His companion deliberated with wrinkled nose before deciding to bite the proffered hook. "Presuming your life, you are immortal. Presuming your soul, we are already in Heaven. Presuming your mind, there are no secrets left which can ambush it. How then, too easily destroyed?"
He turned his head over his shoulder as his eyes opened slow. He smiled softly, and winked sweetly, "I presume my heart, of course."
His companion allowed herself an audible sigh with her eye roll. She would not bite this second hook, and instead let the silence float around them as he slowly stood from his bow. He still wore that soft smile as he reached his hand for hers and let his lips fall upon its crown. It lay there at rest, like they had all the time in the world. When finally he looked up to meet her eyes, her nose was still wrinkled and her lips still tight.
They turned and walked through the rose-studded topiary, red coat and lavender dress fluttering in the cross breezes that wound their way through each of the nine mazes. Each in their own small quiet, yet each sharing the chirps and warbles that rose and fell from the vines and crosshatched branches. The mockingbirds here never mocked, curiously, and so they sang the loudest in a fragile overcompensation, as if perhaps they could not rather than simply would not pastiche their cousins. At times, when they felt they were not adequately represented in the orchestra, they built each other to a mad crescendo, after which they perched quiet on their thorns to recover from their exertions. It was during the next of these intermissions that the young man broke the silence.
“It takes precious few offerings to win my heart, you know. It’s like almost anyone is capable. Really anyone who occupies my boredom as I occupy theirs, and who proves themselves sweeter than my solitude. A few words, a smile, and like that,” his fingers snapped “I’m theirs... for the immediate future.” His smile did not fade as they strolled, and his companion offered nothing in the way of interruption or comment. He let the snap linger for a few moments longer than perhaps it should, and resumed as they curved their path to avoid the entrance to the fourth maze.
“When the allure of the dalliance fades, after one day or a hundred, they leave with silence or platitudes. To their solitude, I was perhaps less sweet? Perhaps it wasn’t even me. Perhaps it was another of the thousand pests that buzz around every one of us like so many fruit flies drawn to the sweet.” He turned to her and offered her again his sweetest wink “Or the sour.”
She returned his wink, at this, but kept quiet still. Her right hand walked and skipped along the bushes, red nails darting in and out like tiny rose petals running away from home. The mockingbirds resumed their chorus, but slowly now, confidence bruised from their earlier high-profile collapse.
“At the end of it, no matter the reason, I am left destroyed.” continued the young man, “A lark or a marriage ruins me the same. I am beaten, crushed! I rend my clothes and tear my books! I sit here in the garden of ravishing eternity and mourn my small defeats. I have more than any man has ever had, and I crumble at the lightest touch all the same. Pathetic, and pathetic.” His smile faded to rest just adjacent to a frown, and he bent his neck skyward, announcing his mourning to the starlit black. The black had seen this all before, but watched it patiently again. “It is too simple to bring me to this place.”
They came then to the fountain, murmuring at the crossroads of the mazes. The young man began to circle the stone rim, hesitant to pick a maze at all. Halfway through his circuit, he saw that his companion had bent to gather some loose petals beneath the bushes, and walked a few paces to toss them lightly into the water. She was a delicate gardener, never pruning or shaping. The only care she felt led to take here was to gather petals from the ground. He thought the fallen drops of red rather appealing, in a stochastic sort of way, but she would have none of it.
The young man waited patiently as she bent to gather more, and perched himself lightly on the fountain’s lip. On the second trip she sighed deep and quiet. On the third trip, she caught his eyes in hers, and began to speak, petal by petal. On the fourth trip, she allowed him a smile, and on the fifth, a laugh. By the sixth, she had brought him near to tears, and by the seventh, dried them, stillborn in his eyes. On the eighth trip she let the familiar silence float like the petals on her pond. On the ninth, she sat down next to him, and they spoke on the curious arrogance of the mockingbirds who never learned to mock.
They turned and walked through the rose-studded topiary, red coat and lavender dress fluttering in the cross breezes that wound their way through each of the nine mazes. Each in their own small quiet, yet each sharing the chirps and warbles that rose and fell from the vines and crosshatched branches. The mockingbirds here never mocked, curiously, and so they sang the loudest in a fragile overcompensation, as if perhaps they could not rather than simply would not pastiche their cousins. At times, when they felt they were not adequately represented in the orchestra, they built each other to a mad crescendo, after which they perched quiet on their thorns to recover from their exertions. It was during the next of these intermissions that the young man broke the silence.
“It takes precious few offerings to win my heart, you know. It’s like almost anyone is capable. Really anyone who occupies my boredom as I occupy theirs, and who proves themselves sweeter than my solitude. A few words, a smile, and like that,” his fingers snapped “I’m theirs... for the immediate future.” His smile did not fade as they strolled, and his companion offered nothing in the way of interruption or comment. He let the snap linger for a few moments longer than perhaps it should, and resumed as they curved their path to avoid the entrance to the fourth maze.
“When the allure of the dalliance fades, after one day or a hundred, they leave with silence or platitudes. To their solitude, I was perhaps less sweet? Perhaps it wasn’t even me. Perhaps it was another of the thousand pests that buzz around every one of us like so many fruit flies drawn to the sweet.” He turned to her and offered her again his sweetest wink “Or the sour.”
She returned his wink, at this, but kept quiet still. Her right hand walked and skipped along the bushes, red nails darting in and out like tiny rose petals running away from home. The mockingbirds resumed their chorus, but slowly now, confidence bruised from their earlier high-profile collapse.
“At the end of it, no matter the reason, I am left destroyed.” continued the young man, “A lark or a marriage ruins me the same. I am beaten, crushed! I rend my clothes and tear my books! I sit here in the garden of ravishing eternity and mourn my small defeats. I have more than any man has ever had, and I crumble at the lightest touch all the same. Pathetic, and pathetic.” His smile faded to rest just adjacent to a frown, and he bent his neck skyward, announcing his mourning to the starlit black. The black had seen this all before, but watched it patiently again. “It is too simple to bring me to this place.”
They came then to the fountain, murmuring at the crossroads of the mazes. The young man began to circle the stone rim, hesitant to pick a maze at all. Halfway through his circuit, he saw that his companion had bent to gather some loose petals beneath the bushes, and walked a few paces to toss them lightly into the water. She was a delicate gardener, never pruning or shaping. The only care she felt led to take here was to gather petals from the ground. He thought the fallen drops of red rather appealing, in a stochastic sort of way, but she would have none of it.
The young man waited patiently as she bent to gather more, and perched himself lightly on the fountain’s lip. On the second trip she sighed deep and quiet. On the third trip, she caught his eyes in hers, and began to speak, petal by petal. On the fourth trip, she allowed him a smile, and on the fifth, a laugh. By the sixth, she had brought him near to tears, and by the seventh, dried them, stillborn in his eyes. On the eighth trip she let the familiar silence float like the petals on her pond. On the ninth, she sat down next to him, and they spoke on the curious arrogance of the mockingbirds who never learned to mock.
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