People often hype up the natural wonders of the world as if they’re life-changing.
They’re not.
I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, and I’ve seen Niagara Falls, and let me tell you, their lasting impact falls pretty short of the promises they peddle in travel brochures.
Sure, they’re beautiful without a doubt. But feelings of a profound influence on your actual soul?
Stop it.
Boiled down to logic, the Grand Canyon is an abundance of clay, and Niagara Falls is a lot of water.
That’s it. Ordinary things in extraordinary quantities. It’s not that deep.
It’s only scenery…
For a memory to truly stick out as important, it has to shock your system to earn its attention.
When I was a toddler, I pulled my mother’s freshly steeped cup of tea from the table on which it sat.
I remember seeing its vapor dance through the rays of sunlight that flooded in from the window, making it the most inviting thing to my child’s eyes.
I remember the absolute agony I felt when the scalding liquid of that white mug doused the bare skin of my torso.
Every nerve in my body electrified into lightning bolts and shot so quickly to my brain that I passed out from the whiplash.
I’ll never forget that.
I can’t remember a single thing before that moment and nothing again until long after it.
But that comes in clear as day.
I’ve only one other memory that rivals it.
Every soft curve of her body is burned in my recollection.
Every line of her face permanently etched in my mind as the benchmark of beauty.
In her comparison, the world surrenders its luster.
The feminine glow she emits diminishes the importance of sunlight.
In a world of deception, she makes sense, and I’ve never loved anything as much as I love her.
Not even my own wife.
Judge me all you like. I already disapprove of myself.
I didn’t specifically set out to fall in love. I’m an advocate for commitment.
Fifteen years we spent together, and while, of course, recognizing the allure of other women, I never once seriously entertained the idea of cheating.
I know morally I should have never walked through the doors that I did, but I would be lying if I said I regret it.
I’ll wear it if you insist, but it was over a long time ago; we’ve just been going through the motions.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have even been out of my house if my wife and I hadn’t been bickering all day over text about something so stupid and petty that it eludes me.
By the time I got home, it had just festered into a full-blown vicious argument complete with several shattered dishes and two broken hearts.
What is it about familiarity exactly that breeds contempt?
I looked at this woman at one point in my life like a lost traveler looks at shelter from a storm in the wilderness. A safe refuge from the harshness of the elements and the hungry eyes of predators.
But the shield becomes a shackle when the roof springs a leak against the unrelenting weather of everyday life, with neither of us being able to find the key that would let us out in time.
The water leisurely but consistently pooling at our feet through the minutes, hours, years, and decades giving us the false sense of comfort that there’s time at least to figure it out.
You’re almost caught by surprise when the water nears capacity, and you’ll stare at each other in disbelief with equal parts horror and remorse while gasping for air in the pockets left at the surface until even those are gone.
“Love,” as Elliott said about the world, is that it doesn’t end with a bang, but with a whimper.
In the end, it isn’t some grand, explosive event that severs the connection between a man and his woman, but rather a slow agonizing and quiet decline into apathy.
You may see it coming a long time before you call it quits, but when you finally come up to it, you won’t care enough to steer out of its way.
You’ll just brace for impact.
They say that indifference is the opposite of love, yet it was love that led me to indifference in the first place.
Anyone who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humor simply doesn’t get the joke.
It was a bitterly cold December evening as I roamed the city after slamming the front door to our house, happily sacrificing my ears and fingertips to potential frostbite in exchange for the solace the absence of her company gave to me.
The Christmas lights and decorations that lined the downtown streets to entice holiday spenders clanged noisily in the wind above my head.
The sidewalks all but deserted by this late hour, leaving only the eyes of those who wait for cover of darkness to seek their thrills to watch me as I pass.
My ears began to lose their circulation, causing me to wince in pain by the time I realized I would need to get to some place warm or risk losing them.
My eyes scanned my surroundings for the refuge of an open late cafe or trendy bar, striking me as odd that every single one of them had all their seats turned over and their doors locked shut.
This city is known for its nightlife and most of these places would only close for the holidays.
And that’s when it hit me.
We argued over eggnog…
More specifically because I brought home the wrong brand.
