Auctorial Abscondences in Opusculum

Unforeseen Lights On a Black Horizon

[This is a draft from 29 April 2017. This and another draft I wrote a few months before, are a genre I really want to get back to somehow, a kind of weird, quiet, subtle yet sparkling romance. I never posted this because I had no real way to make their relationship work with what I was seeing in my life at the time, but I really enjoyed writing the imagery of the scenes and the concept behind it. Maybe I'll come back to this, but for now, here it is.]

A circle of white tore steadily through the woven blanket of night. Under the new witching hour moon, light was the absence of a viscous, swimming dark. There was a dull clod of wet soil underfoot with each step forward, and a whisper of grass with each sudden turn.

Left at the oak where rotting timber boards now boarded ants instead of boys, right at the gate, but not to open it and wake the witching magic with its scream. Left at the old oak, right at the gate. A small white rectangle fell wedged into the ground, and became webbed in the lamplight of Dominic's torch. He reached out and picked it, taking a few moments to set the brown cardboard tray to the side and take it up again. He wasn't afraid of the ice-cream melting in the frosted forest.

Eventually the forest watered away, as did the ground, and Dominic stopped. He lay his torch down and waited.

He hadn't brought a watch, that was one of the rules, and so he wasn't sure how long it had been until he was pricked by another light. This one was yellow, and it made a terrific roar that tickled the edges of his hearing even now, through the clearing. The light grew, slicing through the black ink.

Then he saw her yellow face across the way. It was duller than the light, and Dominic frowned. Unusual.

Slowly, she made her way around the grass. He didn't talk, but he did wonder. Silence resisted.

Silence and the roar.

Dominic offered her an ice-cream.

"Thanks, Dom," Gen said, taking it with one hand while sitting down. She took his proffered paper towel too. He didn't say a word, just sat in the permeating dark, the tigress lamp clawing it away, and her sitting beside him with one hand on her knee. Silence persisted.

"Did you bring anything?"

She looked up, bottom lip covered in ice-cream. He smiled.

Two white slips of paper fell between them. Dominic withdrew his hand. Two perfectly white rectangles, even in the yellow light. Gen drew her knees up to her chin and looked across at him, the two slips encompassing the miles that slept between them.

"You first."

He took his envelope and slid a thumb under the lip. The edge ran across a familiar scar and reopened it. He didn't wince.

He upended the paper, and three yellowing mores eloped onto the soft grass. The lines of green grew grey and black across them, so he lifted them slowly into the light.

There were two tickets to a musical, seated in the back rows, where the lights grew even dimmer and the stage was a land far enough away to be an escape. They were ripped down the middle with a clean stroke, and dated to a day before.