By Amanda Stokes-Geddes
A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. It was conspicuous only for its lowly contrast to the sea of masterful architectures, challenging the firmament, communing with the sky. Their soaring heights, sweeping curves and sinuous columns growing effortlessly from the surrounding maze of sun-kissed roads and manicured nature, afire in the sunlight.
It brooded.
A single light, lit characteristically early, the dusk still barely scuffing the horizon, emerged humbly from an upstairs window. Inside a figure was pacing. Long forgotten. Dreaming.
The occupants of the other buildings flitted like fireflies in their shadows, arms laden with bags from candy coloured shops filled with promises, dreams and mostly illusions. They chattered to the wind, spirals of colour, sprites of eternal summer lifted on iridescent whispers of immortality.
They danced.
In the still sunlit streets, they danced, as the dusk slithered on the horizon.
The streetdancers barely noticed the squat grey parasite in their mist. It was a stubborn irritation kept firmly on the outskirts of their consciousness. A blot on an otherwise near perfect fresco of light.
A near perfect fresco, almost, but not quite.
There was ever a fence needing a dab of paint. A lawn edge that was a touch outgrown. Neatly paved paths would insistently sprout a weed or two but these were ruthlessly removed, smoothed, filled. Always admired. Still, perfect perfection was elusive. Sometimes it rained.
The hermit, pacing in the single lit window, paused. It’s bare feet, stopping briefly on sturdy floorboards, before continuing their circuitous motion silently around the sparse room.
The hermit benignly considered the fireflies as they flowed around their rivers of roads. It watched their startling vivacity, their circular energy. It observed their choreographed dance playing against their magnificent, cloud-defying backdrop.
It observed the subtle purples and orange-rimmed pewters framing the edges of the sky.
It considered.
The hermit’s apartness was obvious. This wild visage, this extravagance of vanities, fascinated it. Like theatre or soaring musical symphonies, it at once calmed and exhilarated the hermits mind, but the hermit was not, could never be, a part of it.
The hermit had tried.
On a brisk spring day, blossom snowing in the air, it had left its haunt. It had wandered, so briefly. The rainbow had parted; some sprites had looked on curiously; most looked on disparagingly. Many did not see it at all. The benevolent hermit began to drown in the technicolour wilderness and departed.
The fireflies, bobbing in their rivers, glanced at the horizon. Frowning, they noticed the bruised darkness lurking at the edge of the sky, the scar of red around its edges. The onset of dusk dimmed their spirits a little, the gradual hardening of the sun from beneficent orange to dull, fiery red threatened to spoil the aspect of their glowing world. The greens a little duller, the fountains glistening in their squares slowly fading to dull blues. Briefly, very briefly, they felt the oppression of evening. Unstoppable though, the shimmering façade arose victorious and fast. Lit by a million lights, bright enough to mimic the sun itself but in unimaginable rainbows of colours, it defied the fall of day. Almost completely restored to its eternal summer, it shimmered resplendent. The fireflies smiled at their own ingenuity.
The hermit considered.
It gathered tools from the corner of the room; it’s heavy overcoat from the peg and watched. The corners of the sky were marching in victorious, confident streaks into the foreground. The sun was melting from gold to a deep soft russet caressing the rooftops, making windows glow softly. Deepening mauves and platinums were replacing the vivid cyan of the afternoon sky. The spectacular scenes of wild movement transformed and gently muted. A tapestry undulating across the landscapes flowing, glinting, peaceful, almost sophoric, briefly appeared. Briefly.
The hermit winced as the artificial glow of millions of lights sliced the sky. A disturbing, painted mimicry of the sun. It was sharp edged, razor like, splintering the landscape. The dancers though looked on with delight, they marvelled in their artificial beauty stolen form the embrace of evening. They continued their eternal dance scattered amongst the lights.
The squat grey building blended with the shades of dusk. The buildings edges melted in the fading sunlight drifting into the landscape, absorbed by nature. The soft orange glow from the single, high up window flickered gently as candles and hearth light mingled into an ethereal glow. The dancers still danced, slower now, as night inevitably descended. Occasionally one glanced at the squat, grey building now barely visible against its backdrop. This seemingly impossible disappearing act pleased them; removed a spot from their impeccable canvas. Every once in a while a dancer spotted the movement of a figure in the non-descript upstairs window with the strange orange glow. Every once in a while one of the dancers wondered about the hermit beyond the ponderous grey walls.
But the moment passed in a twinkle, an indefinable pause in the dance, nothing more.
There were stories of course. How that odd building had come to be, why it stood there, nestled hauntingly into the backdrop, disguising its magnitude. Some said that it was deep, entering the very hillsides that it inhabited, almost eternal despite its unimpressive height. No one had ever investigated. No one remembered a time when it was not there. No one approached. There were rumours of colour sprites of old entering the doors and never returning. Nobody cared to find out if it were legend or truth. They simply looked away, Ignored its odd magnetism. Enjoyed their own lavish beauty.
At times, if truth were told, an occasional figure stopped. This rather spoiled the dance. They stopped abruptly though. In that terse moment, those beautiful sinuous towers seemed to cast deeper shadows than expected. Their bags became heavy, the endless round of beautifying pointless, and the indefinable ‘stuff’ imposing. Worse the squat grey building with its simple, rhythmic lines seemed almost lovely. Fortunately, this strange madness lasted only seconds. The other dancers would sweep by carrying the unfortunately misguided individual back into the swirling, circling hedonistic beauty and erasing the hapless musings of the previous moment.
That was the night of the storm.
The great swollen droplets of water dashed liberally from ponderous clouds. A furious wind scattered the dazzling illusion on which the sprites still fluttered. The darkness became tangible and thick, suffocating. The dance of the sprites altered. They became drops of paint on a sodden canvas, desperately, despairingly running. They ran to their domineering towers of enchantment, shivering, pulling thick curtains brightly sewn with scenes of spring across pounded window pains. They hid.
A few, left on the streets, blown like chaff by the merciless wind, soaked by the chill river from the sky, stopped. They looked around. Their surrounding transformed by gloom. Lost. Glancing upwards, they saw the squat grey building, closer than they recalled and suddenly comforting not menacing in the chill air. The great front door was open, lit with the same warm glow that emanated from the upstairs window. Oddly, on this threatening night, the glow penetrated the darkness profoundly, almost seeming to become the building. They stumbled toward it, stepped into the odd building and found comfortable refuge in one of its many rooms.
The hermit pulled on its overcoat and gathered the prepared tools into its arms. It marched into the cruel embrace of the night. The darkness did not see it. The darkness was too consumed by its own intensity. The hermit worked. It gathered litter from the street, righted all that was blown into disarray. Patched paintwork. Tidied lawns. Picked weeds. The hermit worked until beauty was restored and chaos banished. The hermit pursued and caught the elusive perfect perfection. Finally the hermit calmed and soothed the wind and the rain. The hermit returned to the squat grey building, dragging the dawn with it. Laying it gently across the façade.
The butterflies emerged from their beautiful cocoons. They congratulated themselves on the resilience of the beauty they had created. Stared with fresh eyes at its perfection marvelling at it.
The squat grey building, only thirty-four stories high but infinitely deep stood quietly to the north.
The hermit contemplated.
The occupants of the other buildings flitted like fireflies in their shadows, arms laden with bags from candy coloured shops filled with promises, dreams and mostly illusions. They chattered to the wind, spirals of colour, sprites of eternal summer lifted on iridescent whispers of immortality.
They emerged victorious from around the compass along the given roads. West, mostly west but from all the corners of the façade; south-south west, south-south-east, east…
The Stokes-Geddes Chronicles 