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 Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:45 am
01: Intro
02: Journal
03: Journal
04: Journal
05: Journal
06: Journal
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:47 am
The sky was on the verge of sinking into nighttime.
In a town occupied mostly by female citizens, the stone tiled floors were brushed against by light, nymphic steps. Shoes and sandals, women and girls. The colours of the twilight sky casted an orange blush on their skin, and a midnight blue beneath their batting eyelashes. The colours --- they poured over the streets and alleyways like dilluted paint over a clean, white canvas. And in the painting, few girls --- and only girls, walked along the streets. It was time for women to do their chores, and for girls to return home from their mentors.
In the households, high, melodic voices chattered over dinner tables; they talked about the day, they talked about the night, they talked about other girls, and they talked about men.
There were few men in the town of Undai, though their love was not scarce.
But oh, Helena was a sacred land, with many sacred women and many sacred traditions; so the talks of men were often a fine blend of infatuation and disgust. Amongst the whirlpool of visions and invisions, there were the quiet ones --- with a mind of the night, and a touch of unicorns.
And it's hard to tell whether they could be sacred, or that they should be demonic.
One small girl like such strolled slowly along the streets of the town.
Her pale skin glowed faintly in the swirl of paint, and her shoes clattered childishly against the stone tiled floor. She wore no expression on her tender doll-like features, and her movements do not communicate emotions. Her stone gray eyes stared ahead, sometimes touching the same stone gray floor, other times receiving the silk-spun sky. Other girls of her age ran past her, moving and laughing; but she walked, slowly and lightly, as though timeless.
Walking, walking... The quiet girl halted softly by the turn of an alleyway. Her gaze unlocked themselves from the stone floors and the twilight sky, and flickered through the narrow, orange-blue path. She stood still, eyes slightly widened, as though they had just caught the tail of a unicorn.
With little thought and much of instinct, the child turned into the alleyway. The quiet ones --- they are bound to follow the unicorns. Though where the unicorns would lead them, one would never know.
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:48 am
The girl-child tugged at the bag that laid against her back,
neverminding the locks of her long silver hair that got caught in between.
Ahead she walked, and slowly she walked...
Oh no, she was not hesitant, or even doubtful. An apprehensive light shone from beneath the cold marble eyes, and her tender lips parted as her timeless pace caught up with her unicorn. The dark walls on either side of the path towered over her small presence, and the stone tiled floor illuminated before her. The sky was sinking, slowly, into the dark night; though there was still paint to spare.
A rusty smell tingled at the girl's nose. A rusty smell... Yes... A smell like paint.
Her timeless pace slowed down even more; and finally, she halted. She stopped in the midst of an evening-lit alleyway, with two dark walls stretching up on her sides, and a stone tiled path --- faintly glowing of gray, laid out in front of her.
She glanced downwards. A pool of thick, crimson paint was in her way.
The girl knelt lightly, her childish knees touching the rough stone floor. The rusty odour was not repelling to her, despite its bickering strength. With curious eyes and hands she sank her fingers into the thick, muddy red. She felt the paste between her fingers, and watched as it glowed a condensed dark light in constrast to the airy light on the stone path.
The darkness captured her mind. It sucked her in, along with her lightly coloured hair, skin, eyes, and clothes.
She felt through the dark, crimson paint, as if feeling for tracks from the hooves of her unicorn. Her hands ran through a thick red... Until her fingers found a solid object in the midst of the pool of paint. Fearless, she felt on the shape of the thing with her small hands. It was something round.... and cold. But sometimes, a flicker of warmth would creep up from inside it.
The girl scooped it out of the darkness.
She reached for her bag, careful not to stain the fabric with her dirty hands, and pulled out a small handkerchief. Slowly but steadily, the girl wiped the object free of the red mess.
The unicorn has left her a beautiful bottle.
She was not told that her father had been murdered on that day.
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Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:43 am
"Come back as soon as you finish school,"
the woman warned.
The little girl tugged on the straps of her backpack and nodded, her eyes bright with obedience. Fidgety on the balls of her feet, she peeked past the tall, frowning woman and waved goodbye to five other women in the dining room. Those women were all in their usual spots, being absorbed by morning papers, reading letters or being busy with kitchenwork; one of them hung across the sofa, as usual, with a bottle of liquor in her dangling grasp.
Only the woman on the sofa waved back at the small girl.
The tall, serious one put her palms over the girl's shoulders, exerting physical pressure to emphasize her words. "Now, off you go. Don't you go wandering around," she said, not planning to explain the urgent tone that pressed her words. The girl did not ask, nor could one even tell that she had noticed. She simply nodded, the curves of her lips remained null yet her eyes attentive. She let the big woman's hands turn her about, and with a gentle push on her back, she left their home to meet the morning sun.
The little girl skipped down a small rocky hill to her mentor's house, thin legs whipping lightly through the air. She had six mothers, theoretically. She also had one father, theoretically as well. But the father was no more, the mothers said; and the last couple of weeks had proved truth to their promise. The little girl didn't care, however. She had no reason to believe that her father would be gone forever. Forever was not a valid concept to the child. No, not even if she eventually grows up.
The quiet girl does not need forever, for, she had unicorns with her.
