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A Burning Orange
The solitary light dominated the landscape itself. Through an endless terrain of rock, hills, and canyon, carved out by rivers and tides, extinct for ages, the small oval of brightness guided man back to the familiarity of civilization.
On the smooth outcropping, tediously braving the grand depths of the air below, appeared a weathered dwelling. It could have been mistaken for a lodge amidst the mammoth forms of the high desert in Arizona or Utah, the peeling wood sides reflecting an empty sky, completely alien to the seemingly indestructible surroundings. A woman sat in a sturdy and carved chair, beneath the white light, and periodically gazed up from a book across the vast chasm. The intensity in her eyes in contrast to her comfortable posture and delicate face. Almost as if she was expecting something to happen, an air of disappointment would vibrate the chair, as she could not find what she was looking for.
A simple dress hugged her form and cascaded down the graceful body. Her usually yellow blonde hair, turned a strawberry shade from the almost luminescent orange hue of the rocks. She looked down at her right hand in wonderment and lifted the delicate fingers towards the sky. For the millionth time, she wondered why there was no perspiration. Though the night at leveled off at a scorching 95 degrees, the breeze would touch her and escape with the precious moisture. Slicing out a piece of her in the process and disrupting the normal balance her being enjoyed.
No where else in her lifetime had she experienced such a dead wind, that could turn the surrounding dramatic vistas into plain vanilla ice cream. Surprisingly, goose bumps formed on her arms and she shivered as her eyes met the low blue-twinged star in the far off horizon.
After reading in relative silence for a while, she looked at her watch and decided to end the evening. She turned off the light and luxuriously creaked her way on the worn floor and into the main room. The simply furnished enclosure was cozy, yet deftly empty. The orange presence of the landscape filtered though the windows and reflected off a few of the photographs on the coffee table, almost giving the subjects the appearance of deities. She slowly flowed towards the table and stopped just short of the adjacent leather couch. The whole room lacked a necessary ingredient of femininity and comfort. There were no flowers or plants. This notion caused much frustration and disappointment, however the logical part of her mind knew that roses, carnations and even dandelions were not possible, because of the heat and the lethal breeze. During the hot season, life was just not fair. She gave the couch a correctional bump with her hip and took a leisurely glide towards the bedroom with a soft sigh on her lips.
For minutes, she stood in the doorway looking as her eyes panned over the empty bed. Her hand lay ready on the light switch. With similar skill to a master marksman in anticipation of a target, she waited to transform the room to reality once again. The switch clicked with a sharp “snap” and she was relieved to see that everything was how she had left it.
Over at the little table next to her side of the bed, her eyes met her own in the circular mirror. She was taken aback as the usually jade green eyes that looked at her, contained a hint of pumpkin. “Was I drinking earlier,” she asked herself.
“That wasn’t it,” she further pondered the inner reaches of her mind.
“Maybe I was crying with a bit of sentiment,” the sarcasm rushed through her thoughts as she played the little game with herself.
“Don’t be foolish” she muttered wearily. “Everything’s a bit of a peach color here. That’s just how it is.”
After checking to see if she was still beautiful, satisfied, with twist of the neck here and a twirl of the hair there, she noticed something. She stopped and peered back at the face in the mirror. The lips were in a flat line, with no energy or emotion. “When was the last time I smiled,” she questioned the room.
“I can’t remember,” came the reply from the mirror.
She tenderly walked to the side of the bed and sat down. For months the other side had been left untouched. Like the exhibit of a museum, things stood their place in time with no outside interference. The books, the clock with the glasses on top and the lamp, all remained silent and with a dusting of orange. Even the other pillow lay in an awkward pose and not synonymous with the tidiness of the rest of the room. She had endured enough for another evening and quickly turned off the room light from a switch beside the bed. The hackles of her neck rose and fear caroused through her body. Quickly she realized that never before had she attempted to turn off the bedroom light unless safely amidst the comforting properties of the sheets and very near the borders of sleep. Frightened, she focused her eyes on the empty side of the bed, as the murmur of the cliffs danced into the room.
