Cave des Oubliette, scene 1.

"I dreamt of you, wandering, deserted."

"Have we met?"

"The suffocating task of inspiration. Always striving, pulling from gutters, you scratch on walls creating a world for yourself."

"Is it you?"

She trembles, nodding. Half believing herself to still be in slumber, for so often she has seen that face whilst adrift in her sub-conscious. The hand is real that clutches hers, pulling gently.

"Come with me."

She quietly follows into a dark pub closed from the gray morning light, and slinks into an oaken booth stained in shadows. A dirty washrag draped over a black apron approaches. She doesn't look up.

"Scotch. Neat."

She nods in agreement, assertively this time. They don't speak until the wash rag returns. A bare wrist littered with wiry brown hairs and amateur tatoos faded teal with time drops a tumbler in front of her, which splashes the amber tonic on her wrist. She draws her hand to her parted lips, suckling off the drops.

"How do you know me? What have you seen?"

She looks up from her hand, slowly closes her lips and drops her fingers around the glass without losing eye contact.

"I..."

A sharp inhale whistles down her throat. Her eyes drop as she exhales. The scotch glows in the negligible wake of a tea candle set inside a dusty globe of pocked yellow glass. The light extends just to the edges of the table. Only leaning forward are their faces visible to one another. She takes a tenuous sip and revels for an instant at the sting, the woody fumes rising into her nasal cavity.

"You are lost. Forgotten. Trapped. Is this so?"

"Yes, but... yes."

A tenderness sweeps over her face, softening the furrowed brow that concealed her youth.

"I have dreamt of you. I have seen the labyrinth of your wanderings. The cement walls would be your prison unto death, but you have not ceded your sanity to the gray world. Not yet. You paint the walls with images from your childhood, both from memory and fantasy.

"I have seen your cedars, your rainbows, your faeries, your lions, your chimneys, you leather shoes, your mother. You paint your life as it was, but also as you wanted it be. Every day you create, and yet, as you turn the corner you see only more gray and forget from whence you came. You lose all the effort of your paintings, only to paint again.

"Tell me, from where does this fortitude come? Why do you persist so vociferously?"

The face disappears into shadow as the figure reclines against the tall wooden back of the booth. A large hand emerges from the abyss, wraps around the full glass of scotch opposite and lifts it until it is likewise enveloped. With little delay, the hand returns with an empty glass and as it is laid gently on the table, the face reappears.

With a sincere,handsome smile, he says, "I, also, have dreamt of you."

Fretful Reunion

It took a bottle of blended Italian wine to prepare me for this meeting, and still I'm awash with turmoil and acid reflux. The aroma of roasted Romano cheese on the wings of the wind was replaced with vintage book dust and burnt espresso as I shifted my weight to swing the unexpectedly heavy door. Dizzy from an effort like that of gazing at a hungry hummingbird, I carried a forlorn cloud into the bookstore.

She's in here somewhere, I thought. But, my search has not yet ended. I browsed the window display, more out of judgmental curiosity than consumer affinity. What has she deemed worthy of display? East of Eden (predictable), Augustine's Confessions (romantic), Milton's Paradise Lost (classic), yet another book by Kooy, and several first editions by Plath, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare. I heard the echo of her voice from the back, "Pulitzer Prize, my ass."

She continued on some rant about Cormac McCarthy. I'm greeted in Italian by an uncommonly beautiful youth who can't help but tuck her coffee black silken hair behind her ears. When I ask for the lady of the store, I'm met with a knowing smile. She arrives before beckoned, clairvoyant as ever. Perhaps she smelled my musty odor. We embrace before speaking. All is right. The only thing amiss has been my absence, too long, inexcusable.

Our Zen moment is interrupted by another staff member clutching a telephone, "But, they need to know how many copies we want."

Without having to think, she replies, "What is it with Portland? Oregon brews these freakishly, fantastical authors - fascinated with the off color beauty of the grotesque." Here, I warrant a wink. "Not to say that both Palahniuk and Dunn are not geniuses, but it's weird man. Weirdly coincidental."

We embrace again. She points. I hear milk steaming. I'm guided to the crevice of the corner of the darkest moment of the store. She finds a door hidden to strangers. A wall moves. We enter a room that feels like home, only no home you've ever known: artistic, consoling, warm, dimly lighted, amber, earthy, cushioned, expectant.

Above her desk (older than her grandmother's grandmother, but just as lovely) is an embroidered tapestry which reads, "The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." Her plants are thriving, her candles depreciating, her carpet worn, her tea kettle ever at the ready. She's here to stay. As am I, at last. "At last," she insists. I've come here to die. She's been here, living. We're older than our mothers, perhaps even wiser. They'd intended for us to supersede them.

She unravels a vine tangled at the root as she inquires after my journey. "Long," I say. "Liquored," I explain. "Tired," I excuse. "He's unpacking our things, of course. I had to come right over, naturally. I've missed you, desperately. We'd always intended, too long, I'm sorry, but you understand, what really mattered, we needed to, let's get a drink." Beaming, as though nothing I say went awry, "I know just the place."

Mme. Whimsy

The realities of hot climate had long since made their mark on her once deliciously somber wardrobe. So the woman I knew, the woman who loved me so well all those many years ago was nearly unrecognizable in all her bare glow as she sauntered down the steep cobble stone steps. She still sauntered. Chin parallel with the ground, intentional hippy steps, brisk, but gentile, determined, but overly familiar and content with her surroundings.

Her black fedora, abandoned, and in its place flounced a wide-brimmed stone sun hat. The mountain breeze flitted her caramel hair across her naked shoulders. She was more olive. I could see the heat rolling off her acclimated skin. An indiscernible pattern in satsuma orange hugged her trim figure where once a plethora of grays would layer her look in wools, tweeds,and cashmeres. The charcoal and chocolate crocheted chenille scarf that once coiled cozily around her neck was usurped by a white pashmina draped organically around her arms. I could barely make out her delicate leather sandals, unlike the formidable tobacco boots with a respectable patina from loving overuse.

Perhaps the most incongruous aspect of my old friend were her hands. Empty hands. No water bottle. No phone. No oversized hobo bag, not even a clutch. A spontaneous gale arose as she walked under the arches of the Basilica de San Francesco and I watched as her left hand gripped her shawl and the right circled around her wide brim and stamped firmly on top of her hat. She paused. Breathed. Taking in the sea blue sky and blurs of vibrant green shrouding the vista. Then, she turned several corners of the stone labyrinth with instinctive speed and I had difficulty following her.

Just as I caught up with her, risking perhaps to call out her name at last, she tucked into a charming storefront gilded with hanging ferns, climbing ivy and a cherry red begonia sprawling happily over its indigenous habitat. A wrought iron lamp crested the store's sign. My soul smiled.


To be continued...

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