Let Me Tell You a Story (I)

Let me tell you a story.

Now pay attention, please. What I’m about to tell you is true, though none of it is real.

If you’re lucky you might find something you like; if not, perhaps you can celebrate with the mice as they toast kitty’s new friend, Scraps the beagle.

“Living without you, living alone”

Years ago – a long, long way back – there was a girl. Her name was Laney (it’s a nice name, though not one you’d ever figure out, maybe, unless you’re Laney.) Laney was very pretty. She was pretty the way a china doll, resting against a sleepy pillow, sits and makes everything around it seem just a little bit…tarnished. Believe it or not, Mr. Stuffmyface – who wasn’t afraid of anything – shivered now and again whenever that china doll, who’s name is Ms. Chips, looked in his direction.

Laney was that kind of beautiful.

She also had a wonderful heart. It was soft (and some say a bit mushy) and very fragile. She had to protect it but sometimes she didn’t. And when she didn’t she would cry. It was an aching thing to see her cry. The tears would be big, thick drops that would avalanche across the gentle curves and lines of her face.

No one liked to see Laney cry; and those that did were big, fat, meanies who ate uncooked worms (no one eats uncooked worms!)

“This empty house seems so cold “

When I came on the scene, an actor with a flair for insane, it was with prompt and immediate attention that I fell desperately in love with Laney.

Some poor bard should have warned her.

It was wonderful. Hours on the transceiver, whispered affections that tickled our fancy all through the long nights and days of that fateful youthful year.

It was as if something had finally clicked inside my heart. Something that I had watched in the talkies, scene (that was deliberate) in the theatre(er), had whispered too across the radio waves of yesterday.

“Wanting to hold you, wanting you near”

Laney saw it, and felt it, too.

One fateful night in a clumsy fumbling of delicate petals and fearful buttons a blossom was unleashed.

If you listen very closely you can still hear it. Wait…just for a minute…wait. Yes, that sound, right there. Don’t speak, don’t move. Just…listen.

She held my hand afterwards. Kissed my face. Touched my heart. The scar is still there. It burns quite frequently but the Fairy of Painful Scars says if I sing it will make the pain go away. For just a little while.

I really, really, really loved the softness of her neck. It was miraculous.

“How much I wanted you home “

Even though this never happened, maybe, I still hold those days (yes, they were only measured in days, how sadly we ask for years) so close to my heart that I only take them out on very, very special nights. Nights when the Valkyrie unsheathe their blades, cry havoc, and dart the sky with fire and lightning. When the blossoms bloom in winter and the tragic – and some say, epic – tales of Valar carry the weight of the world upon back and upon mind.

When you kiss your loved one tonight, think of this tale, tragedy and comedy, and hold them close. Laney smiles. A heart breaks. But love, love is never forgotten.