She came as a butterfly breeze. As of wings displacing air. As of a kiss upon a cheek.
We met in a club, or a pub, or just in the street? The details are as vague as the notes of her perfume; possibly jasmine, though lavender masks the realm of ghosts. We talked about nothing as everything went on around us, cooing like doves on a branch. Nobody paid us any attention. Then again, why would they have?
Time passed in shadows and light. Time does that, it passes. We stepped between the two like the ethereal lovers we were, eyes locked and hearts reaching. And, for a moment in the night, we connected. One beautiful moment. One that, for our kind, lasts forever. I hope. I pray.
She is my butterfly. I am her cocoon.
I seek the air she occupied nightly. Some deep midnights, I even feel her there, too. I cannot see her, and her perfume fades, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still holding hands and kissing. Does it?
For one brief instant in this space termed death, where she and I found each other in the midst of those still living, we lived too. I shall not forget it. I shall not forget her.
My one wish: That I dreamt her and not that she dreamt me.
I watched her emerge from the nocturnal river like a perfect pearl. Naked, she was, confused and unchaperoned. A first new life form in aeons. She shimmered for all to see. A miracle. My last hope.
Her beauty outshone the eternal darkness, like the world’s most perfect black rose giving birth to a solitary milk-white petal. She glistened brighter than any star. She dazzled. I was dazzled.
I approached with trepidation, a gliding shadow, and spoke as a mistral wind. “You… Are… Everything…”
“I am nothing.”
The starkness and speed of her response stalled me.
“I have done nothing.”
This time, I was prepared. I decided a direct approach was best.
I closed about the world, about her. “For the first time in eternity, I wished to be seen.”
Her hands fell from her modesty to reveal herself completely. Her eyes appeared to lose their glaze. She smiled. My heart melted.
“I am betrothed.”
I fled.
No star could find me. The spotlight moon illuminated without reason or rhyme. The sun did its best to fill the void. An armada of rainbows searched for my dark gold. Only the rivers had an inkling, as they swept into the deepest sea. Those in the abyss felt the loss, but had never truly experienced my all to begin with.
None would find me, for I was hardest to find by light.
I travelled the earth, and then the starways, and then more. I was everywhere and nowhere, but I never once dared her beauty again: she would have torn my obsidian soul apart. Until…
“Hello.” A soothing soprano.
“I thought my time had passed.”
“It is just beginning.”
I opened one eye to the opaque twin wonders of her own. “You see me?”
“I felt you first.”
“You found me. Me! The unseen!” I sounded like a revealed small child having hidden in a cupboard from a strict parent. “You are the first.”
“I have. I am.”
“How? It is my destiny to go unnoticed. To allow others to shine.”
“My need is greater than theirs.”
“What need?”
“To fulfil yours.”
“You rebuked me?”
“I knew not who you were.”
“But you do now.”
“Everyone does, now.”
I grimaced. “That bad, eh?”
She nodded. A tendril-like strand of hair wiped a tear from her cheek. My breath caught.
“They half need you, whereas I want you fully.”
“You need the lake, the river, the sea. You are born of water and must ever there remain.”
“Sometimes, but not always. I must slip beneath the starshine surface and embrace my creator. I am lost without him. Lost without you. This world is too bright. Too loud. I need the quiet of the…
“Don’t say my name,” I interjected.
“…Night.”
The cape of nothingness slipped from my shoulders, and I stood revealed before her. She smiled anew.
“Now there is only us,” she said, as we slipped beneath the surface into the cool, dark, wet.
The End
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They differ to us substantially. The most apparent of these is their appearance. We stand upon two legs, make our way through a tactile world with two hands and regard our universe through two eyes. In a more direct description, we are paired. This pairing navigates beyond the physical into the realms of belief. We believe we should live our lives in pairs, couples, if you will, so we do. We are a species who thrive in the plural. A species must thrive if it wishes to endure.
They exist in the singular, derived from a singular entity, one that split to spawn many. Wherever possible, they refrain from interaction and keep to themselves. They live alone, talk alone and enjoy doing so. Physically, we are comparable, but they do not see it this way. They look through two eyes, but act as though looking through none. They have two legs, but refuse to use them unless necessary. Their paired arms and hands have become so conjoined with technology, they have become indistinguishable from the greater whole.
Their name? They have many names and many subsets. They dislike being classified as many and prefer singular — as is their way — identification. My colleagues term them vermin, but the correct and almost forgotten genus is human. They are a strange lot, yet as a scientist, I find them intriguing. Though at their present rate, I suspect I shall not for much longer.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
I am undone, dissolved, wiped from this world like a ghost from a photo. I have nothing left to give, except for my soul. Is it enough?
A cool wind chills them all, whilst I feel nothing. There is no pleasure, no fear, no love, no suggestion of self, and yet I want more than ever.
Chasing rainbows has become a pursuit. I glide over these reversed smiles, refusing to look back at such multicoloured miseries. Is God watching?
I was once a man with a life, wife, and daughter. When I lost them, I know not. How I’ll find them, who knows. This may be my penance for sins foul and false, yet to them all, I remain clueless.
The night gathers in swirls of gloom. The stars pop out of existence like stung balloons. A black sun rises. There was never a moon in my night.
I smile, or pretend to. No one sees.
The End.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
An evening routine, this is my way. Routine differentiates me from the billions of other night-dwellers who huddle beneath their covers like frightened rabbits, shuddering themselves to sleep, whilst praying for tomorrow. Only through sleep will they welcome the light. They crave it more than food or water. More than love. I need only my routine. This will never change. Until…
I prefer a stark December cold to the false warmth of early May, or the stifling nights of mid-July. You may think me picky, but a perfectionist would be nearer the truth. Optimal conditions help me find my peace, for only in peace will she find me. Or I, her? I forget which? My mind is not what it was.
My bedroom is tiny. There’s room enough for a bed and a small cupboard. This otherwise empty space serves as a reminder of the life I have left behind. Here, I interact, hoping beyond hope that all is right. Nothing more. Worrying achieves nothing in the hours before dawn.
I wonder what it’s like to dream the partial realities of a normal person. Dreaming is a prerequisite of being, and I am a being, even when not being. If you catch my drift? Does it make me a non-person if I hang in the shade like a panting shadow, loiter at the corners of dusk? I hope not, as it intimates insecurity, and I am far from insecure. Mine is an endless dream where this infusion called life is nothing but the pricking of a syringe. I am past this. I am past normality.
There’s a confused robin who sings all night. The streetlights fool the little creature into believing the sun never sets. He trills his little heart out anticipating finding a mate to constant disappointment. I know how he feels. I wonder if he pities me as I pity him. Still, he has his routine: eat; perch; trill. He’s relentless. When the hovering kestrel realises the robin there, this may change. Not until then, though, and neither will I.
I feel this evening, this section of dream I flourish in, will be the one. I feel it with every creaking bone and pulled muscle. Age will do this to a man. Time has a lot to answer for. Regardless, I sit on the end of my bed in this room for a cage, hands clasped together in prayer, and wait. I’m always waiting.
Am I sleeping, or awake? Does it matter? The curtains flutter, as does my heart. Reality changes. Her whispers brush my ears like December snowflakes. I hear her above the blood surging through my arteries. I hear her in all her undiluted loveliness. She is here, in this room, blooming like a rose through a glacier. Her eyes melt my soul. They always did. For the first time since forever, I smile.
When this dream called life is replaced by another, my darling is there to hold my hand. She says my little bird has come for me, as she’s wished to every evening before I dream. “Is this night?” I ask. Her lips say no.
Only in eternal beauty does one find release.
The End
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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