The Lion & The Dove

It's a love/horror type of story. I'm sure you've heard of some real glass house, but this has nothing to do with it. It's a bit long...had to split it into 5 parts.

 

I

            The first time I met him, I was picking up a gift for my mother. A great glass swan for her birthday. He was a simple glassman, but he could do so much more than I ever imagined.

            When I walked into his shop, I saw him carefully working with a twisting, looping piece that I could not comprehend. At first, I was afraid of him, of the things that he had seen with his dark eyes and of the things that he had done with his great hands. But when he saw me and his eyes met mine, he smiled a kind gentle smile and I felt my fears melt away.

            I asked him about the swan and he nodded wordlessly, disappearing from view. He came back out and in his great hands there was a delicate swan. I traced my fingertips along the figure’s cool neck and looked to all the glasswork around me. Every piece had been hand-made and I asked him in curiosity how he did his work.

            With a tender smile, he waved me forwards excitedly and let me sit in his chair as he showed me. With his great strong hands, he reformed a glowing slab of molten glass into a curved shape and I remembered being afraid that he would shatter the delicate figure with the power he held in his built form.

            I held my breath, watching in awe as he finished and presented to me a flawless little dove. He gently placed the dove in my palms and I looked to him in admiration. He told me that I could keep it and would not accept any money for it. So I kept it on my dresser and it made me smile each morning as it glistened in the sunlight.

            He was a careful man with warm brown eyes that made me feel as if I were home. He had a handsome smile and a masculine laugh, but what I have always loved most were his eyes. He had the eyes of a tender-hearted lion.

            I would bring him lunch sometimes and he gave me lessons in glasswork in return as we laughed the days away.

            We even became good friends and I worried about him sometimes, because he was all alone. I could tell that he was lonely because no one ever visited him and he always went home alone late at night.

            His name was Max and people were afraid of him like I had been only because they did not know him. They only knew him as the impersonal mechanical glassman who made what they wanted and did nothing else.

            But he was so much more than that.

            Max was sweet and always very kind to me, but my mother disapproved. The whole town disapproved. They said that we did not match very well, that I was too small and that he would hurt me. But he was gentle and protected me so that I always felt safe when I was with him.

            They called us the lion and the lamb and when I told him, he just laughed and took me into his arms. I was small compared to Max, but I was never afraid.

            My head only came up to his shoulder, but fit perfectly in the crook of his neck as he held me delicately.

            “You’re too little and too beautiful to be a lamb…you are a dove…my little dove,” he whispered softly. My heart stopped as he drew near to me, his breath warm against my cheek. He kissed me for the first time then and I felt my heart swell with undying love.

            I felt my heart grow and stretch so that the gentle lion could fit inside of it and I loved him more each day.

            On a rainy day when I had to wait hours for the sun to come back so that I could go back home, he made me a smiling lion with a beautiful little dove upon his head.

            I smiled and he looked at me with overwhelming adoration in his eyes. He took my hand and told me that he loved me. I pressed my palm onto his cheek and said the four words that now came as easy as my breath, “I love you too.” He watched me for a while and I felt his hand tremble in mine. What could my lion be afraid of? I wondered.

            He kissed me and held me in his arms as I leaned into him. Then, quietly in his low voice as the rain pattered onto the roof, he asked me to marry him.

            “Be my little dove forever…” he whispered.

            I said yes.

II

            “But you don’t even know anything about this man,” my sister said to me as I tried on a lacey white wedding dress.

            I looked in the mirror and laughed because I looked like a plump chicken and I knew Max would say the same. It looked too complicated, so I tried on a different dress. My sister found me a much simpler dress that had little crystals beaded into flowers and doves on the corset. It was perfect.

            It was true though, what my sister had said. I did not know much about him, but I knew that I loved him and that he loved me and that was more than enough.

            When he scooped me up in his great arms and roared with laughter after the wedding, everyone was so afraid that he would crush me with his strength. They made me painfully aware of their disapproval. “He’s going to kill her…” they whispered. They told me of their fears over and over, but I did not need to be told. I knew that my lion was powerful and that he could crumple a dove with a single hand.

