A Pocket Archive (29)
'Olympus'
I tilted my hand, admiring for the thousandth time how the sunlight glinted off the shimmering polygons. They deviated between glimmers of icy blue and silvers to a deep sea-green, then a galactic sapphire. Indoors, that same, strange greenish-blue would morph into an amethyst or plumy shade of violet that reminded me of red wine. It was one of a kind, made specifically for me, and looked like magic given tangible form.
No matter how much I joke about castles and mansions in the woods, material things have never mattered to me, but this...this one did.
There is a wonderful legend about the origins of Dionysus that involves a ship being beached and tangled in grape vines. I have a picture in my mind of a painting I'd love to do of that ship, with its masts and stern conquered by masses of tangled vineyards, and it would all be rendered in a similar color palette to the one that rippled through the crystallized magic on my finger.
I never realized how lonely my soul was until I met someone who could truly see it, and who sincerely wanted to, perhaps for longer than I'd realized. My Dionysus wasn't unruly or wild like his mythological counterpart, but he had similarly appeared out of the ashes of a ruined life, and was beautiful and fun-loving, with an enthusiasm for everyday things that made me happy just to be near him. It was contagious. One moment he would be stoic and steady as a mountain, then a moment later he'd pull me out into a thunderstorm to see flashes of colored lightning, laughing like a maniac or howling enthusiastically whenever a bolt of bright light would streak across the sky, threatening to tear it in two. He wasn't perfect, but he was good, and more importantly, he was real.
I sighed and stretched, then settled into one of the wicker chairs on the balcony, picking up my wine glass from the small table between them. Soon after, then sun began to dip behind the horizon, like a great celestial eye closing and the lights on the railing winked to life in the twilight. Below, someone was was playing a guitar on a street corner and the sound of laughter mingled with the low hum of passing cars.
How strange life was. Just two years ago, I would not have trusted myself on a sixth story balcony, but now, I felt immortal, complete, and happy, just like Ariadne, on top of the world in her crown of stars.
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