A Question of Relevance

A QUESTION OF RELEVANCE



He knew those eyes, peered downward from above and found them there.

Looked up and met their stare.

(Wayne Wilks)



 

Wayne sat before the glowing blue of his laptop studying a small electronic photograph of a woman displayed on the screen before him. Malou was her name.

Dressed in a simple cotton two-piece swimsuit, striped with alternating lines of green, yellow and blue, she lay alone in the center of the frame. Arranged comfortably, one side facing the camera, she rested.

She appeared at ease, posing coyly and provocatively, with only a hint of awkward or bashful temperaments. With a flush of slightest pink in her cheeks, she meekly blushed. Her slim and slight body, arched loosely atop a mat of blond colored sheets, shone like new silk in the bright golden-haired light of the tiny sun lit room.

The shutter captured her lying prone, somewhat curled, directly in front of the lens. Her knees, slightly bent and curved, drew faintly up and inwards towards her chest. The ultra smooth and blemish free surface of her bare shins and miniature childlike feet evenly reflected the harsh light of the flash giving them the appearance of tawny porcelain. Her well-rounded hips and full-length trim legs stretched tanned and bronzed.

Her slight hands and slender fingers added to her youthful even childish appearance. Her painted nails, the color of luminous violet pink phlox, drew Wayne’s attention as they captured and released the vibrant light. The open palm of her right hand supported the weight of her head while her left arm draped lazily across the length of her body. Her one free hand, bent at the wrist and resting upon her hip, drooped downward at her waist with fingers dangling just above her firm even tummy. Circling that wrist was a plain red and green bracelet consisting of small round beads of polished natural jade, across the other a thin simple watchband of glossy etched gold.

Atop the solid print of the well-illuminated sheets and against a backdrop of lighter hued patterns of flowery patterned pillows, her taunt skin seemed to radiate youth, flawless in sun-tinted hues of coco butter, saddle soap and almonds. It drew the eye away from her face, down her thin neck, to her scantily yet colorfully clad chest.

Her reticent budding breasts, modestly concealed beneath her minutely strapped top, spoke to him in hushed syllables. Their muted advances suggestive of things wordlessly promised in whispered tones. Warm as breath, evoking images of splendid finery hidden beneath the fabrics thin surface, they promised affection and soothing comfort. He allowed himself to imagine for a moment, yielding and round coco hued circles in subtle shades of browned duskiness, topped in slight flushing pinks.

The plain unremarkable features of her face stood in sharp contrast to her alluring body, boldly feminine form and charming diminutive appeal. Her vibrantly painted lips of dark crimson drew perhaps too much attention to the plainness of her facial features yet blended well with the stark darkness of her medium length inky black hair. The sheen of her deep reflective ebony locks, tied in the back with cords of yellow ribbon and cascading freely over one shoulder, proved a powerful compliment to the bold palpable red of her full inviting lips.

She appeared shady and gloomy against the effervescent lightness of the room, lying prone amid the golden background and the floral colored surfaces surrounding her. She seemed as a charcoaled moon silhouetted against the lighter lit sky of wheat colored summers dusk.

There bloomed a simile of a smile across her lips, a bit forced, exhibiting just a tinge of sadness, discomfort and a sort of odd lonely distraction.

Her large deeply set eyes, remote orbs of night, unfocused and distant, refused study or capture. They stared blindly back at him, bottomless pools of gall gazing out from within the digital image now displayed before him upon the dimly lit phosphorescent screen.

He knew those eyes. He’d seen them before, her eyes, or ones akin. He’d peered downward from above and found them there, looked up and met their stare. He’d studied them, searched within and found little. He’d wiped them dry of all tears, seen them twitch in sleeps embrace and tightly close in passions fold. He’d seen them flash with anger, rage and untold blackness. He knew them well. He knew them as an emotion, a flavor, or a scent, as a poignant memory, remote yet forever fresh, pregnant with unplanned intensity and undeniable allure. He knew them as one knows a tender caress from long ago, deeply felt and softly warm, yet regrettably distant and forlorn. He knew them as eyes at once full of fury yet capable of passions intense, as eyes, whose desire brought pain to his limbs, scars to his heart and tears to his eyes? She had those very same eyes, eyes that nursed like spring rain then cut like winters frost.

Yet the eyes he had known before were another’s eyes, from another time, another place, a time as far removed from now as the time of his own birth and as inescapably loathsome as that of his own sure death.

Yet even then, in that long ago time, when he had held another in his strong hands and pressed his lips to hers, he knew. Even as he looked within, seeking truth, and substance those long years ago, he knew. He knew there was nothing there, not really, nothing more than the eyes of a stranger and a heart he’d never hold.  Perhaps he had read too much within them, then as now, or perhaps far too little. Perhaps Malou’s eyes were, truly, just as hers before. Perhaps all he saw within them now was all that existed, like before, squid ink and lies.

