Irene's winter tale

Within a bleak gray room, she was telling a colorful winter story.

It was Friday afternoon. A cold afternoon, close to the end of the year, we were all caught in an accelerated count down until the end of the day. Maybe the end of the week. Most likely till the end of the world as we sensed  it.

While I was recalling the colors of the story, some other voices jumped out of silence, and made themselves comfortable. The brilliant, fulgent details of ordinary life should overwrite the dark side of almost everything. Therefore, it was a young snowfall embracing an old resigned December. Like a re-writing of hues, within the game of overexposing the significant fine points.

My imperfect memories of story teller's voice have reshaped an alternate narrative; that very moment of her slowly driving a car through the invasion of snow flakes like small dandelion florets, chimed in with my awkward slide down from one layer of possibility. An utterly contingency. I was standing in the middle of the deserted boulevard covered in fresh untouched snow, looking at the Christmas lights hanging all along. In those cones of lights projecting their contours of the street the snow turns out blue and green. Sometimes turning into soft faded tones of red. In our commonly shared slice of universe you are stripped in primary colors. While I am covered in primal fears.

It was a Friday winter night, neatly wrapped in a hot blanket, assorted room coated by the scent of jasmine tea and sweet citrus and a complementary play of minds enclosed in a movie. Some other voices make themselves heard to convey some sort of message for those willing to believe in. I have heard them while I was almost asleep. I assumed it is true. People find their paths in the strangest of ways. Even if they do not know yet.

 

Source: http://static.flickr.com/62/368532221_168c730bf5.jpg

Frozen

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor. From the screen, those words were leaking down.
She could almost feel them flowing towards her legs.

But, you ascribed meaning to something that was not there. You saw what you wanted to see. You believe what you wanted to believe because that’s what your emotions do. They ascribe meaning to something that is not there.
They fool your perception as to what is real.
I can ascribe whatever meaning I need to keep myself alive. Whatever stories behind ugliness that changes perspective about lights and shadows, whatever signs to boost hope. Whatever remnants of the sense and sensibility long dead. I see what my mind needs to see. Otherwise, I may go blind.
The skin remembers what the mind forgets. My eyes are wide open when closed. And, those words leaking down the screen got frozen.
Other voices were whispering in distress that feelings are getting extinct so like dinosaurs once. But, I clinch tightly on such obsolete useless details of what I feel because I’m afraid my soul will end up barren and dried. That’s why with each expansion my lungs scribble on the wall of my rib cage There are no limits, except for those that we impose on ourselves. Open your eyes.

Open, open.

 

Photo: http://chloenelkin.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/resized-hiroshi-sugimoto-lightning-fields-168.jpg

 

words in a box

It’s incredible. You make a crappy railway station look like Hogwarts. And she smiled like a child. Somehow, she conveyed to the outer space the image of that Hogwarts she was thinking about. It was that simple to make it come alive. Then her Hogwarts was overlapping mine. Multiple sets of visual coordinates synchronized in colorful stereoscopic imaginary land. Rounded arches, shadows, brick piers, sun rays and volatile walls, paved platforms wrapped in vanilla and sandal wood scent. High and low voices and clatter, metallic sounds, and vintage long coats running through that picture randomly. The puffs of black steam iron-horses, but no ticket booths. No schedules. No time-tables. It looked like a challenging solitary quest. Where I could find the perfect object to born a magic wand? First step: suppress logic, and then enhance poetic insanity. Choose state of mind. After that, pick up some necessary clothes. I’d like something flavored, sweet, to match perfectly a gorgeous coffee. The pier of the closest arch changed its consistency. A drawer opened up smoothly. Many items, small odd things, few spots of red. A pair of scissors is always welcomed to cut off unwanted strings attached. A small metallic box hiding within all kinds of feelings. I can see the wide puckish smile of Miss Hope sitting femininely cross-legged on that box… well, I’m curios who’s left behind now. That old piece of paper written in ink may keep inside some secrets. A white uncoupled heart holds itself on a ragged book with no boards. The queen of diamonds disguised herself in white vestal gown of Juliette, singing low an old French chant. The weed hook I may have, to catch and braid the strings and threads of world. A story like spider-web over naked skin. Almost invisible, roughly delicate, incredibly close. On the Hogwarts’ third platform from left to right, near the second pier of the third arch the time is sent away.

By the way, when do we measure the curvature of space, while travelling back or forth?

Photo: Ina Popa (c)

short stories

The short story I randomly read in a weekly magazine embeds a soft, still unplugged guitar; the dark violet sky colors the upstage. And music is coating everything up in a sweet yet, refreshing, flower-like scent. 

Sunday night, around ten o’clock, I was coming back from Iasi. A North Railway Station full of people, trains with huge delays over 270 minutes, and a smothering heat. In front of MacDo, a young lad was waving at his girlfriend. She was backpacking and rushing towards him. When she came close enough, in a stroke of enthusiasm he made the perfect splits before her. A perfect stretched split, like a pro dancer or at least a gymnastics champ. An athletic, full of love happening in the middle of a wearied, heat-dried world.

