Seraphic Balms
I was having a listless kind of day where only a part of my being felt compelled to be thrown into the hours of living. A day of mundanities where crows called out through the window, where the stillness of the air grew thick, where I sat in the bosom of the house’s silence. I was in an anti-social stupor. Burying myself in the lair which was my room all day. Inside me stirred the maladies of my perturbed and lethargic spirit. Spreading like the atomic clouds of milk in an undisturbed dark tea.
The afternoon was a haunting. The dim bedroom grew dimmer and dimmer. A current of sun slipped in through the blinds like a desperate shadow. So much silence permeated the walls, pure like sweat on the skin. Save for the cries of the cat, Blair, outside my door. Cries growing loud, meowing, meowing with fervor as if hades would come to cradle the small body of black fur. Dark, ambient, phantasmagoric-like melodies played in the white space of my bedroom. It was a lullaby. There in the dullness of the afternoon shadow, a blank, porcelain face above me. Crystallized phantasm dripping in dew. I was nothing short of curious. This face stared upon me in seraphic countenance. Empty feeling eyes meeting mine, staying reticent. We had stayed like this for some time. My languid body laying upon the thick cotton duvets, enveloping my naked body that melted deeply into the soft grasp of the sheets. I asked what this darling creature wanted of me.
“Nothing. To stay here awhile and watch the afternoon pass.” and so I let the porcelain face embedded into the ceiling do so. Enraptured in bliss.
At some point, I turned, baring myself to the window above my bed. Opening it, letting the gust of fresh summer air rush in like homesick doves. Before Porcelain and I, metaphysical landscapes entrenched in hues of brassy yellows, pale blues, deep stormy greys that made my loins churn in fantastical eroticism. Land met sky in vast grass meadows. The soil in which the grass grew was parched. A brittle brown that one’s mouth could feel the pure grit that emanated from its cracks. Dry as California deserts. Faraway like pixelated hieroglyphics, horses stood still like ghosts inches away from the towering barn house. A two story yellow building, braving the vast space of land all alone.
“These horses are as still as a building. Frozen in time it seems. They do this after some time of being fed. As if their bodies need the stillness that comes with digestion. ” I said. Porcelain hummed, rounded cherub cheeks turned upwards. Pale yellow dim, leaving no crescent to enter upon my chambers. Darkness swept in like a solemn man of the night. Brassy grass sways. The air whistled in morose hymns that produced goosebumps on my toasted skin. My breasts rose, sharpened against the sudden force of the wind. Summer afternoon’s open womb had closed on me. Leaving me no recourse. I was bare and solemn. I exited the bed, gathered my old candle sticks, and lit them with matches. Spread them across the bedroom. My room, now an altar of quiet sacredness and ritual. I made instant coffee in the kitchen–in its growing darkness. The arresting aroma of coffee swirled through my nostrils. A swig of whole milk and a dash of vanilla creamer. Porcelain humming as I entered the bedroom, again. A pleasant, comforting mood swept in. The kind of obscured melancholic mood that felt delicious enough to be my crux. The kind of mood that lulled me into bed, warm and inviting. I entered my nest of a bed, sipping my warm coffee.
“I wish to be as free as you” Porcelain said, melancholy forming in their muted lips.
“And why is that?” I asked.
“I have been eternally damned. I am stuck in the ether of life’s hot breath and death’s creeping cave.”
“Have you always been stuck? Why are you there?”
A silence. “I don’t know. I ran away some time ago from home. I went to sleep in a shack far off from this old wooden cabin. Potent with the birth of spring flowers blooming on its steps. I fell asleep and awoke in emptiness. “
The music of the wind outside grew furious. Whistling and whistling gruesomely in melody. The cat sang phantoms that filled me with a small nervousness that only a woman alone could feel the dread of. The candles flickered, some blew out, its smoke a siren to me. A seance was entering my room. Pungent were the faint souls crowding. Calm, I asked Porcelain to reveal themself. Wanting to see if the hollow ether in between life and death could be released momentarily to breathing eyes.