Tonight was Christmas Eve.
The dishes left shattered on the floor were of the special occasion variety.
Lovely…
Being too far to turn back now, I noticed some brightness a couple of blocks down. I decided to take my chances and the closer I got to the light, the more I noticed about its source.
It was a building, brightly lit and beautifully constructed. The stony, almost Moorish architecture was completely out of place amongst the steel and red brick structures it found itself between.
It was nearly devoid of snow, unlike everything else that surrounded it. It’s as if the structure itself emitted enough heat to melt it away. I’m not sure what an oasis looks like to a man lost in the desert, but I can imagine it’s not too far off from this.
Lanterns with oil flames dancing proudly against the relentless chill of the wind hung on each column that lay opposite each other of the oval cut granite staircase.
As I stood before this building, trying to figure out what business may lie behind the massive wooden doors, I chuckled in realization when my eyes read the sign above them.
“The Babylon erotic massage”
I turned to make my way back but couldn’t bring myself to keep walking. The beauty of the structure beguiling me into getting just a little bit closer.
I reasoned with myself that I was frozen. That no harm could come from simply going inside and inquiring or at the very least, I could warm my extremities enough to comfortably make the walk back home.
I knew better, but I wouldn’t be the first man to lie to himself and mask it as reason.
“I wouldn’t have to actually go through with anything,” I reflect “the doors are most likely locked anyway.”
I walked apprehensively up the stairs and felt my heartbeat through my chest at the indiscretion, and felt a sense of excitement well up in my sternum at the forbidden nature of my actions.
I looked up and down the street to make sure no one was looking, terrified of being made out. The sweetest of fragrances filled my frozen sinuses, focusing my darting eyes.
A beautiful aroma from some unseen censor encouraged me to take another step and incentivized me to turn the handle.
I was almost surprised when the door clicked open. The intoxicating perfume intensifying as I passed the threshold of the entrance as the creaking wood closed slowly behind me.
The warmth I felt was the most immediate of relief, equal only to the embrace of a lover or an old friend.
The dimly lit foyer with only a candle-lit chandelier overhead providing just enough light to read the words written on the double doors before me.
“Remove shoes,” chiseled with skill in each slab of the intricately carved wood. The words were worked into the mosaic pattern flawlessly.
I slid my heels out of my boots and pushed them open, granting me access to the curious sight that lay behind them.
The word lavish would be an understatement. Not at all what I would have imagined for an institution such as this.
Candles and lanterns were strewn everywhere in the circular room, causing shadows to dance along the sand-colored walls as they flickered.
The floor descended gradually from the entrance into a pit filled with plush sabra silk pillows, Arabic tapestries and fur blankets, all together making up the most warm and enticing bed I had ever seen.
Along the walls hung two enormous floor-to-ceiling portraits that were difficult to make out in the candlelight. One painted with the figure of a woman and the other seemingly empty. A large fireplace roaring steadily in between them further corrupting my view with the shimmer it produced.
I unzipped my coat, shaking off some of the snow in the process. I called out and waited in vain for a reply that didn’t come.
My ears and fingers pulsated painfully as I approached the warming fire while rubbing my hands together.
Classical music serenading my stroll as I walked apprehensively to the portraits along the peak of the gradually descending steps and stopped at the first of the two.
The artistry was impeccable, but I would think that’s easy to do when the focal point is sheer divinity.
Surely, the magic of such a muse would rub off on any man enough to temporarily make him a genius.
Immortalized in vivid oil colors was the portrait of the most striking example of feminine beauty I’d ever had the pleasure of being exposed to.
I stood there entranced, drinking in every detail of her olive-toned skin, every line of her full-blushed lips, and every strand of her curly black hair that I could.
She looked like an Arabian princess in the books I read as a child. The kind where hundreds of hopeful warriors fought brutal and bloody tournaments for the right to her admiration.
I was both infatuated with her and strangely consumed by jealousy toward the artist who depicted her.
So much so that, in all this time, I had forgotten to breathe.
I drew one in slowly to calm my thumping heart and wondered if the painter truly grasped how fortunate he was to share a room with her, and what I would give in that moment for the same privilege.
