Millicent grabbed my
hand and pulled.
"Thanks," I sighed when
my eyes had grown used to the hushed whispers of twilight that rested
upon the barren landscape of silhouetted trees, and I gazed upon her
pale memory as it wavered in and out of consciousness.
"Don't mention it, please!"
the vision begged, and she directed my attention to the matter at
hand. "What have you brought me here for?" she whispered, protecting
me in her cloak as she searched the horizons for those who did not
belong.
"It's the only place we
can talk in safety," I sighed, trying desperately to keep my words
inside the boundaries of expectation.
"Well, what is it then?"
she burst in flames of passion, enveloping me in burnt, blackened
offerings of desire.
The passion was invigorating,
but I grabbed for the clouds and flooded the fire with reason, or
at least with resignation. "Not now," I winked, assuring her that
her intentions would have been greatly welcomed if I were not so desperately
in need of another facet of her abilities.
Millicent pulled the cloak
of propriety about her transparency and waited in hushed expectancy.
"Well..." sighed the night
when words refused to fill my brain, and the place I'd imagined was
starting to fade.
I slapped myself, trying
to redirect my consciousness, to focus my perception, as if my very
existence depended upon my ability to transcend the realm of the expected,
and materialize once again in Memory.
"Maya," I sighed, as slowly
the tree lined twilight was clearer once again, and I remembered whom
it was I had really been searching for. The visage I had conjured
didn't complain that I hadn't remembered her properly the first time.
She waited in the shadows, a vision of silence awaiting my question,
existing only to clear my confusion with whispers of composure.
But she was fading and
I was fading and I could not hold on to my dreams as they tore and
ripped and burned, and I was falling back into a bitter, sharp stinging
reality that was not familiar at all, but with each breath of its
certainty that I choked upon, it became reality, as if it were my
own.
