Waves

She is a stunningly attractive woman, tall, blond, built like an Amazon. She gives off a surfer chick hippie vibe, her hair bleached white in places from spending so much time in the coastal Australian sun. She has her principles. She disdains major corporations, rails against corrupt politicians, stomps for the underdog. She is vulnerable.

She lounges confidently in the rolling waves, legs astride, hands resting lightly on the buoyant, brightly painted fiberglass short board. She waits for the perfect wave, that elusive curl of ocean water that will take her all the way in on an emotionally charged adrenaline high. Not that she isn't on one now. Her easy posture belies her true cognition, churning, blazing pathways through her mind, round and round, a tilt-a-whirl of thought. Her heart has made a choice her head cannot agree with; reconciling these two vital parts of her will take all she has of time and emotional energy. She is already prune-y from the saltwater. A few more hours in the sun, wind, water will not strip too many more layers of her darkened skin; she won't miss them anyway. Her body is strong, inviolate, impenetrable... she takes pride in her strength and physical ability. It is her psycho-senses that tend toward defenselessness. She waits.

She forgot something. She cannot quite define it, but she knows where it is without doubt. Spain. Adventurous, she is, and a back-packing trip through Spain sounded perfect for her at the time. Before it happened. She shies away from that avenue of reflection, but like rising tides, it follows her in, creeping up slowly, deliberately, an inevitable, sluggish drowning. There are no rocks to shelter upon to escape the briny ocean water... her memory is vivid.

-

The port city of Malaga wasn't one of her planned stops on her trip, as it was too small and out-of-the-way, off her route to Sevilla, but an ancient, feeble man driving his old farm truck brimming with oranges along the highway had stopped to give her a lift into the nearest town. She was glad she had spontaneously hopped atop the fruits into the rear of the truck, or she would have missed it all. The town was lively, homey yet welcoming. She spent most of the morning wandering the wharf, listening to the docks creaking complainingly, the ships nudging against their moorings, impish colts testing the ropes for weakness, ready to escape out into the bay and on into the Mediterranean. Everything hopes for freedom and release. She was no different... she discovered the public beaches east of the wharf, struggled through the deep sand, and collapsed tiredly, arms and legs akimbo, her backpack a makeshift pillow. She could have been alone, all the beach bums were enjoying the warm surf and the company of others, but she wasn't. He had been swimming, it was obvious. In that familiar way Europeans have, he plopped down next to her, leaning on his hands in the sand, already discoursing in fluently speedy Spanish. Sand particles clung to his deep mahogany skin, intricately spiraling patterns radiating from each part of him touching the earth. She couldn't keep up. Uncharacteristically, she allowed herself to just listen to the rise and fall of his intonations, the rhythm of his speech luring her into somnolence. Suddenly his galloping speech slowed deliberately, three words she was able to make out clearly.

¿Te gusta paella?

Yeah, she liked paella. She had first tried the seafood, vegetable, and rice mix in Valencia, the city credited with the inspiration of the dish. The locals sure were friendly here.

He launched his body fluidly up from the sand dune, turned slightly to keep her in his gaze, and offered her a sable, sun-darkened hand to steady herself with. She looked at his face, noting the heavily forested brows, the aquiline nose, leonine wavy mane cascading over his forehead. His eyes were the color of the Mediterranean, lusciously dark blue and streaked through with indigo lightning bolts. Beautiful man. The other locals literally paled in comparison. She allowed him to lift her to her feet, and followed him off down the beach, across the boardwalk, into the chaotic bustle of the lower markets, and along a side path to his driftwood and thatched-roof hut.

He made a stellar paella. And he was quite amorous in bed.

-

She lets the memory take hold of her, storming the bastions of her defense. Her light short board bobs impatiently in the waves underneath her, but she ignores its bucking and twisting, instead finally breaking under the emotional torrent. Her defiant amber eyes blur, the tears that have waited so long to shed themselves finally making an inconvenient appearance. It's just water, she thinks. Just water... with salt. Like the ocean. Salty sea water.

