Liquid Wednesday (standard:travel stories, 342 words)
Author: Cyrano	Added: Jan 19 2009	Views/Reads: 3142/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Greying temples, dreams spent...and reality's reward.

The liquid grey smothers in from the west, blanketing the hills to the
east, revealing early morning footprints in the sand. Inexhaustible 
waves bringing new objects for a tail wagging Reckless to run with. His 
paw prints soon gone.  How would it be if our footprints were left in 
concrete? I'd be ashamed to see all those places I've left.  The love 
once voiced, the goodbyes never spoken. 

Reckless lies at my feet, belly wet with salt water, tail brushing sand
across the red floor tiles of my study. Stone floor, wood frames with 
pictures in them, rugs handmade, a wooden desk with modern technology 
abound. The contrast is ridiculous. I am ridiculous. 

I was not completely at peace within myself. The horror of midnight
haunting me; the whispering celestial tide, and those five minutes of 
uncertainty that could not be touched or judged. 

Gold would not now move me from this place, north or south. Here I
remain; the wanderer, the adventurer, the gypsy in me spent. No more 
Inns with green doors, no more dreaming of the moonlight warrior 
brought to his idyll's end by greyness, now leaving in heaps behind a 
sky stiff as a rod. 

What the world once knew of me is not what you know. What the world once
felt about me is not what my friends might feel. I was a whirlwind of 
frustration, kind and considerate until the blood in my veins boiled, 
when life was compromised by other ambitions that kindliness and 
friendship wouldn't embrace. 

The gathering of years clearly shows itself in my beard and on my
temples. No longer do my eyes flame, blood cells sing with the sweet 
juicy strength of words. My bones have become brittle, tears more 
frequent. Gone is the need for buccaneers, demigods, Hottentots, the 
legendary Chinese, and sinister demons. All such things are youthful, 
and cannot be compared to the journey one takes into a woman's heart, 
deep, warm, readying for life's winter.  Serenity is not a reward I 
richly deserve...but one I readily accept. 


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