Short Story : Scar


The rain rolled down in translucent drizzles.The streets were nearly deserted.It was three in the morning and the privileged Paris was sleeping under warm covers.Outside,the street lights were still illuminating the coyly reluctant,drenched alleyways.The people in masks,or the masks in people made their way through the Masquerade Ball.It was her highness's long awaited day.The 25th birthday of her skin.The 200th birthday of the ancient Belgian Rum.The 4.6 billionth birth of stardust in yet another soul.

The Glasses of Clairette exchanged quick glances against their sad,nearly inexpressive eyes.
The soggy backstreet of Naples glared greedily at the poverty stricken,nearly visible sky.The crowded slums of Scampia were filled with spit,blood and urine.Another birth,another cry,another monsoon stabbing the mother's heart.She looked at her newborn on her side and stared at the reflection of the flying curtains occasionally giving birth to a heavy,grey,wall-enclosed sky on the mirror's womb.The 6 inch of limitless painted her soul in shades of bright,vivid colours.It easily imparted the notion of an otherwise being existent.A petty otherwise of 85 days of Minestra and Risi e Bisi.An otherwise existent somewhere amidst the sky,even beyond,somewhere - at some time...unknown.

The Riedel goblets clinked,a dizzy child searched through the empty dustbins in eternal curiosity.The Balmain gowns and stilettos hit the floor,the rags stammered to the chilly wind.The soft matte peachy lips seduced the Blanc de Noirs,the dry,lifeless skin and flesh paved the way for their men to unravel bloody secrets.They cried inside,laughed it off cathartically instead.The unfed babies,the helpless mother,the bleeding wife,the dirty beds,the tattered curtains screamed silently under the terrorised circumstances that time so blatantly placed imposing their chronology.The streets,after all,in all the dusks and dawn that had come and were yet to come led to an empty,vaccant sky.

A song walked down beside the drizzle,constantly whispering,comforting the streets with his canvas and brushes.His beard hung longer than it usually did within men who went to jet sets in Paris.His hair looked untidy,his dress was way too loose against his diminutive stature.His eyes were mirrors,of more than his own soul.They held out the world,a world within worlds,a thousand mirrors within one,a shadow of a reflection,a gnarl beneath a sigh,a gentle fire amidst an eternal spring.
He stood beside the enormous glass windows and gazed.And spoke to his canvas.The canvas absorbed the poetry in his eyes and in return,he smiled.A strange smile - with a speckle of sorrow amidst the joyride.A hint of thought amidst a sea of untamed satisfaction.Nobody noticed him and that hardly had an impact on him.
Gravitation at its best,memory as when particles conglomerate,visions met.
The lady looked up,the lady whose skin was celebrating its 25th birthday,leaving behind the 4.6 billion of her soul.Their eyes met,as dawn struck night,as light struck light.A steady flow went through her,like a rush that would demolish the house of cards she had built with care.It had to be Yonnes,it couldn't have been anyone else.
The painter in rags,who was Yonnes in real or Yonnes in her mind looked through the glass of the window and that in her hise for one tenth of a second and passed.Reflection sighed.The lady in the red Balmain gown,with matte peach Yves Saint Laurent lips,diamonds in her hair - who smelt of La Collection Courteur Perfume more than she did like a woman,acted like a living organism for the first time in many times that passed in between.She rushed through the crowd,she didn't care if they were offended of her being devoid of a courteous "Excuse Me."She was a wingless butterfly now,a broken marble rolling down the alleyways of a diseased era,suspense was the rule here and memory,the threat ; seduction - cursory.She hardly cared.She hardly heard,she hardly thought.She felt like a moth feels about the bright yellow warriors of destruction and ignorance who,at times,also looked at the coyly gazing,half-wet streets and lit them up eternally.She had to rush,Yonnes...after 11 years.Yonnes..he had come.Those eyes..she strolled wildly,her hair flying in all directions in the wind.The chilly morning didn't take away her warmth,it was warm within.Life took birth.

Artist unknown.

As she walked around like a madwoman on the streets,of the sort who picked at garbage bins in the slum where she had grown up at Naples - where the broken mirror would give birth to a 6 inch sky in its womb murmered inside the fragments of her tantalised memory.
She kept walking,the Masquerade ball never noticed.It was early morning now and a few people were already taking to the streets.Middle class couples who went around for morning walks,shopkeepers dusting paintings,books and music records filled her apparent vision.Inside,it was only Yonnes who painted the vibrance of her gown,her matte peach lips,her deep brown eyes,her hair flying in the wind.As she kept walking in a daze,she could feel Yonnes inside and out,all over her,the gown lost its weight - it was in the middle of being and not being existent.She followed light.
In the illumination that fills the hallow of the meeting of a night and a day,a street musician had laid out his cashbox and singing as if he had been entitled to his old,scratched Acoustic without a brand label aside music,he went on 

"So look into my face Marie-Claire
And remember just who you are
Then go and forget me forever
But I know you still bear
the scar, deep inside, yes you do

I know where you go to my lovely
When you're alone in your bed
I know the thoughts that surround you
'Cause I can look inside your head..."

Further footsteps towards oblivion.Further births towards being born...





Disclaimer : The song is 'Where Do You Go To My Lovely' by Peter Sarstedt.


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