It hurts less and less. The memory is vivid, the colors unlike any in the world save for human imagination, but it is softer, somehow.

She lifts her eyes to meet those of the man sitting beside her, mirroring her position on his own short board, his viking-blond hair and beginnings of a surprisingly reddish beard standing in stark contrast from the memory now fading in her mind. His sweet, boyish face searches hers intently; he wonders why her eyes suddenly filled with tears, why she hadn't taken the perfect wave that is now passing them by. She smiles tremblingly, cautiously, frightened that she might have revealed something in her face as she relived the reminiscence. His honest, brightly genuine grin explodes across his face, and she knows her walls are up again, stronger than before. A beautiful man, he is. Her heart is large enough to hold two loves, and she is glad for the life she has. Another wave approaches behind them, they simultaneously shoot each other wild, anticipatory looks, and take off after the swell. Here and now, she rides the perfect wave. Life, the perfect wave.

Storm Above the Wind Caves

I make pictures in Paint (the Windows picture editing program) and I recently became incredibly inspired to create another picture, because of this photo.

This is my interpretation of it:

Storm Clouds Gather

(This wasn't supposed to turn out the way it did, but thanks to reading an essay by a friend of mine who is a pretty good writer, it kind of went in a surprising direction. I blame you, and you know who you are!)




She lifts the long, thin, blackened mascara wand to her eyelashes, carefully, slowly. She hasn't worn makeup since... well, it has been a while. At least she is wearing the black, ruched blouse that makes her feel like she could pass for attractive. Shaved legs are nice. Too bad they are peeling from a vicious sunburn she earned by forgetting sunblock and spending an entire day in the early June sunshine. She sighs, letting the breath out in long, quiet jets. Too late now. Turning in the mirror for a look at her profile, she rests her left hand on her hip, sticks her elbow out behind her, and poses. Oy. Well, she isn't a supermodel, but she could stop you in your tracks for a second look.

Nerves. Are. Debilitating. They turn her into a hyped-up version of herself. Slightly too high-strung, a little bit jumpy, a tad too uber-cognitive. Just feel it. Deep breaths through the nose... and exhale. Again. Her toes grip at the bathroom rug under her small feet. She has always had the ability to grasp with her toes, almost like they are fingers, and their grip is strong. Each individual fiber in the rug she can feel... such sensitive skin. She forgot to put aloe on her burns today. No wonder they are peeling more than yesterday. Absently, she scratches at the sunburn, too late remembering why she shouldn't. A simmering fire starts in her calf, where she has touched, and runs the length of her lower leg. Damn. She is forgetful by nature.

With a last look at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she smiles ironically and steps out of the tiny space, slips on her flip flops, heads out the door with her CamelBak under one arm and a sweatshirt under the other. This will be the most interesting date she has ever had. Dinner, and a hike. She loves the idea. Before, dates have always been just a movie, or dinner, or something equally as boring, but she doesn't want to do anything boring anymore. The hike was her suggestion. Perfect.

He stands quietly beside his car, shining and silent. She strolls up to him, and awkwardly whispers the first thought in her head. I'm nervous. That shouldn't have been it, though. She clamps down hard on her tongue, and wishes for a time machine. Get it together. He glances sideways at her, smiles so very faintly, says nothing. He'll forget it in a minute, she will agonize over it the whole car ride to the restaurant. As he turns to open the door for her, she is shattered by the sudden glint of sun rays bouncing off his golden-tanned arms, and the brilliantly bleached, downy-soft hair covering them. Her breath is sucked out of her in a swift vortex... Get. It. Together. She shivers a little in the suffocating afternoon heat. It has been a while.

