Beauty in Passing

This is a very short, surreal piece of almost-flash fiction (it's about 100 words too long to really count as such) that I wrote roughly three years ago. It was inspired by, of all things, a writing prompt I'd stumbled across on Twitter. 

Many writers can recount to you a moment of blazing inspiration, where words leap to mind and you have to write them down. This was one such moment for me, and I enjoyed crafting this odd little tale. It is, as all flash fiction should be, a snapshot, the briefest of glances into a larger world, yet self-contained in a little world of its own. 

All my rambling aside, I hope you enjoy...

Beauty in Passing

I lay there, on the bank of that river, gazing up at the celestial canopy that shimmered over my head. My head swam at its enormity. My feet dangled in the cool, deep water, the languorous current swirling lazily through my toes. It was surreal, it was intoxicating. I can't say how long it was that I lounged on the grass in that place while the stars wheeled by overhead.

They sparkled so brilliantly I could see clearly the darkened places wherein floated the twin moons, both devoid of the bright light given to them by the sun. I was struck by the desire to brush my hand across the starscape, to feel its warmth caress my fingertips, to rustle across my palm like silk. In that moment, all was right. I was the happiest I'd been in a long time. My cares had washed downstream, my wife and my best friend. Their treachery could not touch me here, not now. Despite my desire to continue staring at the stars, I closed my eyes. I inhaled deeply, smelling the fragrant grass, the musk of the nearby trees in bloom, the thirst-inducing mist of the river.

Truly, I couldn't be any happier.

Across the river, somewhere upstream to my left, there came a sound. It was long and mournful, a sweet, sad note that drifted across the water to drag me away from my reverie. I opened my eyes. The stars still hung, red and purple, overhead. The river still intertwined with my toes. The grass still ticked my flesh where it was bare, arms, legs and neck. But the joy, the serenity, was gone. I lay my head to the left, searching for the source of the note. The trees across the river, their pale bark luminous in the starlight, revealed nothing beneath their ebony leaves. Still the note persisted, an impossibly long tone that seemed to tell a story all its own.

I felt the world fall away, the deep violet grass and black crystalline water, even the pale-skinned trees. They all faded into nothingness. At last, I could see the source of the haunting note. Far away, drifting slowly toward me, was the slender form of a woman. Clutched in her hands was a long flute, pressed to her lips.

She was tall and thin, her skin smooth, white like porcelain. She wore only a white slip, which fluttered oddly in the ocean of stars. Her eyes were closed, yet all the same I felt as though she were staring at me. Ever so slowly we drifted together, I luxuriating in the motion and sound, she playing her flute with singular purpose. She was above me, her raven hair bobbing gently in the breeze. As we passed, her eyes opened.

If I had seen serenity before, I had now seen rapture. Her eyes were blue, not the light blue of the sky, or of delicate blue flowers. The deep, infinite blue of the sea in all its glory. Sun-dazzled plains, foam-crested waves, the deep gray-blue of the ocean in storm. All these sensations poured into my mind until it ached, my ears ringing with the sheer majesty I spied within those orbs. She closed her eyes, tearing me away from the midnight blue microcosm she seemed to hold within.

A cool droplet spattered my cheek. A curious sensation in a world composed purely of starlight. Then another, and I realized they were tears.

Her tears.

A third caressed my face before she was beyond my reach. I didn't understand. How could someone, filled with all the beauty and grandeur of the cosmos, be so despairing? I reached out for her, trying to comfort her. But on she drifted, skimming past my outstretched hand toward the sparkling canvas of suns and stars, beautiful in their crimson glow. I too began to weep, now lost beyond her grasp.

Still the flute played, low and wistful in the radiant sky. My body reacted strangely to the sound, there coming a tingling sensation to my legs and arms. Then my neck as well. Finally, the fingers of my left hand felt cool, up to my palm. When I shook them, water splashed across my cheek. I turned to look and saw that my fingers rested in the river, returned now from wherever it had gone when I had heard that flute. So too had the grass come back, now tickling my ear. I sat up, searching all around. I didn't hear the flute playing. Nor did I see any sign of the young woman.

I gazed across the slow, black river swirling in red starlight, toward the copse of trees. Against the nearest pale trunk there leaned an object, long and thin, darker in the celestial radiance than the tree. It was her flute, I realized, my mind slowing to a leaden crawl. It sat alone, now a silent piece of wood, from whence had formerly issued the softest, most melancholic song to ever be played. From the flute's resting place, through the soft grasses to the bank of the river, I could see two rows. Shallow tracks where the dark purple carpet had been bent by the passing of a single pair of feet.

I turned over, my face now piercing the veiled depths of the languorous stream for any sign of my companion. There was none. Though she had left behind one final token. Dappled upon my right cheek were three perfectly round, white spots, in a line beneath my cheekbone. My reflection became blurred as tears stung my eyes, finally collecting enough to fall into the river with a tiny ripple to mark their passing.

I dipped my hands in first, the chilled ebony waters running smoothly across them. I pulled myself off the bank and into the water. Overhead, the vermilion stars shimmered silently as I resurfaced. My only goal now was to retrieve the flute that sat silently against the tree across the river. It was mine now.

It had to be.

I began to swim, hearing once more its insistent note in my ears. The edges of the world seemed to blur as I went on. The river seemed much wider than it had before, stretching away into infinity as I kept going. Despair trickled into my mind, down to my soul.

Had I been a fool to swim the river, breaking its obsidian surface to reach the other bank? I could not say. I could not even remember why I had entered the river in the first place. I turned over on my back, gazing up at the silent scarlet stars, the twin moons staring back from their shadowed alcoves as they too drifted aimlessly.