The Dove and the Swan

The Dove and the Swan

Part one.

This is a “follow-up story”, see my earlier work ‘Anna’

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/Arwen-Evenstar/1360013/

“I never thought that I would be able to find love before I die.”

Twenty years later. I sit at the foot of your tree. I feel so lonely. To the reader, you may wonder who am I. My name is Peter, and I am writing this up in my diary. I am thirty-five years old “nerd” as many call me, and yes I have diary. But let me start from the date when I was fifteen year’s old. My first love was like a fleeting moment, a split second in my youth. She moved to the neighborhood in one spring and for a long time I did not saw her outside. It was the coldest spring in many years.

“Have you heard of them? She lives there with his dad...poor girl. Her mother passed away some year ago. And what about her health (the old woman was shaking sadly her head), it’s a heartbreaking situation, if I get to say my opinion…” I did not get the chance to hear more because the two ladies, who were talking, left the shop with a sharp sound of the doorbell. The echo of the bell was playing in my ears.

A friendly voice woke me back to reality.

“Young man, are you going to buy that comic book or not?” I found myself stopping in my place in the line and the older man was smiling behind the desk and looking at me questioningly under his thick eyebrows. I nodded. “Yes, of course. Here it is” I said. The salesman glanced at the money, and then smote them with the cash register. And again a sharp and high-pitched voice rang in my head. Then he looked at me and asked if I was okay. I nodded again. “Say hi to your mother, Peter!” he shouted after me. I waved at the door. “Thanks Bert, I will”. I stepped out and the wind felt piercing icy on my face. It was an early Saturday morning in April and the streets were still quite empty at this time. The old Bert opened his little shop an hour before than the others in Saturdays. He had been a friend of my father in his youth. Bert was worried of my mother, ever since my father died a couple years ago.

“It’s my seventeen birthday when I am writing this letter.”

‘But what about that girl.’ I was walking on the quiet streets. What was her name? I thought I heard it. Then my face brightened. ‘Anna.’ So they called her. ‘Anna, poor girl.’ Suddenly I stop and stood still. I looked to the end of the street where her house was. The house had seen better days. I started to walk to the street end that was U-shaped. The garden was bigger than others and unattended. The Victorian style house had apparently once been blue in color. The huge ivy covered part of the front walls of the house where a circular room with windows in every direction was. The windows had lace curtains. ‘But wait a second!’ I narrowed my eyes. I was almost sure that I saw a shadow moving behind the curtains or am I just imagined? The girl was standing now front of the window, looking past me. Her face seemed pale, and suddenly she turned her big, sad eyes towards me and I almost tripped over the edge of the street! “Peter, do not behave like a jerk, go to say hi to her” I talked to myself but when I looked again the girl was disappeared.  I felt miserable and turned to home. Some another day, some another day I go to see her.

Two weeks went by and the south wind came and brought warm weather. It took another three weeks before I was able to take that step. It was a sunny Sunday in May when I went to knock on her door. I noticed that the door had retained its dark blue color and there was a small round window with colored glass, but I could not see inside of it. On the glass there was described flying white dove on a blue background. The girl opened the door. I stared at her for a moment. Her hair was like plaited wheat, eyes like two sad doves. You could not describe her ‘beautiful’ (in the deepest sense of the word), she had big eyes with heavy eyelids and her eyebrows were too outward so it made her look tired. But there was something which drew attention to her; perhaps it was her facial characteristics which affected, the other hand, almost as ‘fairy-kind’.   She was frail in body but I saw a spark in her brown eyes, and I knew that there lived a strong will deep in her. So I met Anna, only sixteen year’s old who had lost her mother to cancer a year ago and there was also something else that I did not know at that time.

After that day we spent many happy and sunny days on a riverside. Anna smiled and laughed a lot, and she told me that it was a long time since she had done so. She told me what her mother used to sung her.

“These six months have been the happiest time of my life.”

Fall arrived and then came the first cold day of late autumn. And all of sudden Anna was gone. She died in heart disease which she had not told to me. But I wasn’t there for her, because one morning when the early sun raised its dazzling face to illuminate her eyes, she had waked up and knew that her time had come. Anna's dad had told me that she had been calm and peaceful, and her eyes were shining in that morning.

“Dad, I’d a dream last night. I was sleeping on the evergreen grass of my childhood, at the foot of beautiful tree, and when I woke up and turned my face up I saw that the light of the sun sparkled between the tree branches and leaves. Or was it sun at all? It was thousands more time brighter and warmer than the sun. “

Anna had wanted to see me, but then she had suddenly collapsed and lost consciousness and her dad had taken her to the hospital. Her dad sent me a word but it never reached me. She no longer regained consciousness, and in the following night when the stars were shining brightly Anna slept away.

“Dear Peter,

 When you are reading this letter I’ll be gone forever.

 There’s something that I haven’t told you.”

 

At present time.

I had had to fall asleep to the root of the tree, because I awoke as from a dream as the echo of my own name were whispering in my ear.

“…Peter, Peter!...”

She was standing in front of me. Lightly and airily, as beauty as always.

Around her there seemed to be a movement, some of them looked like a bright ball of light and some like a part of the human figure shining brightly. Anna seemed to be talking to them and she pointed to me.

“Tell him that I love him, and he has to live, live for me and because of me.

Because this is not the end.

Tell him that he must do things, see the world, and remember me.

Speak, and I will listen.

Name, and I will come.

Look, and I will be with you.

Tell him that I love him.

 Tell him.”

Then Anna moved towards me airily and stretched out her glimmering arms towards me. The light shimmered from her smiling face. The light became brighter until she was close to me and kissed me gently on my lips and then she breathed out the words on my lips;

“Peter, I will wait for you. Live, my love, live because of me”.

My life seemed flowing, flowing in the air, and the cold stars were above me.

Then I woke up, for real apparently this time, and I found myself leaning against the tree trunk and the bark had scratch on my cheek. How long I had been dreaming, I did not know that.

My diary was lying on the ground and between the pages there was a bright yellow dandelion.

 

 

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A beautiful and sad story. I like the way they became friends and enjoyed the six months together. I like the letter and the hopeful ending. Thank you Sarah for sharing the outstanding story.
Coyote

[~Sarah~ Idríel The Fair]

Thank you so much, John.

[Coyote Poetry]

You are welcome Sarah.