A sparkle came from the far side of the sacred pillow. Even though the wondrous glint was soft and pleasing to the back of her eyes, she sat petrified, not knowing who or what had invaded the room. Very cautiously, she stood up and slinked through the thick jeweled air as the excitement grew from within. The pulsating colors going crazy like a violent disco ball as she tripped around the corner of the bed and continued towards the shape and the pillow. Her instincts told her to capture whatever was there, and her hand shot out with an unexpected boldness towards the sea of oranges and reds. A feeling of cold and icy deja vu rushed to her mind as she closed her fingers around a seemingly familiar object. How she had never noticed this before, bothered her, but there were more pressing matters at hand that had to be taken care of. Quickly she reached for the light as her mind probed the sensations from the searing nerves of her hand.
As normal light returned to the room, she could see the ordinary curves and lines of a preserve jar. Inside the glass world, there was no blackberry jam, but a green rusted tree slowly regaining its evergreen color. The wispy and confident needless pointed at her, fresh and true. She held the jar until her arm trembled as she stared contentedly at the seedling with admiration and wonderment. The jet black earth in the bottom of the jar so thick and precious like a rich soft paste of molasses. The fledgling fir carefully existing in the nurturing mass of alluvial delight.
Emotions and nostalgia reached into her soul as she extended the jar above her head, so she could look into the heights of the tree from below. The gift was so simple, yet so right. She sat on the bedside and pulled the treasure up to her face until it almost touched her nose.
She almost envied the sapling, safe in its familiar world, safe from the dead winds, only to be freed and allowed to grow and flourish in the cliffs when the time was right. The pure thought of how long that would be until it was reality, when the water made everything right, left her with a feeling of hopelessness. “It better happen in my lifetime,” she thought.
Night continued and she decided to do one last inspection on the treasure, before going to sleep. Once again she looked up and down the lanky, yet strong branches with the jar still inches from her nose. The whole scene took her back to her childhood. The forests made walls around her as far as her eyes could see. A feeling of insignificance strong, and her neck aching from searching for the sun and the violet sky. Her body cheered as she found a patch of air empty from the imposing needles and heavy greens. “What was that in the pale blueness, words?” her mind searched for an answer.
Words appearing in the sky were not part of her well known memory, and slowly she realized that both reality and dreams were overlapping each other. She concentrated hard to venture into the present and focused her being on the inside lid of the jar, directly above the young tree on some scribbled text.
The phrase was not difficult to interpret as she had already been looking from below the tree in an attempt to fuel her soothing trances. The hand writing was poor, but familiar and her body tightened. She undergone the arduous, but enjoyable task of deciphering it so many times during the last ten years.
“January 5, 2020,” it read.
“Dear Catherine, Your smile is everything. Smile for yourself. Smile for me. Smile for the world. Love, David.” Her body shook.
Almost as if the weight of time and disappointment had been lifted, the woman slowly replaced the glass jar on the side the pillow. She extinguished the lights and began the difficult journey. Her ongoing conflict between bitter sweetness and sorrow dissipated into the dry air and her muscles ached as she tried to do something she had not felt in eternity. Almost surreal in the odd orange glint, soft lips slowly turned up in the corners and the white teeth began to show like creamsicles. For the first time in years the woman laughed and with her joy the sound of thunder grumbled high in the sky.
Halfway across the world a group of workers in a colony of tents near one of the newly dug great canals, awoke suddenly to paradise. For the first time in billions of years it began to rain on Mars. Diamond beads of precious liquid droplets gently sliding down the city sized machines. The horrid breeze was replaced by a life filled gust of pleasing wind.
“Darn that Cathy,” muttered one of the men. “She finally found her gift.”
Her smile touched them all and he knew he could soon return to the home by the cliff and plant the tree behind the house. In one of the most insignificant reaches of the Milkyway’s dissipating arms, waves of the extraordinary occurrence dispersed into fields of burning candles. Man was now ready to reach for the kindred embrace of the stars.
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