In his old, distressed sub-compact, the quiet seeps into the cracks in the dashboard and the threads of the carpet... even the a.c. seems subdued, spluttering softly as if to not interrupt the silence. She keeps a running commentary in her head, making lists and counting blocks to calm herself. She steals a glance in his direction. His smile still lingers faintly on his lips, but his nervousness is belied by the faint, repetitive brushing of his knee against the steering wheel. The windows begin to roll slowly down the door, curtains falling on Act One, and the wind picks and prattles at her hair, gently pulling curling tendrils out from behind her ears; they cavort on the breeze like giddy fillies in an emerald green mountain meadow. She lets the vision dissipate. A familiar mantra rolls through her head... "Sun is warm, grass is green." Of course, she stole that well-known line from a blockbuster picture, but it works for most situations.

At the restaurant, they sit opposite each other in an over-sized, over-stuffed, overly red booth with a blowsy, bold Formica table sturdily planted in between. She gets her first look at his eyes. Blue. So blue, and intensely staring at her from deep-set sockets, over-hung by full eyebrows. His stare is measuring. She fiddles with the pockets on her dark brown shorts, crosses her legs, recrosses them, as they talk. Then something changes in his eyes, his expression going from wary to soft in an instant. She relaxes against the crimson Vinyl seat back, and slips into herself again.

The drive through the canyon is again as silent as the first, but then, there is the scenery to distract them. The steep canyon walls soar two thousand feet above the river bottom, ending abruptly in a triumphant display of fierce, craggy rock, piercing the dark azure sky. It is only an hour until twilight, but neither he nor she is unsettled. Night hikes are pleasant. It is quieter at night.

They step out of the car, adjusting and fitting their small day-pack or CamelBak to each respective shoulder alignment, and set off through the waist-high grass and wildflowers growing beside the trail. It is an incredibly steep single-track, with a rating of 'Difficult', not made for easy, side-by-side travel; she contents herself with watching his calves flex with each stride. Man, he is so fast. Quickly, her breathing becomes strained and shallow, but still she presses on. The icy mountain stream they wade through to continue following the path refreshes her somewhat; she is renewed, but not for long.

"Stop. Your pace is killing me."

He halts instantly, but takes his time turning around to face her. His expression is unreadable. She turns around to stare off downhill, and pulls at her CamelBak tube, sucking water in forceful gulps. Too fast, now she cannot breathe for all the water in her mouth... slowly her breathing returns to normal, and he smiles, tentatively. Without words, they both turn back up the trail, this time proceeding markedly slower than the mad rush that characterized the first half of the climb. Again she is captivated by his calves as they swing effortlessly in a steady forward motion. It has been a really long time. She shakes her head to clear the illicit vision forming in her mind. So this is what attraction feels like. Who knew.

After an elevation change of about a thousand feet, they emerge from the scrub and sparse vegetation to plunge into true darkness. Cave. A metal plaque set into a low-lying boulder at the mouth of the grotto marks the entrance, and relates anecdotes on the history of the surrounding area. Soot marks blacken the ceiling and walls, long-dead fires that burned bright for the unknown peoples who started them.

He hardly speaks, she thinks. I don't think I have heard him utter anything more than three words strung together in hours. It is such a break from the babble-fest that dominates most human inter-relations.

They wander through the grotto, their footsteps causing gusts of air and sound to resound against the uneven rock walls. At the back of the cavern is a semi-vertical shaft, dusky sunlight streaming weakly from the top of the natural chimney, half-hidden from her light-blinded eyes. He spots it first.

Do you want to climb up there, he asks. He casts his intense sky blue eyes to meet with her dark chocolate brown ones, and waits for her reply. She ponders.

I am such a klutz, it might not be a good idea, she states lamely. He just continues to stare at her in that unnerving, but strangely reassuring way. She decides to be slightly reckless. Ok, let's climb it.