            But he made love so gentle and he wanted us to have a little baby, “to be as beautiful as you are, my little dove.”

            He asked me where I wanted to live and I said that it did not matter much, as long as he was there with me. So he took us to a glass house with walls and ceilings made entirely of glass and crystal. I loved it at first and called it my castle as I watched the rainbows that the sunlight reflected dance around each day. But for some reason, I was always afraid that I would break something.

            Every once in a while, Max would look out through the transparent walls, as if waiting for something when he thought I was not looking. I did not understand why he needed to see everything around him. I tried not to think about it, but it crept into my mind, caught me unaware, crawled into my flesh and scared me sometimes. It came to a point when I no longer felt safe and I always felt like something was watching me as Max always felt that something was watching him.

            On a stormy night, when I could feel thunder and lightning shaking the house, imaginary beasts tried to claw their way into my castle, attempting to take Max away from me. I trembled in his arms and told him that I was afraid.

            He held me and told me that he was sorry and I almost cried because I could not understand why I was so upset. Max held me and waited until I fell asleep, trying to comfort me. He got so worried that he spent the whole night putting up curtains on every wall just for me.

            Dark velvets and linens kept the monsters at bay, but Max always left open a little slit in between each one, hoping that I would not notice so that he could still watch for something I could not define.

            When I opened my eyes the next day, I saw him staring at me with a look of anxiousness and fear that turned my brave lion into a lost little cub. I ran my fingers through his dark hair and asked him what was wrong.

            It was then that I suddenly saw the eternal fear that had been hidden behind his eyes. “You won’t leave me, will you, my little dove?”

            “Why would I leave you, Max? I love you,” I said to him as he laid his head against my chest. He was still afraid, but he trusted me as I reassured him. He was till uneasy and I felt something behind his eyes, lurking within him. I could tell that he was afraid of something else. When I searched and looked into him, I saw a monster that haunted him in his mind, something that no one could save him from.

            That was when I knew that something was wrong…

            Sometimes he would scream in his sleep and I would wake up to feel the house trembling from his deep voice. I would shake him until he woke up and he would look terrified. He would sit up and clutch his heart and the great scar that tore across his bare chest.

            I would place my palm on his heart to protect him and stroke his hair to calm him. Then I would softly kiss his scar for him so that the darkness would leave him.

            This scar was a precise diagonal, jagged around the edges and harsh across his skin. Although this gash was healed, I could tell that Max’s soul had not yet healed from this wound. I could tell that my lion had been cut open before. Cut open and had his insides torn out, shredded up, jumbled around and put back inside so that he was forever afraid.

            I asked him about it one day after we had loved and I felt our baby begin its life inside of me. I traced the scar on his chest as he rubbed circles onto my bare back and I asked him how he had gotten the scar, how he had been so badly torn.

            My lion looked at me with a terrified look in his eye.

            “It’s alright, you can tell me…” I said softly to him.

            “But my little dove will fly away…” he said quietly as he pressed me closer to him.

            “Max, I will never leave you,” I had to tell him over and over, that I would be with him always and forever.

            When he calmed down, I asked him again, “Who hurt my brave lion? Who did this to you?”

             He hesitated and told me that he had been drafted into the war across the sea a few years ago. Into a war where a monster had forced him to kill other men who had all been just as unsure as he had been. Simple men who had lived and loved but were forced by the monster to ultimate destruction and then dragged into death. Men who were all once brothers, but had been separated by the color of their uniforms.

            He told me that the monster controlled everything for its entertainment, its cruelty. He told me that the monster had cut him open and made him watch all his friends die as he lay helpless. That the monster had left him alone to suffer.

            So that was what he was always looking for…watching and waiting for this monster to swoop down from the clouds and destroy the rest of him. That was why we lived in the glass house…So that we would know when it came for us.

III

            Max got better when I told him that the baby was coming, that he was going to be a father. He was happy.

            I was happy.