The excitement she must have shown him upon its completion…
The expression she must have given him in gratitude…
Whoever he was, I hated him.
Knowing her affection belonged to another man, even momentarily, broke sections of my heart I didn’t yet know existed.
Of course, on some level I knew how silly these feelings towards a painting were, but attraction isn’t known for its reason.
My mind raced with fantasy as my gaze continued until it fell to the white satin robes that hung loosely on her flawless figure. I swallowed against a lump in my throat at the deep plunge of its cut, revealing tasteful parts of her that left very little to the imagination.
“Welcome to The Babylon,” a delightfully soft voice crooned out from behind me, snapping me out of my revelry.
Startled, I pivoted around to face the voice’s owner. I meant to say hello, but I’m sure I just stood there in shock when my eyes met those of my welcomer.
With certainty, I can tell you that this woman truly was the single world wonder one must not die without seeing.
An almost sense of relief washed over me in the realization that the artist fell so laughably short in depicting her likeness.
In all fairness, the task was about as difficult as being given a single candle to illuminate a lighthouse in a hurricane.
I don’t care, I’m still glad he failed because to experience this woman undiluted for the first time was to have every pleasure-sensing transmitter in my brain ignited.
She engulfed my entire nervous system in the an instant like gold flames through dry brush burning through it so thoroughly that even the very tips of my fingers embered with the agony of longing.
A white mug of tea flashing briefly in the back of my mind.
A coy smile broke at her lips at my hesitation. She managed to ask in the most melodic of voices if I would like to get more comfortable.
Having no idea what I was supposed to do, being completely captivated by this woman and in desperate need of something to say, I just stood there mute and hypnotized like a deer in headlights.
“Allow me,” she said with a giggle and glided toward me with all the balletic elegance of a principal dancer. She gave off the illusion of weightlessness like a silk thread in the breeze.
The aroma of her took only a moment to catch up as she stopped right before me and enveloped my lungs with the relief of a deprived smoker drawing his first hit.
I looked down at her as she looked up at me, and never once did I take my eyes off of her as she helped to remove my coat.
I fought to find my voice and finally managed to say that I had never done anything like this before, that I didn’t know what to expect, and that I couldn’t remember a time I had been more nervous.
To my surprise, she blushed at my words revealing a spectrum of warmth along her face.
My heart thrashing against my ribs like a trapped beast would on the cage that binds him upon witnessing her reaction.
“You’re not supposed to say that,” she stammered adorably. “I’m working through enough butterflies here as it is. You’re very handsome.”
I’ve had the fortune of receiving my fair share of interest from the opposite sex in my life. I’ve been described as attractive and even striking on occasion, but never once did I imagine being appealing to someone like this.
“My name is Savannah,” she continued with a smile.
“That’s a lovely name,” I replied as she pulled on the remaining sleeve.
The warmth of her hands could be felt through my shirt, electrifying my skin into goosebumps. “I’m Adrian,” I said while clearing my throat.
She folded my jacket over her arms and spoke as she shifted her weight to her left hip at the tension.
“Is this really your first time?” She giggled.
Feeling the need to defend myself but not really knowing how to without coming across as insecure or awkward, I took a chance and admitted, “First time paying, yes.”
Her giggle evolved into melodic laughter at my response, opening every valve of dopamine that my brain had on offer.
“Of course,” she beamed. “I wasn’t implying…” Slowly drawing out the last word as it tapered off.
I let the tension hang between us momentarily before relieving it.
“You, uh… You kind of did though.” I said chuckling.
She burst out laughing as she used my coat in her arms to bury her face, letting out a muffled groan from it in mock frustration.
We soaked in that moment together before she tentatively looked up from the safety the leather provided and said, “You make me a little nervous.”
“If you could feel my pulse, I promise you wouldn’t be,” I returned.
The look she gave me nearly stopped that pulse altogether. A combination of wide-pupiled desire and eyebrow-furrowing intrigue. The smile that followed it sent the muscle in my chest right back to work at maximum capacity.
“May I?” she said taking a hesitant reach forward.
Her movement sent all of my nerves into a frenzy that I nearly lost the thread of our conversation. “What?” I said before remembering, “my pulse?”