The climb up the confining shaft is surprisingly un-eventful; the view from the top is disquieting. She feels like she is standing on a topless tower, a spire so high that the clouds tickle at her cheeks and welcome her into their secret sky. They stand near the edge, daring the wind to get aggressive with its caresses and force them to bend under its turbulent will. A storm is gathering, hovering over the south end of the canyon walls and turning the sky a forbidding blue... the clouds, simpering ladies' maids, try on different colors, colors cast off by the fiery setting sun, a wealthy woman's forgotten clothing littering the floor. Neon pink, angry purple, blood red... the sky is crying, bleeding, rending and tearing the atmosphere apart. Murderous shapes appear in the nimbus; a terrorizing many-headed hydra, a burning dragon of thunderheads in turmoil.

She takes out her small, silver digital camera and shoots off several photos... but each picture cannot come close to portraying the perfectly vivid shades of furious colors in the sky. He leans in to observe her futile photographic efforts, she doesn't move; heads close enough for individual strands of their hair to mingle faintly in the electrifying stratosphere. Their movements are slow, deliberate, in sheer contrast to the roiling, unpredictable air around them.

She cannot handle it anymore, cannot stand the charged tension shooting off sparks between them. She jerks her head up and meets his eyes, her gaze stabbing into his without apology or reserve. He stares back... an astonishingly temperate expression in his eyes. He is smiling. It sets her back on her heels, and she loses her equilibrium for a moment. Recovers. Plunges in toward him and like ravenous lions they crash into each other, their bodies melding like hot-forged steel, his lips burning tendrils of fire along her jawline. The tumultuous storm boils over the mountain top.

In the works...

I have a few more things in the works... it seems I am doubly inspired now-a-days for some reason. I love to write. I might get a post up within the next few hours... maybe. Definitely by tomorrow evening. I love writing short, semi-fiction stories. I have a tendency to stretch my imagination as if it were silly puddy, and I might start a story off pretty well non-fictionalized, but it grows and changes like its own living, breathing being, and some turn out un-recognizable from the start. I also enjoy taking pieces and bits from others' stories and warping them to fit with a vision in my head. Give me your strange, silly, interesting, odd stories and let me weave strands of vibrant colors and melodies into their strong, solid cloth. I am always looking for material.

Love it.

Live it.

Be it.

The Sun God

(I wrote this a few years back. I edited it a little bit, and posted it here... it doesn't really reflect my writing style anymore, but I thought it would be interesting to compare how I wrote a few years ago to how I write now.)

She crouches low to the ground, balancing on the balls of her feet, rocking her weight from foot to foot. The halter and lead line drape from her right shoulder, lazily mirroring the swaying motion of her body. Her eyes are soft, taking in every object in her peripheral vision. Mostly though, her focus is on a leggy, slender yearling colt in incandescent gray. The animal ambles cautiously toward the fence, halving the space between them, now only ten yards away.

She leans over to the right, shifting her feet wider apart to regain lost balance. The colt balks, spins off to the left side, then angles his head askance to study the slight figure hunkered down on the other side of the barrier. She smiles, the corners of her mouth lifting ever so gently, drawing her cheeks towards her temples in a look that tells the colt he might need to rethink his own agenda. Confused, and only a little uneasy, he switches his tail quickly over each flank, startling an imaginary horse fly into sporadic flight. His ears swivel rapidly to catch each little disturbance on the afternoon breeze.

“Suspense is a killer, is it not?"

Taken aback by the sudden jolt of human speech, the colt jigs up, then rounds and takes off toward the other end of the enclosure, bucking and bending madly in a futile effort to dislodge the offensive words from his delicate ears.

She attempts to soothe him, speaking in quiet tones as he circles the paddock, down shifting each lap until he stands quivering, his tail clamped firmly between his legs. The refined, classically dished Arabian face stabs straight up into the sky, its over sized nostrils extending and retracting with every measured breath. His eyes, two black pools set far apart on each side of his forehead, are dead-set on the girl, who is now standing a few paces away from him.