Yet the eyes he saw now, Malou’s eyes, were not the same eyes as those before, the eyes of a lost lover. They were not the eyes of the stranger who slept beside him all those years. Hers were not the coal black holes, icy in embrace, cold in caress, loveless and harsh.

No, he had found no lies within Malou’s eyes. He had seen no hatred nor read any malice. Malou was a stranger, nothing more. How could he blame her for all that came before? She was but a photo upon a screen, a name in a form, a signature ending a letter. She was merely an entity, a persona, a response to a question. She was a profile, an answer, a distant friend, a dreams lone phantom or a hopes desperate cry, but nothing more, not yet and almost certainly would forever remain as now, no more than strangeness and want, desire and dreams.

Why should he fear her? He had no reason to doubt her, no reason for mistrust, no cause or wrong for which to blame her. Is having no reason to trust a reason to mistrust?

Could her eyes be different and new? Could she be different?

Was it possible for truth to live in the eyes, if but a hint?  Was all that he saw only that which he desired to see that which he himself planted?  Was there inside them any thought of itself, any shred of an object, an emotion or thing, not placed there by him? Was it possible that all he saw in her eyes was simply that which he chose to see?

Did her eyes hold a truth? Do anyone’s? Are the eyes truly a window to the soul?

Suddenly the lateness of the evening bore down upon his slumping shoulders. His head swam lightly, sickly, from the beer and cigarettes as he continued to study her photo. The focus of his eyes faded in and out like the glow of a distant star pulsing alternately weaker then stronger then weaker still. He had been sitting there before the computer now for hours just thinking, thinking and writing, gazing questionably at her photo and the blank dark void of her black emotionless eyes, shark eyes.

He thought of his own mother and of her eyes. His mother’s eyes were blue. They were blue from the Cherokee blood thick within her veins and his, or so he’d been told. He struggled to remember them, to imagine, attempting to picture their color, their size, shape or depth but found it impossible. All was vapor and haze. Perhaps their image lay somewhere beyond recollection, eroded by time and circumstance. Perhaps he had never seen his mother’s eyes, not simply forgotten them. Possibly the memory of her eyes had never existed, never lived within him. Perhaps the reflection of his mother’s eyes had never been more than a wistful summers dream, existing only within the bottomless cloudy shadows of his mind, perpetually concealed from his view.

Yet that could not be.

Of course, he had seen them, he must have. Once he had been born. Once he had been a child. Once he had laughed and played and ran. Once he had kissed, loved, and softly sighed. Once he had seen his mother’s eyes. It must have been, if only once while gazing upwards from the warmth and safety of a suckled sallow breast. Now it all seemed pale and insignificant, disconnected and lost, as isolated and foreign as the sound of his mother’s name. Yet still he knew it once was, once must have been.

His own eyes were not blue, nor black but rather a color unknown, a changing array of hues, once blue, once green, often gray, yet seldom either, fading to a shade of unknown hazel. Hazel, an odd little word describing a color indescribable, a tint unknowable, a color neither blue, nor gray, nor green, yet an ever changing blend of them all. Like droplets of Easter eggs ink accidentally splattered and mixed upon the kitchen table by the thoughtless childish hand of God.

Once again, distracted and unable to concentrate, he found himself once more focused on Malou’s eyes. They seemed to speak to him, beckon him with their promise of silent submission and the hope of tepid forgetfulness. He saw them just as he had before, blunt and dangerous, endlessly deep, as cool as winter nights, as empty as his own barren heart. They faced him, fearlessly, glossy ebony pools, inviting, baffling and deadly. As has been said before, he found their beauty both terrible and mysterious. God and Devil were fighting there, the battlefield his heart.

He found it impossible to write with her eyes staring back at him through the flat shimmering screen, never wavering or casting aside, continuously fixed upon his. How easily he could give in. How simple it would be to plunge downward into their blackness, drifting eternally into the ever-thickening gloom, lost in blessed forgetfulness. Regardless of their promise, ignorant of his desire, her eyes stared blankly, empty and void.

Stretching sleepily, he sat upright at his writing desk, straightening his cramped back, his thoughts distracted, disjointed, seemingly without cause, but for a photo and formless disquieting thoughts of a woman unknown. He’d been restless and mostly without sleep for a week now, not fully knowing the cause yet sensing, in some vague and indistinct fashion, that it must be her, those eyes, her eyes, those jet black eyes.

Clicking on the electronic frame that held her photo, he extinguished the image, clearing his thoughts for the work to come, seeking words that must be found. He had so much to say if he could only discover just what it was. There were so many things to write, if he only knew what they were.

As he pushed Malou’s image further from his conscious mind his thoughts began to flow more smoothly. He typed and he typed as the minutes stretched into hours and the night grew ever closer to the morning. As the first beams of gold crept over the rooftops outside his second floor window, he found his thoughts streaming faster than his ability to capture them, rushing outwards from somewhere he did not know, heading towards somewhere, he had never been.