            When I got plump and round and could not move much, Max stayed by my side more often and less by the windows, watching for the monster. I watched him work with wood and was fascinated once again by his skillful hands.

            He made a little cradle to put in our room with little doves and lions carved into the sides. He even made a baby room next to our room with a crib and a rocking chair and he painted them white. Sometimes I would sit in the rocking chair and sing to my baby while he was still inside me, but Max would have nowhere to sit.

            So he made another chair for himself and rocked beside me. He would hum for the baby and sometimes I would fall asleep in my chair, listening to his deep voice as he held my hand. Whenever I fell asleep, Max would always carry me to our bed and hold me until the morning sun warmed the earth.

            Sometimes he would put his head against my stomach and listen to the baby. I would wake up laughing from the tickle of his dark locks of hair and he would smile as the sunlight made his skin glow.

            He told me that the baby had my heartbeat, like the gentle beats of a dove’s wings when it flew in the sky.

            “But he’s so much stronger than a dove. He has the blood of a brave lion,” I said as a warm smile spread across his face. “I might love him more than you, Max.”

            He chuckled and embraced me in his arms, “That’s okay, as long as you still love me.”

            When our baby came, Max was so happy and everything was perfect.

            He was a beautiful baby boy with soft brown eyes like his father’s. We named him Jasper and he never cried when Max held him.

            The first few days were so wonderful. I watched Max smile everyday and little Jasper wave his arms and kick his little feet.

            We were the happiest we had ever been until I woke up one day and my baby would not.

            I remember holding his cold little body, cool as glass against mine and whimpering alone until Max found me.

            My sister told me to try again, that *SIDS happened all the time, but I was not ready and neither was Max.          

            I would always dream of our baby. I would dream that I was looking for him while he cried in the great glass castle. I could always see Jasper through the hundreds of layers of glass with his little arms outstretched for me. I would run and run towards him, but there was always a glass wall between us and he would wail as I realized that there was no way to him. Every dream tore deeper into my soul and it hurt more each night.

            Max told me that I had started to sleepwalk and cry at the same time. I never told him what my dreams were about, but I was sure that he knew. Sometimes, I woke up when he picked me up into his arms to take me back to bed and I would feel salty tears running down my cheeks.

            “My poor little dove…” he would always say.

            One dark night, while I sleep walked, I put my foot down, but all that was there was an empty black space and I fell down the stairs. I woke up mid-tumble and screamed as I rolled and crashed into a wall. The glass shattered around me and shards cut through my skin like hundreds of little knives as the entire side of the house began to crack.

            I lay distorted on my back in pain and shock and could do nothing but watch the fine spidery cracks spread to the ceiling as the house began to shudder.

            Suddenly Max was over me, protecting me beneath him as the ceiling caved in and the rising sun made the crystal shards glisten blood red until they gave off rainbows of light, reminding me that my dream was all too real.

            My brave lion pulled me out of our shattering house and I watched it fall to the ground as if a furious beast had broken free of its bonds.

            “My little dove…my darling little dove…” he said as he held me and I saw the deep fear resurface in his eyes again. It felt like death was still trying to strangle me and I could not speak, I could not reassure my lion that I was fine because I did not feel fine. I did not feel safe.

*SIDS = Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

            He carried me to a quiet little cottage, deeper in the woods. My eyes questioned him as he told me that it was where he used to live and I let him bring me inside.

            It was a comforting little home, a home that I would have loved, but all I saw was glass…A loyal dog of crystal, a sparkling statue, a slumbering cat of cool glass, an outstretched swan with wings of transparent feathers, a delicate butterfly, a glass dove in flight, as if attempting to escape…and I began to scream.

            I sprinted out of the cottage barefoot, farther into the dark woods as Max followed me. Anything…anything to get away from the molten sand that threatened to forever hold me, melt over my skin until I was an untouchable statue. I ran until I could not breathe, I ran until I was sure that the crashing waves of crystal could no longer imprison me, I ran until I could no longer run.

