The Strange Meeting

A cold shiver burnt beneath the surface of my skin, as though my veins were freezing over. The shiver danced up my arm upon its icy toes while I sat, encapsulated by apprehension. It looped my shoulder a couple of times and then chased its way along my collar bone before encountering the spine, dumbfounding the right half of my torso. Here, the shiver was confronted with a fork in the road. In an instant, it had spliced itself down the middle. One half shot down my back like a bucket of arctic water, sending my helpless body to sleep and winning a power struggle with my legs throwing me to the floor. The twin, meanwhile, had taken a lightning leap up to the tip of my neck, at the trapdoor to my brain. Not bothering to knock, it burst through and began trashing the inner content, like the Rolling Stones in a hotel room. My brain cells, the hotel staff, could only look on politely. Soon, my brain was overwhelmed with chaos and I tripped, fell and was slipping, down.

My brain was like a rowing boat in the middle of a storm, being washed around and drowned. Down I went, helpless, like a baby that is dropped by its father. That cold shiver had wrapped me up in a cocoon, ready for interrogation at the hands of an unlawful mistress. I was at her mercy. She held me in the palm of her hands and watched, laughing, as the sweat beaded down my fevered brow. But, strangely, her laugh was not one of evil or power. Rather, it was mirthful and happy, similar to a child’s in a playground. Indeed, I felt quite childlike and foolish, suspended as I was in her grasp. I looked up at her, pleadingly, and, to my utter astonishment, she put me down, gently, on the ground. Slowly, I raised my weightless form to its feet. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my legs were strong. On the other hand, I felt light as a feather and made a point of watching for the wind when I stepped outdoors. Well, I tried to. My mind was, for the present, absent.

I tilted my head to gaze upon my female companion to discover that she was considerably shorter than me, with long, blonde hair that flowed magnificently across her eyes, shielding them from my gaze. In fact, I noticed that the majority of her face was concealed from my view. This was a tremendous shame, though I was scarcely bothered by it. The turmoil above had calmed down and was now floating amongst the clouds, propelled by gentle breeze that blew sweetly through my ears. The pandemonium of a moment ago had been tranquilised and replaced with a sense of supernatural serenity. I outstretched my hand to the lady and she took it, lightly in her fingertips. My heart was beating in an unfashionable, irregular manner, ranging from a very moderate staccato to a fierce, raging crescendo. The blonde lady, however, seemed a bundle of harmony as she skipped along to the door, which she persuaded open.

The door swung open as she swept through and I had just enough alertness to catch it on the rebound, before it smacked me across the face. My eyes, heavy though they had become with the unplugging of my wits, lit up, exposing my saucer-like pupils to an immense, psychedelic light. The shine faded and illuminated, before me, a certain paradise as I had never seen before. There were beautiful fountains that splashed crystal blue water into rivers that flowed on and on into eternity. There were never ending fields of soft grass, more comforting than a Princess’s mattress. Pretty flowers spread all around me, while the trees were a green beautiful enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. Over by the edge of the rivers, the trees hung low over a bed of dotted water lilies, so colourful and picturesque that they would have precisely matched Claude Monet’s impressions. A swing hung between the branches of two trees, upon which the lady was perched.

The wind had died down, no longer playing with her hair, so that her radiant beauty beamed out for all to see. Her face was shade from pale, a creamy pink pigment that seemed so rich and pure. Her eyes were the deepest blue, reflecting the sky’s most romantic colour and her rose-red lips had been positioned into an earth shattering smile, which somehow still maintained a strange nonchalance about her. She motioned me towards her and my broken mind could not contemplate it – how had this strange meeting ever taken place? She hopped off the swing and approached me and intertwined her fingers with mine. The ever pleasant resonance of sweet music hummed from somewhere in the background. We danced upon the tender grass for a while before the power of the fantastical situation grew too strong, sending us crashing to the ground. Then, as we lay together the clouds began to roll in.

The scenery had changed almost instantly. The pleasant streams ceased their trickle as a tirade of water cruised through their path, drowning any of the pretty lilies that got in the way. The playful melody had faded away and there was the heavy drum roll of thunder. Gone was the light, the beauty and the joy of a moment ago. This had been replaced by thunder, devastation and misery. All the while it kept getting darker. The lady seemed so frightened, so cold and so distant. It was all becoming so hopeless; I could hear screaming and could do nothing. My head was too heavy. The darkness was encircling, closing in more and more. It was right under my nose. I rolled over in a violent, last stand against despair and then that was it.

I sat bolt upright. It was damp around me. My shirt was clasped to my skin, as though trying to get inside it, and I was soaked in sweat. I was shaking and shivering, shuddering at the thought of what had just happened. A pool of red lay spilt on the floor next to me, as though someone had tripped with a wine glass in hand. I looked around the room, dimly lit though it was. A blonde girl stood in the corner, watching me with a look of utmost fascination. Her blue eyes cast long, dusky shadows over her cheeks. Her hair was unkempt and she appeared very thin. Yet there was something attractively familiar about the small, rosy smile upon her lips. Nothing was said. I leant back against the stone wall, disallowing the feeling of emptiness to capture me, as I pondered how and why I had come to meet this strange girl, one whom, it appeared, had stepped right out of my imagination.