“I mean… If that’s ok with you?” And halts her approach.
I was bold once before life destroyed my sense of wonder. Maybe I still am, I thought as I instinctively closed the remaining gap between us until I could feel the heat of her skin through what little compressed air kept us separate.
I gently lifted her hand from where it rested atop my folded coat and guided it slowly from my sternum to the racing center of my chest.
Time passes tormentingly slow in the moments that lead up to a kiss.
You play this game of glimpses being locked in the other’s gaze and involuntarily sneaking peeks at their mouth.
The tension of desire tempered with the hesitancy of doubt and the subsequent explosion of fluttering butterflies when you finally decide to throw caution to the wind and lean in.
I placed my left hand on the small of her back as my right rested on the soft skin of her face. Feeling how she melted into me, molding to my body seamlessly like she had always been a part of me, caused me to yearn for something I’d not yet had.
She undid the buttons on my shirt, and I undid the fastens on her robes with our lips still locked.
I brought my face down to the crook of her neck as she pulled the shirt from my shoulders.
I traced my teeth lightly along her skin causing a sudden breath to escape her lips which sent shivers all throughout me.
“Wait,” she whispered. “We need to discuss the rules first.”
I’d almost forgotten where I was and what I was doing, embarrassed and partially exposed, I straightened out and cleared my throat before saying, “of course, I’m sorry.”
In my eagerness, I’d forgotten that this was not a normal encounter and that despite how organic it may have felt, we would need to discuss pricing and comfortability.
Whatever her price was, at this point, I’d mortgage my house if necessary.
“Please don’t be sorry,” she smiled and kissed me again. “It’s my fault I’m not being very professional.”
Her lips were pinkened with the proof of passion, and I couldn’t help but stare at them.
“Why don’t you get undressed?” She reassured, “You can put your clothes on the daybed and wrap yourself with a towel from the heated rack behind it, and I’ll meet you in the bed, okay?”
She handed me back my coat and walked towards the doors on the opposite side of the entrance, disappearing behind them.
Head still reeling from the encounter, I did as I was asked. The warmth of the towel felt nice on my bare skin.
I sat upright in the bed, taking in my surroundings and distracting myself from the anticipation that was physically killing me.
She reappeared through the doors with her robe hanging loosely on her frame, revealing what my hands had just touched moments earlier, causing them to tingle like phantom limbs.
She cradled a tray of various ornate glass bottles and rolled hand towels
Moving with such balance and poise that I’m sure she could be blindfolded, and nothing on that tray would tremble even slightly.
She descended to her knees and placed the platter down to our side.
“So,” I start apprehensively, “how does this work?” I say with as much confidence as I can muster.
“I’ll explain,” she smiles, “first, let me take care of you,” she says leaning forward, not breaking eye contact as she shifts and places a hand on my chest and with a gentle pressure, whispers, “Lay back.”
She picks up a steaming hand towel, and I watch as its vapor plays in the candlelight, transporting me back to childhood.
She presses it to my skin with slow, deliberate strokes along every part of my exposed body, the feeling of warmth relaxing every muscle and slowing my breath.
“Can I remove your cover?”
My short-lived relaxed breathing comes to an abrupt end with a sharp inhale to cope with the oxygen my brain needed to function at such a question.
My nervous system ill-prepared for the constant touch and go of this rollercoaster of emotions the evening had me locked into.
“Here,” she said, straightening her body with each of her legs straddled over one of my own, and in one fell swoop allowed her robes to peel off her shoulders, revealing all that was on offer.
The surge of blood to my lower body happened so quickly that I felt lightheaded at the lack of circulation to my brain.
“May I?” She said, reaching to the only remaining barrier between us, and all I could do was nod silently in affirmation.
I was acutely aware of my breathing as the towel was removed, and she leaned over me for a kiss, lightly grazing her fingertips from my thigh to my navel and everything in between.
She overwhelmed my senses and I used both of my hands to press her body into my own.
“Shhhh,” she hushed, pressing a finger to my lips. “Patience, there are rules to go over.” Her thick black hair wisping from her shoulders and tickling my face.
