Hello again, um, me. I'm not quite sure who reads my blog at this point. I haven't told my friends it exists because it's the first time in years I've felt brave enough to publish my work, and either approbation or condemnation from strangers both feel so much safer than laying my soul bare to friends. Or notebook bare, at any rate. Sometimes it feels the same. But as a consequence, I feel a little like I'm writing a story in bottles and casting it out into the ocean. Ah, well. I hope someday this washes up on friendly shores.
I thought I'd continue the big tale today. And so we have:
Quintessence, Part 3
The house was still silent as Tessa got ready for school. She wasn't surprised by that in the least. Gavin usually slept late when he'd been up the night before composing, and Tessa knew he'd still been up when she had gone to bed at 11. He was working on a new project, and he usually lost track of time when he started something new.
Tessa packed her own lunch. Of the two of them, she was usually the responsible one -or at least the domestic one, who remembered things like the need for sleep and regular mealtimes. Luckily, he was still good about buying groceries. She put a sandwich together with some lunchmeat and cheese she found in the refrigerator, then threw in a few Oreos and an apple to round it out, pleased to see that her dad had bought Honeycrisp apples again - her favorite.
Something was different today, and Tessa couldn't put her finger on it. There was a feeling in the air that followed her all the way to school and through her classes. An expectant feeling. An aura of not-quite-realness hung over the day, as though get dream had never really dissipated, and Tessa kept looking over her shoulder or out the window, expecting - well, she didn't know what she was expecting. Something out of the ordinary. It seemed like an out-of-the-ordinary day, even as the Pledge was said, and announcements were heard, and French verbs conjugated, and geometry proofs drawn on the dusty green chalkboard, and the whole world moved inexorably in its steady pace toward lunchtime.
In English class, she stared out of the classroom window, listening with one ear to the class "discussion". Mr. Brink did his best to get 28 students to tell him what was so symbolic about Banquo's ghost, while 28 students did their best to look like they were staying awake, without making eye contact so he might think they knew the answer. Tessa's attention was drawn to a little brown bird on the windowsill. A sparrow. Not unusual - sparrows were everywhere. And yet, she could swear she'd seen him somewhere before. He was so still. Didn't those birds usually hop around a lot? It was like he was watching her too.
There was something strange about him, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. It nagged at her, at the edges of her mind. Something...The bird flew away and she started to turn back to the chalkboard, before she sat up straighter with a startled intake of breath. His eyes. The bird's eyes had been blue.
The rest of the morning was almost anticlimactic after that. Tessa wandered outside with her lunch, opting to eat alone under a sparse little tree next to the football practice field. After the odd morning, she wasn't particularly up to company today. Tessa started to bite into her sandwich then stopped, sandwich halfway to her lips. Then she remembered that people in stories always stop with the sandwich halfway to their lips and took a large bite, looking around her at the park. It was different somehow. It had started to rain, a light, misty rain, more pleasant than not, a rain like dew all around.
Tessa looked around her, not at the air exactly, but at the space in between. The oddest feeling had come over her, as if she could see it - something that lay between the raindrops – a feeling that the universe was deep, the air was deep, and time was infinitely shallow, an illusion stretched over the wholeness within. Tessa thought of eastern philosophies, of how they say everything in the world is connected, all part of the same cosmic fabric. In a moment like this it was possible to feel it, the universe as a whole, and time as an illusion, shallow river that bends and twists around, a veil through which it was possible to step. Truth lay on the other side of the raindrops, ripe for the taking. The air shimmered. Tessa stepped through.
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