It has been exactly two weeks since it happened and no circumstantial post on it yet. So allow me to bring you on a wild carnivalesque ride through the events of that most breathtaking night. This involves regular switches of personas, all of which a(we)re assumed by me for this post.
lux, 515pm None better than to hit the streets, city la extravagant here we come! You wind through the grid of streets, multiplied into a frenzy because after days of whipping up a storm of words on the *notebook [more to come from this species of consumer good], you wonder if the curves on screen are people navigating the lines of the street - topographical view! Like words move out of the brain and through our fingertips, we leapt out of my home, out of the block and into concrete wilderness, ready to consume distance with light treads of our feet.
lux, 730pm Intricacies of Vietnamese dining begins with the formula of a shy doe, a well-intentioned hart and a Christmas bauble shining so brilliantly on the treebranch under which the sprightly creations stand. All of which never fully equate no matter how deftly you shift one component from side to side of the 'Therefore it is' sign; flick your neck from left to right trying to evaluate the unsaid beneath what is said... The bauble babbles brilliantly, sometimes wondering if she was a mistletoe [ignore all paganistic references. Now. we're Christian] who reputedly is the trigger to all things waiting to be expressed but finds no humanly impetus in doing so.
The bauble babbles brilliantly.
leapfrog back to Word document, a new paragraph is emerging:
circus Act, 745-915pm Stretch your muscles, train your vision, there is an audience which you cannot see. You believe the world that immediately surrounds you now is a world within your control. You execute quick flicks of your limbs. Though not nimble and certainly not skilled, your goals have propelled you further than you wished for. You wished they decked you in candy colours a many, feet shod in slim leather shoes for that ballerina's touch of a feather on ground a-solid, highlighted your face with dabs of white, black and gold, slap on red on your mouth for that vicious smile... But you are dull as a rat, black and grubby. You think yourself shunned by your fellow actors and audience alike. Ignored, moving within the shadows, your life you believe has been relegated to the gutters of the circus ever since
he snatched the shimmery satin slip away from you. You are convinced. Such actions are not to be forgiven.
lux, 930pm Begins long trek back, tracing footsteps on a path oft-walked before. But always with a difference.
Always with a difference though this be proclaimed on hindsight more than it is realised cognitively, instinctively. The hart walks alongside the doe and her bauble. The night is cool and the doe is mildly attracted to the way the hart straps on his notebook case. Light hearted banter.
Who would have known pantomime could be sinister?
circus Act, 745-915pm Face contorts. Eyebrows arch into furry black cats, fangs barred, nails digging deep into the ground, eyes aglow, hair standing on ends. Pluck out each strand, sew them together with fairy thread, stretch them across the body of a violin. It plays a melody most haunting and sly. It leaps onto the green fence, spreads forth limbs aplenty and hurls itself onto the balcony above. It stands at the gate of its dreams. It has had many dreams before. This is not the grandest but it will have to suffice. Its guts are big enough only for this dream. It fancies a cloak of diamonds for its naked body. Vulnerable body. Swimming right through the gate, it hears the incriminating sound of jewels pressing tightly against its slender frame.
lux, 10pm Doe: Did you hear the sound of an animal enter the apartment? Pushing open the door, the room was the stuff of rumour and more ill-begotten dreams. Bed flipped over. Wardrobe doors flung wide open. Heater lying on the floor, basking in the coolness of the night - which came from a small hole in the window pane. Battery chargers pulled out of battery points. Laptop tugged out of a comfortable position.
No animal - not ferret, not rat, not mongoose? I wished. The chilly spring wind was brushing against the edges of the broken window pane. Slivers of glass were being chipped off what was left of the frame, creating sounds which mimicked a creature rustling through my stuff.
All of a sudden, a story was more than fiction on a page, more than words painted out of the imagination. It happened in the past and left its mess for those in the present to witness.
It was all so surreal. We stood, five in a circle, worshipped Jesus our Saviour, prayed against fear and claimed back what belonged to us from the enemy's camp.
They say fear can bring death (and not just a physical death).
That night we prayed for healing in Christ, the One who brings dead things to life. I hope, through it all, the Act will find Someone who can make him whole again, with a jewel purer than shattered diamonds.
