so.
M: laughs gently and asks, And how would you wish me to love you?
W: I don't know.
M plays with W's hair with his fingers, smiling into her eyes.
W: Like all the other guys in this world, I suppose.
M: And how do the other guys love their girls?
W: I don't know. It is a game for them. They are not serious. They play around. You know what I mean.
M smiles, pulling W's hand to his mouth, caressing it with his lips.
M: And do you want me to play around on you?
W: Yes.
W: I mean, No.
W: Oh, I don't know. It is just that you love me too much.
M uses a finger to trace the profile of W's throat down from her chin, down into the valley between her breasts.
M: laughs ... if this is your way of saying that you don't want to make love tonight, you can just say so directly.
W giggles and whispers.. no!
M pulls W roughly under him, his body covering hers, his fingers unbuttoning her shirt. He kisses her down the valley between her breasts, a kiss on the skin exposed under every opened button.
M: Are you feeling suffocated by my love?
W does not answer but pulls M's face into her breasts.
M turns his face to kiss W's breast and reaches for a nipple with his mouth.
M: You know that you are free to be like the others, to treat this as a game, to play around. You don't have to love me as I love you.
W moans loudly as M suckles on her breasts.
W: I know baby, I know.

[The camera moves away from the couple. Perhaps the avatar behind the camera feels shy.]