Stories need a roof over their heads too
The dryad is dreaming of different days.
Days under a different sun and wind-kissed skies.
Days when the world was young, unbound, and carefree, full of laughter. Filled with endless fields of wildflowers and of butterflies twirling in the breeze. She’s dreaming of trees swaying to the tune the old gods once breathed into the world.
“Dirty minds think alike.
I wouldn’t know, of course,” the man adds quickly, downplaying the truth lurking behind his eyes.
He swallows the whiskey — dry throat, sure, but mostly to buy a few seconds of respite and invite a counter-quip.
She plays along. Out of appetite, not because it’s the right thing to do. “So, we can add thought-diviner to your list of skills,” she jibes playfully.
The fortune teller sits alone, shoulders bunched, back hunched, forlorn, watching passersby, eyes pleading, begging someone to ask her a question. Any question. The question that matters.
“Who am I?” they ask, staring into the mirror.
A distinctly human set of green-blue eyes is staring back, face framed with long hair the color of sun-bleached straw, alabaster skin undershot with blue veins, the gleaming, cold, metallic jaw at odds with the otherwise precisely sculpted visage.
He leans back, the leather chair upholstery softly creaking as he shifts his weight. Chin rested on his fist, elbow leaning on the armrest – the 21st century 8-bit-spawned equivalent of Rodin’s thinker – he scrutinises his beauties, one by one, the nine big panels arranged in a 3×3 grille. There’s nothing else in his field of vision. He has painstakingly sanitised the space to eliminate distractions so he can concentrate on who he’s watching. Obsessions have a process too.
It doesn’t play out in slow motion. Life rarely does. There is no pause, rewind or fast-forward, no matter how badly you’d wish for them.