            Max caught me as I stumbled and for a long moment, I lay still and lifeless in his arms. There were violet black bruises all over my body like a monster had attacked me; bloody cuts all over like a monster had torn into me.

            Max held me and kept quiet as I cried. I did not know why I was afraid.

            All I knew was that I missed my baby.

            I fell asleep in his embrace and woke up in a small bed with his arms still entwined around me, protecting me.

            I opened my eyes from a dreamless aching sleep and suddenly my body went rigid as I realized that we were in the same cottage. I began to panic, a scream welling up in my throat as memories tried to strangle me. Max woke up beside me and pulled me close, seeing the fear in my eyes.

            “Shhh…It’s okay,” he whispered soothingly to me as I frantically looked around, my eyes fluttering to every corner. All the glass from the night before was now gone.

IV

            Max quit his job for me because I was so afraid of molten sand and cool glass. He began to stay home more and seemed fine, but I knew that there was something wrong. Max had changed as I had after living in that glass prison and the fear in his eyes had worsened.

            He started sitting by the open door with a rifle in his lap, waiting as he stared off into the distance. He began to tell me that the monster had taken away our baby and that now it was trying to take me.

            If only I had known that it was trying to take him.

            Every night, he would sit in his chair as moonlight reflected off of his rifle in the dark and I would watch and worry about him until I fell asleep.

            The monster took our only baby away, he would say and he said it so much that I sometimes I would believe him.

            Sometimes I would believe that the monster was real.

But maybe it was.

            I woke up once from a nightmare in a cold sweat and found his chair empty. I panicked and went around the cottage looking for him. I felt my heart clench in fear and my breath come short. When I realized I could not find him, I lay on the floor, next to his chair until he came back with dark circles under his eyes. He had not been sleeping. He had been leaving me every night. I could tell by the glazed look in his eyes.

            “Stop leaving me, Max,” I begged him one day, but he just looked at me and shook his head.

            “I have to look for the monster, so that you’ll always be safe…So you won’t leave me like our baby left us…like my friends left me.” He had a wild look in his eye and he made me believe that he was close to finding this monster.

            So I let him go, afraid of what would happen if I did not and at the same time, what would happen if I did.

            “He really is crazy!” my sister said over the phone.

            “…But so am I,” I said and I hung up on her.

V

            One not so very special day, Max did not come back.

            For some reason, I was not surprised. I knew it when I felt my body go numb as I woke up to find his chair permanently empty.

            My sister called me over and over and the phone kept ringing, but I could not hear it. I could only hear each painful beat of my heart, each searing breath that filled my lungs.

            “He’s gone, isn’t he?” she asked when she finally flew over and opened my door to find me crumpled on the floor. I did not reply and continued to lie on the floor, staring at his chair.

            On the day of the funeral, I walked out into the rain and did not walk towards town. I walked the opposite way in nothing but a nightgown.

            I did not go to the funeral because it was not his, because I knew that the body in the silk-lined casket was not him. It was not my lion. It was not my Max.

            I walked through the trees and over hills as the rain pelted onto my skin, stinging me and reminding me of the day glass had rained down on us.

            I found a dark cave next to the pond they said his body had been found in and walked into the darkness. He was still here…I could feel him. I walked for a while and called his name until I suddenly slipped. I screamed and fell into the lower part of the cave and saw nothing but black.

            A heavy depth of water pressed me down to the bottom of a pool of ice. Quickly, I pulled myself upwards and gasped, ice frosting my lungs. I swam forwards until sharp rocks began to prick my knees. I kneeled and shivered violently, still seeing nothing but a dark silence.

            As my eyes adjusted, I saw a glimmer of pale light ahead of me and I waded forwards as I cradled myself. The light eventually took the shape of a door and I frowned in confusion as I continued on.

            I froze and felt my heart stop when I saw a glass statue sitting upon an onyx surface. It was the glass lion with the dove upon his head that Max had given me long ago on the day he had proposed to me.

            “Max?” I called out.

