May 13, 2024 0

THE STREET

in Viviana Ioan Books

Her love story street. Mim, though, passes by without a mere glance along its stale muteness. Her love lies dead in her soul, so let the dead rest in peace. But doesn’t the least body cell hurt? No rustle, no sob, no whisper?

Once fragrant street

This quiet street once thrived with sweet-scented living. Fragrances lolled on sidewalks and invaded her at the shiest motion, broiled her senses at the stealthiest whispering. Mim’s illusory swing hanging between linden trees, where evening fairies lavished love upon her. Anton’s alabaster presence, and radiating silence, his mind’s tunnel.

The fence clothed in pink floribunda, the modest gate, the front garden of antique roses. Then, the interminable veranda swept in darkness and the camouflaged patio where Mim awaited the sun. Mim’s windowless boudoir, damp and chilly. But the glazed door with the apricot tree’s branches framed within—wow, a portal through which she traveled into the blue. Beyond its glass panes Mim combed infinity, and through them she stared in awe at the pivotal thunderstorm. Mim lived here for one year, at Aunt Ana’s. One university year and the ensuing summer.

Time street

As a girl, she visited Ana’s place with her brother and parents. Mim looked forward to summers, knowing that, after a night of fervent expectation and train wheels click-clacking on rails, the hidden courtyard followed. She coiled, knees stuck to her chest, enclosed in the patio’s middle as though inside a hot womb. In bewilderment, she sniffed for the pulse of the universe, relishing the intimacy her tiny soul established with the expanse—what was and will be, whence, how further. Mim gazed at a long, incommensurable time past.

How many kings and queens? And hordes of naked people, bare teeth ripping meat hunks off prehistoric bones, eyes glinting around cave fires. A carousel of pupils, in eyes long gone, reflected stone dwellings and huts, earth roofs glazed in sunlight, parched walls, or palaces painted in wet, sumptuous blues. Glossy pupils in kohl-snaky eyes reflected mammoth rocks, indomitable, where sand routes crossed.

How many vagrants and toilers? Strings of slaves leaning burnished breasts forward. And a wan-lipped girl exiting tenebrous arcades. The girl-queen who laid an endearment bouquet for her gold-plated husband, a child. Mim shut herself in the bathroom to shed tears and understand love and time.

Oh, round dances of maidens clad in straight linen gowns and tides of ruthless warriors beheld what Mim surveyed from the courtyard, staring at the skies. For an instant, nothing but a millionth second, she knew communion with legions of human souls, the sole spark of a blade cutting through one meat, time.

Adult mysteries

“Hey, Tomina!” The family called her to dinner, and they enjoyed together succulent meats and rich salads, forks bustling with plates and bowls. Above the congenial chatter and clatter, her mom laughed—she turned beautiful beyond measure, beaming mouth cheering everyone. The reason their household stood vacant and joyless until Mom returned from her job. Mom brought light and beauty and well-being.

Aunt Ana laughed too and recounted stories from times past about men and women. They were young, and they loved and they fought. Sometimes Mim made little sense of what grown-ups narrated, and gathered they kept things from her and her brother, left out weighty words. Aha, the topic was men and women, mysteries above children’s grasp.

Some cryptic meanings, Mim guessed—she would chuckle. Grown-ups were so cautious and secretive, unaware she had often cried with understanding. Yes, Mim fathomed that age-old consuming longing to ride infinity, man and woman, together.

Infinity

“What is infinity?” she asked Mom and Dad. Of the occult words she heard, infinity Mim could not decipher. With time, she realized infinity was a question. A question gaping in brusque waves, wide and wider, larger than mind, till it blasted. Mim’s lungs no longer drew air.

The child arched her neck upward and indulged in tears, hid herself in front of a mirror, where she reveled in distorting her flushed features. Smudging moisture on cheeks, neck, with palms stretched as though for a magical ritual, she called forth inner springs of felicity. Minutes on end, Mim waited in silence for her inside flow to invade her cheeks’ flesh, inflate her lips, and uncover dazzling teeth, when it spattered her with light from the silver surface. A flicker of happiness. Mim was blessed to be born and had a long, overlong lifetime ahead.

The kid who divined the infinite, she, would strike the world with incandescent love flashes. Mim bathed in warm fluids, staring at herself till she froze in the depths of her pupils. Despite an urge to flee from Medusa’s stare, she stayed, seduced by the darkness inside. Something terrible would occur if she broke the spell. So Mim waited and waited to flee from the face of death.

Patio rituals

The patio was her miracle and her secret, as much her mirth as it was her distress. Sad that she was only a child. Have patience, Tomina! She rebuked herself in a mature, supercilious voice, then gave in to smiling, smiled, wise hag. Mom and Dad would gawk in shock if they caught her.

The rituals their daughter performed in the secret garden stayed obscure to them. Mim’s wish for a partner in her quest for infinity was born there. When she grew up, she would scour the earth for that man.

The childhood pact explains her exuberance that summer. Mim perpetually exulted because she perpetually expected Anton, and everything her soul guessed and everything she knew then and from then on would vaporize into him, and vice versa. Were they not, though, to find earthly truth, they would at least share identical knowledge, as one body and mind.

Mim spent the mornings with books on her lap, sacredly seated in the garden’s heart, but could not rivet her attention on them. As hours swept by, Mim lived a fascinating story each second. Before long, she would replicate the thrilling, absolutely soul-stirring going-out ceremonial. Flower-shower with orchid soap, dry her wild hair, and put on nice clothes to meet Anton.

. . .

Mim woke every morning facing the sky and stretched her body, beaming and whooping, hidden from anyone’s view. But she yearned to break her secret to the universe. She fidgeted in and out, to end up in the same garden spot, her lap swinging textbooks, her thoughts drifting. They slipped back, leaped forward, and at each sway featured Anton. He would turn up at the gate. As soon as she heard the horn blare, Mim rushed out, her heart racing. They kissed and drove away.

Zoomed-out street

Now that street zooms out distant. Mim forgot Aunt Ana altogether, and the moment she met Anton, she dismissed even her parents from mind. Mim will not brood over Ana. She was her mother’s aunt, and Mim, never that close to her, yet obsessed with her likeness as a young woman. Her fabled charms intrigued Mim, given Mom’s recurrent praises. “Aunt Ana was beautiful …” Her mother lost herself in a brown study, then strengthened beautiful in high arches.

. . .

Ana’s love, forever for her first husband, always preoccupied Mim’s musings. But just as deciphering came into focus, Mim lit on Anton. Aunt Ana enthralled her never since. Mim’s exaggerated attachment to her parents slackened, and so did Mim’s loving flame for her mother.

Aunt Ana passed away without Mim trying any emotion. She saw her lifeless body laid on the long table in her front parlor and left. Mim left with Anton, headed for the seaside, and they laughed and had fun.

One night, though, she dreamed about her. Ana urged Mim to fight for Anton, set pride aside and reunite with him. “Go after him!” No words were uttered in the dream, but Mim grasped what the spirit meant, hovering in a nebula lit by her first love’s glow.

Ever since she woke the following morning, Mim has looked back upon Ana, trying to beg forgiveness. But no, Mim should repent for nothing. Ana understands. Why should she sneak a glance at the green gate? Nothing is there. What Mim carries with her matters.

. . .

Adapted from Chapter 14 of Traveling True: A Sensual Novel.

• #childhood
• #first love
• #garden
• #infinity
• #patio
• #sensual fiction
• #sensual literature
• #sensual novel
• #sensuous fiction