It’s strange how things are linked. Few random words retrieved in milliseconds a clear picture of rails, the smell of tar, dust and metal, the fuzzy sound of voices and trains…all these made me remember her. We used to live in the same town, we were in the same university. Never too close, never friends. She studied French, she used to write poems, and I was looking at her with admiration and childish yet well tempered envy. And now, digging through my scattered, faded memories she had some sort of French like features, mignon, dark haired, heartfelt smile. That day, probably more than ten years ago, in the same North Railway Station, in a hot summer day, at the end of the platform he was waiting for her with big a bunch of marigolds. Tall, thin, in white shirt, smiling a bit shy while giving her flowers. She was wearing a simple long white dress, her dark hair in a ponytail, a blue bag. And that big bouquet of orange marigolds… I was watching them disappear from sight off the dusty platform in a world of hasty, indifferent, tired, busy, never dreaming people. Two thin white silhouettes hand in hand, leaving behind echoes and shadows of an odd whispered love song.

Photo:

http://www.thespiderawards.com/utilities/magicimage.php?img=/var/www/html/uploads/388496/9/388496_Bhatia_Saurabh_Hand_In_Hand_Grayscale.jpg&img_size=580

color of waves

A dive in a wonderful getting-lost-incredibly-lost action that goes well with everything hidden within me, goes well with purple, and with the turtle necklace I always wear. I dream. Sometimes I think that is the only right thing to do. This is how life unfolds with its whole, fragile and sense bearing significance. A graceful, disengaging routine; each movement open a gate to a different level of understanding. When I dream […] images blow out of me, cross me almost unwillingly; like simple, but how feverish moving molecules. Thoughts crystallized in curves and writing […].
Pure dance…Utter music. Can you hear it? The inner beat of steps, and harmonic consistency of all gestures. In this world completely deaf have you ever thought how do you sound like? This is how I see you. An intense, low-pitched sound of violin, sensual but cold. Dramatic. Emotional. A smooth, slow, wave-like motion, gently coming through skin, along the vestibular nerve. An osmotic, magnetizing tie between sound and balance. When I close my eyes I can hear you better, as well as I can picture myself breathing.

Photo: http://www.templates.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/fractal-wallpaper-_-38.jpg

dance flows in you

From a place far from the sea and close to clouds, she wrote: here, the moon looks like a wide bright smile; the great bear is really big. Hence, close to the horizon. The towns are like fantastic bazaars. It gave me the feeling as if I have travelled back in time… Wait for the full moon… when the frenzy outlandish dance begins.

My left ear listens to the rain. Calm, persistent, soothing rain. I feel like cold velvety water is running down on the left side of my neck, drawing invisible pictographs along my spine.

It is a strange black and white combination I can see while listening to that song evanescently overlapping the sound of rain. A large window caught in a gothic arcade, and the moonlight coming through like delicate arms wearing a pale translucent fabric falling down the wooden floor. There is nothing to touch but the soft texture of piano sound. The more I listen the more I feel the dance deep within. A dainty mesmerizing dance caught in a rolling camera view. Motion blurred shadows, sharp reflections, and geometry of footfalls on wooden floor. The subtle, almost inaudible sound of cloth flapping like butterfly’s wings. Grace and full moon, one jump, two jumps and the arch body lays down on darkness, painting elusively with light and shadows some incredibly short stories of delicate, never spoken love.

Original photo:  http://th02.deviantart.net/images3/PRE/i/2004/099/8/c/Dancer_in_the_Dark.jpg

Fullmoon stories

Who are you? I do not know. I think I am the white queen. Step on board game and wait. The pawn unfolded the paper and read: It seems that this world around is less jaded than our small inner world. It conveys messages and cues to a few who would write poetry yet– somehow recalling that Coke bottle fallen on a Morse code generator, in Kramer’s On the beach Did you inherit any traces of poetry? I can feel the sand under my skin. I can connect it to the subtle vibrations of the tunes obsessively running in my mind. Soft and persistent earworms. In the end, that vibration I can hear is like a silky, smooth piece of fabric. I can paint on it. And words are enough. But now, all I can remember of that alchemic combination of sounds is the meaning of I want.