And how bright the world seemed to her, at that instant when the folds of her skirt danced with the winds and the white clouds sang a chorus with the sweet azure sky! The stones beneath her feet lifted her presence as she took in the world with her light gray eyes. She sucked in a fresh breath of air, and suddenly ---
Almost too suddenly, she wanted to fly away like those white doves in the sky.
Though, her mentor's house was already standing before her. Without further thought she took off her little shoes at the steps and pranced through the open front door as she always did. But something was not in line with the familiarity... There was something new and strange tingling in the air around her.
For the first time in a long while, she wanted to be home already. She wanted to be back in her little room, on her little bed with her black rabbit doll in her arms. Since the day that the unicorn's bottle had started to glow a light in the colours of the setting sun, the child had decided to keep it hidden in the tummy of her favourite bunny doll...
Just so she could embrace her dearest unicorn to dreamland every night.
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:47 am
The other girl snatched her bunny doll away.
She blinked and stood there, watching the other girl laughing with a couple more of other girls. She can feel a burst of heat pulsing beneath her skin --- in her arms, her chest, her throat and her eyes. She felt that she should scream or cry and demand the other girl to give back her bunny doll, but she only stood there.
She didn't know why she brought the bunny to school.
"Young ladies!" She heard their mentor's quiet voice massacre the other girls' frantic giggling like a burning sun hovering over the lava of a volcano. The hot air burned to ashes, and then there was silence. The little girl watched the woman named Herissa scold the three other girls. She liked the teacher.
"Elyse," the woman named the pale-coloured little girl, and the stuffed rabbit was returned to her. Elyse locked the bunny in her embrace. She looked at Herissa's beautiful hands --- hands that saved her dear rabbit doll, and glanced into the woman's warm, apologetic smile. Big, round drops of lukewarm dews rolled down her cheeks and onto the dark fabric of the stuffed toy.
That night after she slid into her thin pajamas dress, she sat herself and the stuffed rabbit on their bed. Of course, even though no words were spoken, they were having a conference as to whether or not the bunny should still go to school with her. They had a small argument over the unicorn's bottle.
So Elyse unzipped the bunny's back and took out the bottle. She sat it beside the bunny, and the bunny was pleased that the object of their argument had joined their conference. The bunny asked it what it thought of the issue, but the bottle replied in a foreign tongue so that they could not understand. Even though the colours it glowed were familiar to the girl, the language it spoke was not like anything she has heard.
"Do you know where my father is?" She suddenly found herself asking. The bunny doll gave no answer, as always, and the bottle kept on babbling in its strange speech.
The room was very, very quiet.
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Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 12:39 pm
Her eyes flickered open, just a second before dawn.
Suddenly, a clear light shot through the violet skies, and ate away the silence, the peace.
Birds sang.
Like a goddess perfumed by the scent of honeyed grass, the gentle yet cruel morning laid soft fingers on the girl's cheeks. The sudden warmth of the sun stirred a breeze out of cool air, and the tails of the silken curtains fluttered from her open window. She lay there, idle gaze and idle mind. It was a holiday. She did not have to leave for school.
What would she do today? What is worth doing today?
Suddenly her bed seemed like the most comfortable place in the universe.
She snuggled the bunny doll close to her. It never really did have a name, for she did not speak enough to refer it to anyone. She felt the ends of her lips lift into a smile as she tried to squeeze the stuffed toy's tummy. It used to be full of cotton. It used to be soft. The shape of the bottle sparked a flame in her heart. Maybe she should go look for a unicorn today. Maybe a dragon, or a fairy. Or perhaps a priestess. A priestess would certainly know where they are --- the unicorns, the dragons, the fairies. But who was she to enter a temple?
That said, she's never been in a temple, and never knew how it worked. She imagined that inside ivory palaces, sacred women walk in an ever-stretching pool of sweet shallow water, with silver kois dancing by their ankles. The ceiling would be as high as the moon, and each priestess a glittering star amongst the darkness that had embraced their priestesshood.
A calm, white flame would burn from their feet, and their steps would serve as their candles.
Elyse rose from her bed, letting the blanket fall off from her small body. She was sure that most of the women in the house had already awaken, maybe even gone out. She descended from her room, located high up in the attic, and headed for their piano. It sat in the midst of a large room, accompanied by no other furniture but a vase with a bouquet of dried flowers bursting out of its mouth. The child sat and let her tender fingers kiss the black keys, although her first note was a white one. A soft, soothing rhythm soon overflowed.
The bunny doll sat beside her. It enjoyed the tenderness and the melancholy, two things both of them had not yet the names for. It told Elyse that it loved the song, and that she should play it again. So she played again, then again, and again. It was a song that she'd memorized. It was a song that she kept playing. It was a song --- her song, her singing secret. The stuffed toy smiled as a bright full moon hung over them. The room fell dark, and a white flame burned beneath them, illuminating the sweet-washed kois. The shallow water twirled and danced, just like her hands. And it was drowning her... Drowning... Drowning...
Then she heard the tingling of a golden bell. Her eyes snapped open, and there was that light from the windows again. The overtly sweet smell of dried blossoms made her daze linger. But it was already breakfast time.
Yet another day of nothing, nothing, nothing.
She wasn't allowed to be let out of the house. She didn't know why.
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