adieuswindows

Once upon a time there was a charming young man named Adieu. He lived in a cozy cottage in the air, high above the stars where the wind whistles sweetly. The little house had four windows and a door set into four strong and sturdy walls. The miniature house was safe and warm.

The young boy lived there in perfect contentment until one night when he woke from a delightful dream. In the dream Adieu saw many, many things. Good things and sweet things. He saw children with soft blond curls, graceful white horses with flowing manes, beautiful men and women with sparkling eyes and painted mouths and a multitude of creatures of all kinds living together under a pale blue sky. The little boy was overcome by the beauty of the landscape. A heavy perfume hung in the air, thick and fragrant. The fields were lush and green; sprinkled with brightly colored wildflowers and the tree branches hung low with the weight of luscious fruit. A cool breeze swept over the land and up into the sky to kiss the stars and lick at the luminescent moon. Each night before he lay down to drift off to plum tree dreams Adieu gazed longingly at the moon. He wondered what existed there and longed to visit such a beautiful place.

When Adieu awoke from his dream he knew that he must someday reach the moon, that perfect world of loveliness. He sat and pondered for days; existed without food or sleep, cocooning within himself a creation. Within his mind he was forming a world, one more fragrant and more perfect than the one in his dreams.

On the sixth day as the moon rose full in the sapphire sky Adieu realized what he must do. His gray eyes sparkled like diamonds as he put on his blue cloak. He picked up a sliver handled mirror and with a determined and jubilant smile hurled it through the window. The lucid glass shattered into a million tiny fragments, some splintering into twinkling shards on the floor at his feet. Adieu cried out in glee as he climbed out the broken window into the sky. . .

Down he fell, past the stars. Down and down, past the clouds. Adieu thought he would never reach the moon. He feared he would be lost forever between the sky and his home. Down and down he fell, finally landing with a thud. He picked himself up and dusted himself off as he gazed around in horror.

This putrid scene was nothing like the loveliness of his dreams. The children had dark knotted hair and grotesque faces, their deformities too hideous to describe. The fields were dry and brown and no flowers grew. The trees were thick and bent, and their branches bore small green fruit, wormy and inedible. The strong pale horses of Adieu's dream were stout donkeys, tired and dirty. The men and women lay around in the dead grass, their dull eyes staring into nothing their jaws slack behind pale mouths. The sky was an caustic yellow and the massive clouds were heavy and gray. The air was heavy with the heat of the afternoon, the world was dry and hot. And the stench. . . it was like nothing Adieu had ever smelled before. A mixture of sulfur, lye, rotting flesh and manure, all glorified by the heat of the day. The land was overcome by a putrid odor, it was hardly breathable.

Adieu ripped his cloak form his sweaty form and threw himself into the murky pool at his feet. He emerged from the swampy mire hotter and sticker than before. Adieu tossed his limp body in to the dusty grass and wept. His only comfort the pale moon glowing dimly in the smoky sky. Presently, the ground around Adieu became wet with his tears and he sat up, gasping for a breath of fresh air in the scorching afternoon.

The heat and the dirt and the grease and grime had become too much for Adieu. He let his tiny body be washed over with waves of despair. Little Adieu became like the rest of the creatures, unseeing and unknowing. He took the smoky acrid air into his lungs as if it were the cool air of his dreams. His eyes grew dull and gray and his jaw fell slack. He trudged over the barren fields in search of a cool shady place to escape the eternal heat, but found nothing but blistering heat and mud and hopelessness.

For many years Adieu walked the dry fields of the hell in which he found himself, finding nothing but the same dry landscape day after day. Until one greasy evening he found himself at the edge of a cliff that tunneled down in to darkness. He had long since lost any hope of a cooler, softer more beautiful world and so he threw himself into the greasy, sooty sky.

Up he flew into the clouds and past the twinkling stars back to his little cottage in the air. As Adieu climbed in through the broken window he felt the sting of a fresh cut on his bare chest. When he looked down he saw a small shard of glass lodged in his breast, directly above his tiny heart, and smiled. The blood mixed with the dirt on his skin and the tears which flowed from his glassy eyes. Adieu lay down on his soft bed and as he drifted off to sleep it could be heard. . . the sound of his heart breaking into a million tiny fragments.

The rain began to patter against the tin roof of Adieu's cottage as the little boy fell away into an perpetual sleep, never to awake. The remaining windows of Adieu's cottage shattered and fell into the universe as the walls melted away and the little boy drifted off skyward, his eyes open wide.

I long to live forever on the moon beneath a sea of stars . . . forever in the darkness, and in the darkness just a twinkle.