Franard (standard:romance, 1200 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Jul 20 2007	Views/Reads: 3456/2333	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A young painter lives and re-lives his fantasy love for the little princess.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

scratching at his window.  Skeptical, with mixed expectations he 
stepped quietly across the floor and peeked through the window.  It was 
the poodle carrying a little basket.  He threw up the sash and her dog 
leaped onto his bed.  Paul sat and took the dog onto his lap, 
scratching behind its ears and rabbling its fur.  The poodle whined and 
trembled.  In the basket was a half-melon, ripe and redolent.  Floating 
in place of its seedpod was a toy vessel with a note stuck into its 
smokestack. 

"You must learn to finish what you have left undone.  Do not put off
until tomorrow that which you might do today.  Do not anticipate, but 
act promptly."  It was signed by Jeanne-Marie and sealed with her palm 
print... that savory palm whose topography was indelibly etched in 
Franard's tongue-tip.  He lifted the puppy's chin and looked deep into 
its eyes. 

The dog was transformed.  With a bold leap it bounded out the open
window and disappeared into the night.  Paul felt his heart pounding. 
He snatched up his sketchpad and ran, quickly, silently after the dog. 

Ten minutes later, by tracking the barks, Paul found the puppy clutching
a twisted bed sheet.  It hung from the second story window of a modest 
castle.  The face alit in the window above was none other.  His heart 
leaped, and it made him shiver.  Adroitly, Paul clambered up the silken 
ladder and into the palms of his love.  He was unprepared for the 
thrill of exhilaration at the tangible reality of this moment. 

They touched, stood palm to palm, exchanged curiosities, accommodated.
Each traded feelings, broadcast feelings with their eyes and felt a 
circulating current leaping the capacitors of their palms, after 
passing through the heart on the return circuit!  To suddenly feel 
complete!  And the capacitors of their palms resonated, augmenting the 
amplitude of their sensations!  Tuning in to each other.  Turning on to 
each other.  Turning into each other. 

The next day, Paul attacked his canvas with a feather brush.  Each
feather had been dipped in paint of a different color.  Twirling and 
swishing and weaving, he created a multicolor mood on the canvas.  This 
would be the base-coat for the actual portrait.  Even before it had 
dried, Paul swabbed the canvas with a lightly pigmented varnish that 
masked the design below -- but not altogether.  Following nature's 
random expressions in the base coat, Franard replicated its spirit in 
the portrait of his princess lolling on her bed, holding a puppy above 
her.  So, this was the poodle's fleecy coat...and he stroked the 
brush..... and this was the texture of her finger...and he stroked 
again...  The canvas images emerged as if by Magick, and Paul was 
driven to create all of her as quickly as he could.  He ached to 
embrace her and breathe life into her.  The first draft literally 
flushed with the intensity of feeling that he conveyed to the canvas.  
But as the peak of his excitement subsided, little by little his brush 
became more realistic, creating the museum-piece that amuses us to this 
day. 

Seattle, 1995 Gerald X. Diamond 


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