More candles flickered, goosebumps fluttered upon my skin. Momentarily, I was breathless as the burgeoning evening sky. A young female apparition descended from the white heaven-like ceiling. Coming down in slow motion, this young woman, voluptuous and bare such as I. With a grotesque wound in her stomach. Gaping and dried, all the blood dried and etched onto her navel. The ambient room appears through her.
“So, here you are. Ms?” I welcomed her.
The porcelain woman with the wound in her stomach painstakingly looks around. Her long dark hair moved with the wind. Her vacant eyes upon me at last. “Kismet.”
“Kismet. How esoteric! I’m Sabine.”
“Sabine. So French. I should like to lay next to you.” Kismet stood there, connecting her pale hands together, politely. As if she realized at once the intrusion she’s committed. I nodded, opening up the right side of the bed to her . As she got into bed with me, cold breath landed upon my body. It nipped at my breasts, my arms, my stomach. Kismet was comfortable, seemingly in good spirits in the haven of my bed.
Her face was tranquil, posed in the lace of goodness that framed a saccharine and composed pair of eyes, resting mouth. A tiny black mole on the left side of her upper lip. Short curly bangs hang over the vacant lot of her brow bone. I found her hauntingly beautiful. Kismet met my curious gaze and smiled. Shallow hazel eyes–distantly gleaming.
She parted her lips, a cool breath trailing on my skin. She said, “I am sorry for intruding. I know it’s quite rude. I’ve just needed to be in contact with a living soul. Eternity in hollowness is an unforgiving hell. I saw you from so high above, swimming languidly in freedom, the sun planting kisses upon you. The safe spirits of this house. I, too, wanted to join. To feel the rays of the sun hit me like it used to when I was young and alive. “ Big were her eyes, glistening as much as they could with nostalgia.
“Well, were you able to?”
“Feel the sun? Scarcely. I am an empty vessel. I can hardly feel anything. The mundane sensations of life are gifts I took for granted. “ The gurgles of curiosity were rising out of me. I wanted to touch her, hold her, see what would rise out of me, rise out of her.
“So, suppose I hug you, you would not feel me? Not my warmth or the tickle of my hair?”
“I don’t believe I will but you can try.”
And so delicately did I envelope Kismet in my arms. I felt her body against mine, feeling corporeal and odd. Her breath shook in rattles. We had looked at one another, perplexed. She appeared less opaque and more alive the longer I held onto her. I pulled her into me tighter–mobilizing all of my female strength to oppress her body. Not a wince, not a heartbeat that stirred. I let go. We sat there, stirring in wonder and early evening air.
“Thank you, Sabine. “ she thanked me, sweetly. Honey falling off the tip of her tongue and into my open ear.
“For what?”
“For touching me. I feel real again despite this state of hollowness I’m in.” color appeared to shade in her cheeks. I rubbed my eyes ever so casually and yes, rouge so lightly colored her cheeks. I was further confused but I remained triumphant over crass expression.
She was bashful as she slipped into my hold again. We laid back together into the bed. Our hair tangled together over the pink pillows below our heads. A mess of black and yellow hair. My right arm hooked around her neck—a brown boa. Her left arm under my body, touching my waist. At last equanimity descended into the room and seemingly outside. The wind, finally quiet. The moon casted a beautifully eerie glow into the room. We felt it upon our faces.
“Can I ask why you ran away from home?” I gently implored.
Kismet looked up at me, hazel eyes a pool of clandestine dreams. They averted downwards, away from mine, a sigh.
“There was nothing for me in my town up in the mountains of Benson. It was only vacant roads leading to what I thought were simple people. Simple politics. I desired more. Like every young girl I felt entitled to a graduation of girlhood to one of a voracious kind of womanhood. I had been good too long. I followed the orders of my tyrant mother. Worked in the fields all through high school. I had enough. One night I packed a bag of all the essentials one could have and I ran into the gorgeousness of the night.” So melancholic, forlorn did she sound. Her mouth formed into a pout. She continued, “I didn’t make it out of town far before I died. I never graduated.” Thick pangs spread across my heart in sympathy. I knew she could not feel me but I squeezed her in comfort. To satiate the omnipresent regret laced in her voice.
