when from my horse i fell
Jan. 27th, 2009 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ontologyThey say it's the coldest winter in seven years. No kidding, says I, but, stupidly intrepid as ever, I drape myself over with scarves and wraps and set out to brave the cold. Sometimes a bite of fresh chocolate is worth the trouble. (Sometimes it's just one of those days.) It's very cold, very very very cold, pardon me while I cease to be capable of thinking about anything else! There are hardly any people out downtown, and everything's got that odd, post-apocalyptic look to it, so that, if you are me, you start to have really odd thoughts, like, what if time's been frozen just like everything else? And if you are even a little superstitious in that way, you start peering into places where people tend to be, and are both relieved and disappointed to find that they are still there, doing people things, not stilled like flies in amber, in the midst of taking clothes out of the dryer, or ordering a sandwich, or taking down a window display. (And then you feel a little silly and start thinking Grown-Up Thoughts to make up for it.)
So I'm walking home, chocolates in hand (if I could describe Hockman's peppermint truffles, I would, but words crumble before their splendour; hang silly weak ambrosia, what they eat in the lands of the gods are homemade peppermint truffles), and the wind's gotten a bluster to it, blowing drifts of snow over the sidewalk, and birds keep flying over the church steeples and the skeletons of trees, and it's one of those days when I think, if only Neil Gaiman were writing my life...
So when a dark figure ploughs straight into me, it almost feels exactly right, except for the bit where I'm on the pavement and it's cold and my chocolates have just gone everywhere, and ow. (Also the bit where it is manifestly his fault, because someone being clumsier than me probably means the entire universe has gone off balance.) Only then I look up and good heavens it's him. The world abruptly ceases to make any kind of sense.
His hair is actually significantly nicer up close. So is his coat.
He says, "Sorry," really fast, and, oh hey, I look like a hobo, yay me! I'm wearing two scarves and a shawl over a jacket over a sweater and a really ridiculous hat! And none of this matters at all anyway self but gorblimey the Mysterious Boy in the Coat is standing right here, and, oh hey, coincidentally, looking as though he's going to run away very very fast the moment he's certain I am not mortally wounded. Well whatever then. I'll just get up all by myself. Which I do. And he says, "Sorry," again, and "You're all right?" and I nod yes, sort of, because actually I think I skinned my wrist going down, and I pick up my chocolates and say, "Absolutely, thanks," and am right in the middle of stalking majestically away when he grabs my arm and says, "Wait." His voice is kind of odd: not the tone of it, but the texture, the actual substance of it, and if I were not being magnificent I might go all philological on his accent, which -- well, never mind. ""I'm sorry I knocked you down, but I -- " He shakes his head, and starts over. "I need -- a story."
"What?"
" A story." He looks deeply and profoundly awkward, but also -- strange, and sort of fey. "Can you give me a story?"
"Um," I say, because, as the world no longer makes any kind of sense, my brain also no longer has any space in it for thought. "What about?"
"Anything," he says, and looks -- hungry? Lost? He leans forward. He's still holding my arm. "Anything at all."
"I don't have any stories," I say, "not real ones, anyway -- " only he looks desperate and frightened all of a sudden (and his hair is so nice). "All right," I say finally, and there in the cold with the wind singing little wind-songs to itself I tell him about my great-great-great-and-then-some grandmother, Christian Colville, who lived in Scotland in the eighteenth century, and how she fell in love with her tutor, John Bradner, but her father didn't like it, so they eloped, and their ship wrecked on the Isle of Man, but finally they came to America... He doesn't say anything when I'm finished, so I start again, and tell him about seeing Nickel Creek live at a festival two years ago and coming back to our campsite at two in the morning and lying in the grass and getting lost in the stars. He waits. I don't know what he's waiting for. I don't know what to say next, but I can't leave, something's keeping me right there in the middle of the pavement, so I say, "All right, your turn. Haven't you got any stories?"
"No," he tells me. "They're gone."
"Don't be silly."
