"And evening is the whole day for those without their lovers" - from Kuruntokai, No. 234

So it was that time of early morning when you are half awake half asleep, vulnerable to visitations (with the drawbridge down over the moat of self control) such as this dream that rode in earlier this morning, disgorging two others, two lovers from all appearances. But this you don’t want to be sure about for there was a lantern glowing, a heat hidden inside your flushed face, pleasure coursing like monsoon rain falling over the ledges of denuded hills ringing that faraway seaside metropolis.

You want to, would like to claim one of these two for yourself, using the entrapments that come naturally with the use of barbed arms. But they, the she and the he, have long been entangled at the roots of their hair; the bond stronger than this thin spool of words with which you had often attempted to darn the holes she used to keep tearing in her skin; she was an unruly ruffian who ran around with ribbons untied and a shirt with buttons missing. But how are you sure the “she” in the visitation with that “she”? Via the surge of affection that broke through the sieve of remembrance?

Being the conscientious host you are, you took them around the interior, on a tour of the city of exile, the city that is you. You said, “Here is Lookout Point; that is the Bay of Minor Detours; those boats must belong to the Pirate Armada that tracks up and down the coastal shelf probing for holes to sack again this oft sacked city. Now let’s walk up that mountain and visit the garden where Icarus assembled his contraption before leaping.”

On the way there, on one side of the path, you saw an antelope, half stone half flesh, in repose, gazing at your party of three, with a mixture of sympathy and befuddlement. Was it your anima? You edged away from it; as for the he, he simply didn’t notice. But she, she went up to it, and patted its snout and placed a wet slobbery kiss on its black nose. How did the antelope respond? You couldn’t bear to look back at it, that half cripple with legs of glass, only good for staring at the gulls veering around the mountain.

Soon you were in the garden, half dug up, with mangy grass and crimson azaleas blooming in patches. You began to make ineffectual excuses for not tending to it, for not keeping up with the seasons, for not pruning, for not digging, for your willful ignorance, eyes fixed to the ground in half embarrassment. But when you looked up, you saw that the visitors had walked on arm in arm, you saw them embracing at the bend, where the road shifts from the horizon and ends in a cliff of fog.

You tried to follow them only to come up in this morning, which is as long as a day, in which you are standing, a blue coffee cup in hand, thinking.

Lovely post.