The knight of right leaped over. The horse snorts and poaches the ground with its hooves. In this game of skill one must have above all else, Patience. The board changes, but very slowly. Then the horse pranced and the knight disappeared whilst cantering away. How many times should the linden tree bloom until you or I can come back? Just breathe and step forward. Inhale the sweet smell of linden flowers and mown grass and salty smell of ocean. Do you hear the wind? It is winnowing all the noise. Your jasmine mornings are waiting. And so, I kilt up my whites of fresh snow I crossed the nine seas. Ring the bell and think of your most important person. The message will be sent across the waves. I hope you will hear my song. The rook came closer. Deep inside you, there is a weird but passionate imagination, a lot of courage, self-preservation, gentleness and great cruelty. Give yourself more and you can do more when you grow up. Otherwise, you end up running…. I spent too much time here, too much, since I have been captured. I am no longer white but saddened and gray. The only thing I do, is watching you smiling, while I cannot. The art of chess, the art is knowing when a piece is most valuable and then, in that very moment, being willing to sacrifice it. I will sacrifice then. For in the vacuum created by the loss of what is most precious, opportunity abounds… Who are you? I am the white queen… and desire becomes destiny. On the game board, I am the wildest thing. And I have always known. The place where I shall return is there where the color of your sound is played.

Original photo http://www.hdwallpapersarena.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/3_chess-wallpaper-3d-03-392846.jpg

pieces of light

Sounds cause images to unexpectedly fly up. Like triggers. Cunning frenemies, they act like mines and blow up linear coherence. In the end, it’s some sort of visual music that I feel.
Somehow, I kept recalling a visual choreography. What a view... me sitting on the top of a building, with my hands on the knees completely lost in colors and frames. A long and mind-twisting trip, while the music on my IPod was flowing through my ears.
Re-wiring paths. Re-collecting fragments.
Re-designing mind-soul connectors.
A wonderful inner-city view; almost alive. Come with me, let's try to change …. It was changing with every blink. Lights and shadows, contours. I was chasing warm bright colors and light vowels. A maze. When I think of that place, it’s like going back home. Amazing. And if that feeling is real? I wanna believe… so common, break through. I only have to follow the (heart)beat. The images are flowing apparently in complete disarray. But I know their sequence is no longer bizarre. Coincidences, she used to say. Maybe. However, what if I hold my hands… and get the real thing?


Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aatemu/5019702133/sizes/l/in/set-72157624757756265/

Dew

And I spent some time reading in a bus, flying from one word to another and touching the soft and subtle skin of words. Deep textured brocade, embossed feelings, embroidered fragments of the past.
It’s a tricky dangerous dance with words and fears. What is the taste of deceit? It tastes like a cloudy autumn afternoon, with a palpable touch of tiredness, sadness and defeat.
People change. We’re strange creatures that go on changing minute by minute and hour by hour.
And then I felt stronger than ever, that I miss mornings. I miss mornings as much as I miss winter and snow. I miss the cold fresh air, its smell of blossoms and dew. I have never felt dew under my feet but I want so intensely to feel that cold warm sensation, to touch with my fingers the delicate film of light violet mist and let myself breathe in the raw light breaking through the last haze of night.

Photo: http://hwaairfan.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/morning-dew.jpg

caress

I feel it… synesthestetically overwhelming. Spice and heat and bracelets clinking on the delicate wrists of a woman. Hot pavement, bare feet stepping fast in the sun through a crowded noisy bazaar. A sweet enticing oriental temptation to craziness. A rhythm that flows like Ravel’s bolero. Haunting sounds of drums as someone’s gasping for air…more and more and more. Unexpectedly it triggered to my mind the image of your red and shining blue kimono. How you smoothly let it fall down your arms. And that finger pressed to your red lips…shhhhhh. It’s the drum effect I guess. Those shamanic-like rhythms that interfere and overlap bouncing me back and forth into the geometry of sounds. The sounds of picked chords blended into the hiss of a sword… melding into a short and intense slow-motion focus of your fingers touching a hand… delicately unbearably tender.

sliding blue

Sometimes I’m there on the seashore. Sliding from one consciousness to another. Which part am I on? And so I recalled the smell of your hair, felt its touch on my face, the sound of waves, the curve of your shoulder leaning onto mine and line of knees, the sand and the sun veiled into the light bluish breeze. You dream almost every night… yeah almost. Sometimes I don’t remember. Sometimes I don’t dream at all. I may have been tired of running off the surface of reality and I just rested somewhere. I don’t know exactly where.
I feel the sand under my feet and the music playing in my ears. Sounds are guiding me. I widely spread my arms and take a deep breath.
I’ll be waiting. So will the sea…


Original photo: http://thumbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunset_011.jpg

winter stories

There’s so much cold and winter in your posts, he said. Almost everything in there is cold, sharp, nearly motionless. An unconscious way of expressing how I feel, I thought. You are…two. Two different beings. We are. I am inhabiting her as much as she is inhabiting me…living both of us at the edge where our lives are inseparably interconnected. Antagonistic and irreconcilably different. I don’t know if it’s me or her humming. The more we meet, my heart feels as if… I just sensed the sounds coming out, chasing down the husky voice whispering in I don’t know exactly whose ears. There are no longer words, but simply music. And lips, redder than any winter before.

Original photo: http://cdnimg.visualizeus.com/thumbs/14/0a/people,winter,close,up,girl,portrait,snow-140ad00075dfdee5d30ef834ec1137ac_h.jpg