Chapter One
The Sighting
Overcome with a sensation of nervous
pleasure, never before felt, in the pit of my stomach as I, for the first time,
was blessed with the entrancing sight of the girl who at the time I could only
describe as an angel. But I would later come to understand as something far
greater and far more divine. Blood flushed to my cheeks as she gracefully
floated past me. I was overjoyed and ecstatic beyond anything I had previously
experienced and all my doubts considering love at first sight seemed to drift away
when I laid my eyes upon her. If she had taken even a split second of her time
to glance at me as she passed me, my heart would most certainly have stopped.
I couldn’t let go of the heavenly trail of
fragrance she so majestically left behind her as she moved. Even after she had
left I still felt young. I was consumed by happiness and under a spell. I was
trapped by her beauty and freed by the one thing I now longed for more than
anything imaginable. Her acceptance.
Any duties to which I should have attended
would have to wait. For now I was blind to all but this girl who was, in
essence, as much a mystery as the universe she inhabited. Yet so very familiar
to me like the scent of shame to which I had grown accustomed over the past few
seasons. Hit with the realisation she had left me stunned, wrapped in deep
contemplation for a number of minutes, I began my pursuit.
The pace of my feet quickened in tune with that of my heart. Warmed by the light of a dawn of new
perception of existence like a dark veil ascending from its perch upon a
portrait of Madam Recamier, I gave chase with a subtle attempt to follow the path
delicately carved by this Goddess. I wondered if the Heavens would truly favour
a heathen such as myself on this day or if their intention was to merely taunt
me by gifting me only with the brief glimpse of what was now my passion. A passion fuelling every natural instinct, compromising all rational thought,
nourishing a dæmon capable of conjuring desires most un-gentlemanlike.
As unlikely as it seemed the Gods for once smiled upon me. Her scent again
filled my lungs, I was close.
The morning dew stuck to my shoes as I
shuffled through the harmless blades of grass. For the first time in my life I
had but one simple thought that came to mind. To be with the one person whose
glimpse had so infatuated me and suddenly adjusted my beliefs on love. My life
had meaning. Once again my feet and heart had stopped.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was
standing no more than thirty feet from my restless and exhausted body. Startled
by her beauty, little beads of sweat formed on my flustered face as I mustered
the courage to exchange pleasantries with her. My imagination surprises me with
sounds of her sweet voice gently kissing my ears and the touch of her soft
hands sliding into mine as we fly freely away from the buzzing hubbub. We live
long, happy lives together, hovering outside the realms of reality, doing as we
please.
At this point I snapped myself back into my
exited and star struck frame and realised that I had placed one too many feet
ahead of myself. By chance I landed face to face with the Goddess I had been searching
for all my life. Before I had time to shyly allow myself words, she so easily
turned her angle and pushed past me without so much as an "excuse me". In no time
at all she was gone again, wandering through the thick maze of hustling
shoulders. I lost her.
I fondled my chest feeling for the gaping
chasm left from having my heart ripped from me by this single act of
rudeness. I couldn't forgive my useless self. I was immediately plunged into self hatred. A thick oily sludge crawled down my skin, blocking the outside world. I
gagged unable to draw breath as though the air had followed her out of my life,
leaving me to suffocate. I was drowning under the thick veil of my own agonising self
loathing that was slowly slumping over the earth and painfully extinguishing the awing
light she effortlessly evoked from the atmosphere, granting that dreaded
darkness entry to my soul.
As the darkness crept into every inch of my body my mind crept out allowing the scene which surrounded me to fade away with all my newly discovered hope. I collapsed to my own feet, and from above I watched the morbid crowd stare in disarray as my body was lifted, ever so kindly, away.