            “I knew you would find me, my little dove,” I heard his voice say softly. I stepped forwards and felt ebony sand beneath my feet. I saw his dark silhouette against a glittering wall that reflected the glimmer of the inky water.

            “Max…”

            When I came next to him, I sat down as he took my hand. His whole body was cool and smooth like the glass that he always worked with. I leaned into him and felt my teeth chatter as my body protested the cold, but I did not care.

            “What are you doing here, Max?” I asked quietly, refusing to believe what my sister and so many others had tried to tell me. This was my Max. I could feel it in my veins as my heart matched up my soul to his like a puzzle piece.

            “I was waiting for you…”

            “But…but what about the monster?” …I believed in the monster now.

            “I didn’t find him, but I found something that will make us better,” he said as I traced his scar beneath my fingertips to make sure that he was real.

            He was. He was my Max.

            “See that door over there?” I nodded as he continued, “All we have to do is go through it and we’ll be together forever. We’ll be happy and the monster won’t be able to touch us ever again.”

            I felt my heart shudder and my soul chill as I understood his words and held his cold body against mine. “I don’t want to go there Max…” I said quietly.

            He stroked my cheek tenderly, “Don’t be afraid, my little dove, I’ve figured it out. This is why people leave…in war…in life…so that they can go somewhere else, to a different world where the monster can’t touch you anymore.”

            “But…” I was unsure and for the first time in my life, I doubted my lion.

            He saw my hesitation, “Jasper’s already there…” he said softly to me.

            My breath caught in my throat as I replied, “Our baby? You mean the monster didn’t take him?”

            “He did, but Jasper got away and now he’s waiting for us.”

            “You mean…we’ll be together…forever?” I questioned, my soul aching with hope.

            “Yes.”

            I was silent for a long moment and I felt my heart struggle in uncertainty.

            “Do you trust the lion, my little dove?” he asked as he stood up slowly, cradling me in his arms.

            He waited patiently and it felt like an eternity had passed before I could answer.

            “Of course, Max.” Because I did trust him, with all my heart like I always had.

            “Always and forever?” his deep voice asked.

            “Always and forever,” I replied and he carried me into the light.

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Hi Daisy.
Great story. The petite little woman falls in love with the large artist, his wares complete perfection in art and glass. Despite the objections of her family she marries Max and his apparent transparent world. Max, in his size and strength and capable hands, is terrified that the woman, his 'little Dove,' will one day leave him all alone, even after they're wed, and the concept seems unthinkable to her. The child is born and life is wonderful until SIDS takes the little boy away, leaving the girl and her 'Lion' alone together in grief and inevidable madness. He eventually runs away from her, seeking that monster he's been so frightened of, that monster of what seems to me to be the envy of everyone who knows of their happiness, and the monster takes him. She refuses to accept his death any more than the little boy's, ending up in the pool of darkness that took him, and she finds him. He has changed, he's no longer the same perfect man for her or that loving father to her son, not until he takes her hand and leads her to death's door, beyond which waits the little boy and eternity together with their child.

Excellent symbolism and prose. Characters and plot are superb. You sure have put some effort into your craft with this one, dear. If I may, I suggest that you describe the glass 'castle' a little more. Is it enormous, hiding behind a thick stand of trees, or is it relatively small, sitting at the edge of the forest near the cascading waves of the ocean, or even at the outskirts of town? The glass walls/panes that Max watches the world from, are they completely transparent or as cloudy and mysterious as the lion's nature? I also reccomend that you introduce the scar on Max's chest before you have the girl ask about it, rousing the question in the reader before the girl in the story asks about it. I guess I should gripe a little about your punctuation while on my lil' soapbox. Overuse of commas in your sentences can make the rythym a bit choppy and hard to follow. Plus it may make the text more enjoyable if you take all those paragraphs and combine them into sections of your story instead of making almost every sentence another paragraph. I hope you don't mind a little constructive criticism to a very compelling and unique piece.

Excellent work, Daisy! I hope to see some more from you. You certainly have a gift of placing the beauty of your thoughts down as the written word. BZ