Icarus and The Magpie (Short Story)

(10) A lesson in Life

For every good thing, for every bright day, every gleaming leaf made hollow by the sun, there was a shadow. Sometimes the shadows were still. Cast by immovable objects akin to man made structures, they were locked away. Kept from moving by the bars of what they came from. But sometimes, shadows moved. Shadows played. They danced, and every living thing that made them would stumble around the planes unaware of the creature chasing their footfalls. Breathing, dreaming, simply being. Surviving. This was shadow.

For every good thing, there was a darkness.

There was a darkness-

There was.

The shadows and darkness hated each other. Apart, they could be as they were created to be. The darkness, an area of rest in a much too busy painting. The shadow, a gesture of life's just hand in each day. But together, they were muddied. A muddling of color and form and prospect, until all that was left, was a sameness. An emptiness. A stripping of what made them unique. What made them different; they were different.

They could never be the same.

...So it was all a lesson. A lesson with no bearing. A lesson, Message-less.

Iris was in all ways, courted by the thought of the other side. If she had a coin for each moment she considered their possibilities, she would have no need to work. No need to dream of what things could be. But it courted her. It wooed her. Such potential. The other side was as loyal as a dog raised by a caring master. It was raw, real, and if she were honest, made the loneliness a little less. Even if she couldn't understand it. She was a pioneer in dreaming, and a native in life. But the other side, was somewhere she knew, she could never reach. She could never see. So she wanted it. She wondered what made it.

Everything that was had an opposite. Even she did. But hers, she could feel. She could see it in the mirror when her anger took hold and overthrew her kindness. Still the idea haunted her. She came to believe that if her city was awake. Alert. Then the meadow, was the dream. A dream she couldn't help but visit. She was drawn to it like embers on dry kindling and when she found herself wrapped up in the tickling grasses, the flitting beetles, and the swaying oaks. She felt alive.

So, did Pennon.

In many ways, Pennon had become a shadow. He danced alongside Iris like some wandering ghost. Like a faerie drenched in morning dew. Gently flitting through the moments like softly tossed waves on a shoal. Her sands. Here in the meadow. Where Iris was made clear. He found himself in a murk. It was all so alive, and he wanted for nothing more than to have it. That thing. That kiss that gave even the smallest creatures life. He wanted it. He wanted to stay.

He was a jealous dream made of cooling water on a tepid day. A pooling of several things into one body. Except... They had beginnings. They had ponds or mountainous springs that fed them. He was sourceless.

Or maybe, he was the source and instead, he gave, and gave, and gave from himself and that was why... he couldn't help himself.

The day dipped into afternoon, and laid easy into the evening. Iris had made it clear, they would be staying the night. For a moment she wondered if the woods knew what she could do, if that was why they let her in when so many were turned away. The woods cared for her. They had to. No mosquitos ever came close, bees didn't sting, and storms rarely happened on days she made the meadow her home. It was always perfect. No one ever came by, and there wasn't a single threat between the branches. Hiding in the brambles. Nothing. It was a paradise hidden just outside of a lazy town, with clouded people who never thought to look. So it was hers and in its silence, she was madness.