He was often a writer, or had been, yet more often not, most usually only in his sleep and wake full dreams. Last night and today, he had been a writer and still he was. Still he was a writer struggling to form the words, get them just right, saying neither too little nor too much, only, that which was just right. That was the thing. That was the hardest. Using just the precise amount of words was the aim, the correct ones the purpose.  Attempting to organize the words into lines with meaning and purpose, arrange them in order, conveying emotions and thoughts so others could know, others could understand and feel and more importantly so that he himself could, that was the rub. That was the task.

His thoughts flowed faster as he continued, unstoppable, his mind bursting with ceaseless imagery. Ideas and word filled thoughts stampeded through his head in numbers vast, marching and blowing through his open mind like the howling wind at the edge of a sheer high cliff. Yet even as the momentum built, he sensed the moments passing, ending as rapidly as it had begun. That’s how it was, as always before. Even as he struggled to place the words in logical sequence with ever-increasing determination, fears and doubts seeped and trickled like sewage into his unlocked psyche, poisoning the rare unexpected purity of the moment.

He knew too well that there were but only few moments, singular and exceptional in a human life, when both mind and heart joined, overflowing, spilling forth passion and purpose in words filled with meaning and power. These moments, like the words themselves, came all too rarely then quickly vanished. He fought and he struggled, setting them down honest and true, in actual fear, sure of their certain demise.

Yet as the words came, the questions followed.

Does wanting to say something give one something to say? Do the words themselves bring forth the desire? Does merely saying something, saying anything give meaning to the words, if the right person reads them? Does simply having a desire to write, no matter how keenly or vaguely felt, cause the writing to happen, the words to flow? Is want alone enough to pull meaning from within, to gel disjointed thoughts and sentences into logical concise paragraphs? Do wishes cause words, like molten sugar, once chaotic, easily flowing, hot and energetic, to cool into perfect, splendid little crystals, sweet to the tongue?

It had all been said before, all been asked and all been written, yet not by him. The world knew these things, just as he knew them, not by knowledge sought or learning pursued but rather by wisdom earned, scraped out and paid for with experience and the endless repetitions of life, by the pride less self-loathing of failure.

Others, whose words fell from the pen like large perfect droplets of unattainable perfection, appeared in the eye of his mind. Always, as before, the metaphors and words came with a spark of insight and a tinge of fear, the fear of experience, the knowledge of the impossibility of the task and its assurance of disappointment. Each minute, each word and each new line drew him closer to knowing that which was unconscionable, that winning what was unwinnable was not possible because that would be perfection.

“Malou,” he thought. For reasons he could not find, for no sake he could recall. He spoke her name aloud. It filled his mouth with its odd foreign strangeness before clumsily escaping through his lightly parted lips.

“Malou,” he murmured once again, as the resonance of her name filled his ears. It was a simple sound, short and unusual. It fluttered in and out of his consciousness, floating through his mind as a moth in the wind, un-tethered, un-directed, destination unknown.

How had she accomplished this unexpected thing? How had she broken the seal revealing what once he had so carefully hidden? With nothing but a single photo and a few simple words typed across a screen and two eyes of night, she had disturbed him. She tugged at something within, deeply concealed, pulling on long forgotten strings. To what end, and for what purpose he remained unsure.

He thought of their brief conversations of the week before and her few words, repeatedly typed.

“Ask me a question,” she would say. “Ask me anything and I will tell you true.”

“Ask me anything my dear.”

“Ask me everything and I will answer you honestly. Just ask me, ok? Maybe in this way we can perfectly know each other my dear.”

He questioned.

She answered.

He wondered.

Can desire make words ring true and longing create trust?

Does simply wanting want, bring desired results?

Can a penance once paid bring future rewards?

Do eyes hold a measure of truth? By gazing within can one weigh values, measure motives, and seek judgment? Can trust and belief ever live in the eyes or fall from the lips. Can questions asked and answers delivered ever truly be believed?

“Would you love me Malou? Could you?”

The screen went blank as he switched off the computer. Forgetting to extinguish the lights as the warming glow of the noonday sun streamed in through the open windows, he made his way down the short shadow filled hallway to his jumbled bed.

The deepening pallor surrounding his eyes and the ever-lengthening lines of his face gave credence to the passing of the long night and the aging of his weary heart.

Quickly undressing, his clothes found their own spot scattered upon the hardwood planks just as water seeks it own level. His scruffy blue jeans, cast casually aside, clinked metallically as they struck. He stopped, distracted by the jingle, pausing and reaching down he searched within his pockets for the source of the noise. Inside the one, left front, he found a dime, a quarter, one penny and an odd-looking coin cast of bronze. The center of the coin lay stamped or engraved with the image of a far away city, odd symbols and stranger characters lined its face. Silvery etched aluminum at the edges surrounded the core.

  A memory of other times captured him, flooding over him, other questions, other answers, another dark eyed girl and what he’d found buried deep within her abysmal eyes of blackest night, and of what looked back.

Maybe he would write her tomorrow, maybe.

He slept fitfully that night.







The End



© 2005-2009 Tim Wilkinson/Wayne Wilks