She approaches calmly but deliberately, holding her hand out in front of her, palm up. She stops moving when her fingers can just barely brush the velvety nose of the horse in front of her. Gently, she caresses the space between his eyes, which are fixed on her with uncertain defiance. He stands stock still, grudgingly allowing the contact between them, trembling with the effort.

Again, she speaks.

“…Hush, be calm… you’re OK, you’re fine,” she murmurs soothingly, becoming serene again herself.

She begins walking slowly over to the gate, letting her hand rest on the colt’s flank as he shyly walks beside her, the fence long forgotten as any kind of physical barrier between them. As she opens the gate, letting the chain fall against the wooden post, he turns toward her and allows her to slip the halter over his nose, buckling the strap behind his ears.

All hell breaks loose.

Suddenly, he realizes his mistake. He rears, bucks, and rips the lead line from her slack grasp and rockets along the fence line, swinging around behind the barn. She looks down at her hand, feeling the burning sensation spread like fire up her arm. The bases of her three middle fingers are severely blistered, bubbling up red and swollen.

“Damn it,” she swears under her breath, then sheepishly, she jogs off after him.

She watches him disappear behind the other side of the barn, then checks her speed, switches directions, heads back the way she came. Rounding the corner of the barn, she stops and gazes at the colt, backed up against the paddock fence, sandwiched between the white cinder block wall and a scraggly dead tree. The expression on his face causes her to release a short barking laugh. He snorts in reply, a look of utter indignation in his flashing eyes. The rope from his halter is caught in the lower branches of the tree. He resigns to the fact that he is trapped; he allows her to grab up the lead rope. This time, she takes a firm hold of the lead, and watches him intently.

“Carmen? Are you going to need help loading that beast?”

She looks over at the small blue two-horse trailer parked several yards away, then shifts her glance to include the three people standing under the eaves of the barn. Her mother, a look of uncertainty and curiosity showing plainly on her dark oval face, shoots a fleeting peek at the colt.

"I think I can manage. Just be ready in case he flips out again."

She pulls lightly on the rope, causing the colt to lift his forelegs up in a mock rear. Jerking down on the rope, she convinces him to keep all four feet on the frozen ground, but the air of quiet rage still lingers on his expressive face. She returns the look, challenging him, holding his gaze, together locked in each other’s eyes. Impasse.

Loading him onto the trailer isn't as easy. Her patience is tested harshly, and with each attempt at getting the colt to comply with her wishes, her patience slowly wears away until her nerves are on knife’s edge, teetering dangerously over her mental precipice. These emotions overflow onto the horse, causing him to project them tenfold. Finally, exhausted and exasperated, she gives up trying to be patient, and gives the colt a resounding whack on his rump with a braided rope.

Immediately the young horse leaps forward, letting the slack in his lead line, which is wrapped around the main pole at the front of the trailer, drop almost to the straw covered flooring. The man standing next to the pole holding the end of the rope quickly pulls up the slack, causing the shocked colt to be hustled into the gloomy womb of the rusty blue box. The ramp snaps up behind him, the swinging top-flaps shut tight against his indignation.

Unloading the beast takes less effort than before, and he learns quickly the limits of the rope binding him to the girl. He stands tall and majestic in the paddock next to the new barn, angling his head to each side, taking in the new vistas and the myriad of scents. Luring him into the stall opening directly onto the paddock, she closes the half door and un-halters him. She settles gingerly on a cement block in the corner of the stall and watches him sniff around his new dwelling.

He stops his inspection of the space and turns to look at her. Lowering his head, he comes eye to eye with the girl. She reaches out and rests her hand on his nose. He does not flinch. She begins stroking his muzzle tenderly. He nuzzles her cheek, breathing in her distinctly human scent. She kisses the small pale star on his forehead, and leans her face against his. Stillness.

Working...

I am working on a couple of drafts right now... it will take a few days to get them up. Meanwhile, I will leave you with a picture of the sky and clouds from a hike I took last night. The sky was lit up sporadically with lightening strikes, and the clouds were turning darker and more ominous by the second.