“You didn’t graduate but here you are still getting to see the fruits of the world no matter how detached. You are untethered to the earth. You can drift as you like. I suppose I envy that.” I tell her, unsure of if it would comfort her.
“I ache for nothing more than to be tethered to the earth. If I could be naked in the soil, become a vessel for all orphaned organisms, feel the weather on my chest like an infant, I would cry out in joy. I am free of societal constraints as a girl. The insipid eyes and hands of man escape me in which I’m glad but all other qualities of life I am a voyeur to which makes me sad.”
I nodded, keeping my mouth closed as I could not say more to quell her misgivings although I ached to. Kismet sighed. She looked like a picture with the essence of lovely youthful dreams. I laid my head upon hers, whiffs of musk whirled into my nostrils. The quietude of the night settled upon us. Hushed chatter of crickets below the window were heard. Surreptitious sways of the trees rustled in my ear. A distant car rumbled in dance with loose gravel. The black night’s melodies held us in captivating trances.
“Sabine.” Kismet called me out of my trance. I looked down to meet her gaze. “Promise that you’ll seize your life.”
“How so?”
“You must arrest your life. Seize, grasp, hold it in your palms. Lay like this, naked and unencumbered. Refuse to settle among thorn bushes when there are fields of blossoming fruits and roses awaiting you. Run wildly. Loosen your mouth. Make ravishing love. Recognize that you are one that sits alongside the moon. Destroy your innocence and live honestly, happily as a woman can be in one life. For me.” So much conviction in her voice as she said this.
I became so moved—quakes of mixed emotion wrestling in my throat. Kismet disentangled herself from my arms and rose. “I must go.” she said simply.
I reached for her cold hands. “But why?” I was close to unraveling for reasons unknown to myself at the time. What I did not know was that it was an overwhelming sense of passion. For Kismet, myself, and our fleeting meeting.
“I can’t stay in one place for too long. I have to see what else awaits me. Thank you for your warm and open spirit, Sabine.” She smiled, her cheeks raised.
“Will you come back?”
“I don’t know if I will be able to but I’ll remember this day. I’ll remember you.”
With her parting words of gratitude, she ascended into the air, through the ceiling and presumably the ether from which she came. Had I not been overcome with emotion I would have laughed. As the sight of her body floating above me looked absurd. She glimmered like a firefly.
All was still after dear Kismet left. The sounds of the earth felt overwhelming to me as I sat in bed. The candle wicks shortened, melted into the weathered wood of my desk and vanity. I closed my eyes, picturing white flouncy cloth, long ragged hair, an unbounded spirit flowing with angels and gods. Consuming all open vortexes, raptured innocence. A heavy cloud of thoughts of my mortality. To die ungraduated. Unable to deliver my feminine mystique into the soil in which I yearn to lap up like an esurient pup. My skin grew hot at the sudden arrival of onset courage. To live earnestly as Kismet directed. Kismet, robbed of being a 20-something woman, could not stand to overlook a putrid life of another. I did not want to waste my life away as a nothing girl, a nothing woman.
So, I blew the candles out in several huge huffs and I went to bed. Showered in thanks for and to the porcelain girl. Her bountiful wisdom borne out of sorrow. Candle smoke and musk circled around me in sensual halos that dissolved upon my face. I dreamt of bergamot trees, sea foam sitting upon my navel as I floated on the wide mouth of the sea, lush lips firmly planted on my chest, suckling and gnawing like infants of the sea, and running. Running far and wide. Weathering the body as to feel the sweat and gunk of real life. This was what prompted me out of an indifferent malaise that would have eventually suffocated me.
Music I listened to while writing:
I wrote this short story feverishly in one night after a day of doing chores. The candles were lit, the playlist listed above was playing, and I fell spellbound into a world that felt familiar and dreamlike. I hope that you can relate to the two women whom I’ve come to think about so much for such a fragment of time. Please enjoy <333
Until next time,
Sade <3
beautiful