Suddenly, he says, "Wait, I know you. I've heard you singing. You know -- " The wind howls up and takes the words from him and he staggers a little, and so do I. He's let go of my arm. The wind is pushing him backwards and his coat whips out behind him like a thunderstorm. He cries, into the wind, "You know the story -- you know the right one!" The wind is louder now, and suddenly I feel very cold, shuddering cold, down into my bones, my head, my heart, my memory. I feel like I should be at home. Why am I standing out in the cold? Someone's grabbed hold of my arm --
"Sing," he says hoarsely, and the wind is howling so loud I barely hear him, but I flicker back to myself, and then my self comes back to me in a rush of heat, and I sing --
oh tell to me Tam Lin, she said
why came you here to dwell?
the queen of faeries caught me
when from my horse I fell
and at the end of seven years
she pays a tithe to hell --
So I'm walking home, chocolates in hand (if I could describe Hockman's peppermint truffles, I would, but words crumble before their splendour; hang silly weak ambrosia, what they eat in the lands of the gods are homemade peppermint truffles), and the wind's gotten a bluster to it, blowing drifts of snow over the sidewalk, and birds keep flying over the church steeples and the skeletons of trees, and it's one of those days when I think, if only Neil Gaiman were writing my life...
So when a dark figure ploughs straight into me, it almost feels exactly right, except for the bit where I'm on the pavement and it's cold and my chocolates have just gone everywhere, and ow. (Also the bit where it is manifestly his fault, because someone being clumsier than me probably means the entire universe has gone off balance.) Only then I look up and good heavens it's him. The world abruptly ceases to make any kind of sense.
His hair is actually significantly nicer up close. So is his coat.
He says, "Sorry," really fast, and, oh hey, I look like a hobo, yay me! I'm wearing two scarves and a shawl over a jacket over a sweater and a really ridiculous hat! And none of this matters at all anyway self but gorblimey the Mysterious Boy in the Coat is standing right here, and, oh hey, coincidentally, looking as though he's going to run away very very fast the moment he's certain I am not mortally wounded. Well whatever then. I'll just get up all by myself. Which I do. And he says, "Sorry," again, and "You're all right?" and I nod yes, sort of, because actually I think I skinned my wrist going down, and I pick up my chocolates and say, "Absolutely, thanks," and am right in the middle of stalking majestically away when he grabs my arm and says, "Wait." His voice is kind of odd: not the tone of it, but the texture, the actual substance of it, and if I were not being magnificent I might go all philological on his accent, which -- well, never mind. ""I'm sorry I knocked you down, but I -- " He shakes his head, and starts over. "I need -- a story."
"What?"
" A story." He looks deeply and profoundly awkward, but also -- strange, and sort of fey. "Can you give me a story?"
"Um," I say, because, as the world no longer makes any kind of sense, my brain also no longer has any space in it for thought. "What about?"
"Anything," he says, and looks -- hungry? Lost? He leans forward. He's still holding my arm. "Anything at all."
"I don't have any stories," I say, "not real ones, anyway -- " only he looks desperate and frightened all of a sudden (and his hair is so nice). "All right," I say finally, and there in the cold with the wind singing little wind-songs to itself I tell him about my great-great-great-and-then-some grandmother, Christian Colville, who lived in Scotland in the eighteenth century, and how she fell in love with her tutor, John Bradner, but her father didn't like it, so they eloped, and their ship wrecked on the Isle of Man, but finally they came to America... He doesn't say anything when I'm finished, so I start again, and tell him about seeing Nickel Creek live at a festival two years ago and coming back to our campsite at two in the morning and lying in the grass and getting lost in the stars. He waits. I don't know what he's waiting for. I don't know what to say next, but I can't leave, something's keeping me right there in the middle of the pavement, so I say, "All right, your turn. Haven't you got any stories?"
"No," he tells me. "They're gone."
"Don't be silly."
Suddenly, he says, "Wait, I know you. I've heard you singing. You know -- " The wind howls up and takes the words from him and he staggers a little, and so do I. He's let go of my arm. The wind is pushing him backwards and his coat whips out behind him like a thunderstorm. He cries, into the wind, "You know the story -- you know the right one!" The wind is louder now, and suddenly I feel very cold, shuddering cold, down into my bones, my head, my heart, my memory. I feel like I should be at home. Why am I standing out in the cold? Someone's grabbed hold of my arm --
"Sing," he says hoarsely, and the wind is howling so loud I barely hear him, but I flicker back to myself, and then my self comes back to me in a rush of heat, and I sing --
oh tell to me Tam Lin, she said
why came you here to dwell?
the queen of faeries caught me
when from my horse I fell
and at the end of seven years
she pays a tithe to hell --
He's got me by both shoulders now, shaking me, holding tight, as though the wind is going to take him away -- isn't it? -- and he shouts, "How does it end? I need to know how it ends -- "
The wind roars up between us and he goes into it and the song hurls back into my throat, and I choke --
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 04:38 am (UTC)Oh Jo, I have missed you so much. The world through your eyes and your words is always a place of otherworldly beauty.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 04:39 am (UTC)