“Name them,” I whisper back with a hint of urgency.
“Rule one is that your first visit is free.” she says, tracing her finger along my chest, fully ignoring the puzzled look on my face. “Rule two is that the second visit is full price without exception. Do you agree so far?”
I nodded, and with a smile, she shook her head and said, “I need you to say it out loud.”
“I understand,” I say with an involuntary chuckle mixed.
“Good, now the third and final rule of the Babylon is that you’re always free to leave at any time, do you understand?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I curl an eyebrow and question.
“It means nothing is holding you here, okay?” she continues. “You’re free to walk through those doors right now and never return unless you want to.” She pouts playfully.
“So just like everywhere else then?” I reply, wondering why she would be telling me something so redundant. “Yeah, all set.”
“Because once this begins, it will be difficult to refuse a second encounter, I promise you that,” she says with the same coyness from earlier, tugging at the corners of her lips, transforming them from playful pout to loving smile.
“I don’t doubt it,” I reply, matching her expression.
She leaned over and retrieved a bottle from her tray, making a satisfying popping noise as she pulled the stopper from its neck.
Pouring the warmed oil contained within it slowly over my chest and then her own until she glistened with it entirely.
The flickering light of the surrounding candles made her sparkle like the night shore reflecting the stars.
The warmth, pressure, and smooth glide of her hands on top of me made it difficult to concentrate.
I contended with a foreign lump in my throat as I grappled with something I hadn’t been capable of feeling for a while.
Emotion.
She asked if I was ready while wearing an expression of warm anticipation before slowly melding our bodies into one.
Despite my reply in the affirmative, I was indeed willing, but wholly unprepared.
The whiplash of pleasure is identical to that of pain in that if the intensity is of a great enough severity, your brain tries to shut down to contend with it.
“Stay with me,” she whispered breathlessly in my ear, successfully keeping me lucid.
The feeling she produced on my bare skin like soft silk in warm bathwater had me so focused in on the sensation that everything else faded away into obscurity.
Every sexual encounter I’d ever had combined and administered all at once would simply be a drop in the basin to this.
In the throes of passion, a carnal compulsion caused me to reposition her, to claim her as I drew her from above me to beneath me in one single motion.
Our movements played off each other, like the ebb and flow of the moon and tide, a delicate teeterboard of vulnerability and dominance.
With each of us vying for control.
This union continued for what could have been minutes as much as hours because time lost all meaning in her presence.
“Will you give me what I need?” she whispers in my ear, wrapping her legs tightly around my waist, locking me in with her arms strewn around my shoulders as additional anchor points.
Through the heat and intensity, I could hear her breathless plea hang in the air with the eruption of ecstasy.
My entire body and soul building in unison to a heavy crescendo only to crash all throughout me in never-ending waves.
My peripherals began to fade to black as if I were looking at her through a keyhole or a straw. The smile on her face a combination of reassurance and a hint malice.
Cold sweat and nausea replaced the heat and desire as I gasped for air.
I began to cough and wheeze uncontrollably. The metallic taste of blood filling my mouth through gulps and stutters.
I could feel all of my strength being drained away from me in an instant, my arms shook violently at supporting myself on top of her until they involuntarily collapsed.
“Sshhh,” she hushed, holding me tightly to her and guided my spinning head to her chest to steady it. “Don’t be afraid.” While lovingly running her fingers through my hair as she writhed in delight, I could feel her tightening around me as she herself finally spilled over.
I was now face to face as she moaned with my reflection in the oil bottle that lay open beside us, completely paralyzed, and all I could do was stare into the glass in horror.
My eyes were completely white, as if I’d rolled them back into my head, and skin so pale on my face with a color normally reserved for the residents of freezers at the morgue.
“What’s happening to me?” I think in an internal panic, my wide, pupil-less eyes still locked with the reflection of my immobilized corpse.
“Don’t worry,” she reassures with a sigh of satisfaction. “The first is free. Remember? You’re going to be fine.”
She hummed a sweet lullaby while stroking my hair and the adrenaline in my system burnt out so completely that my eyes grew crushingly heavy, and I was powerless to resist their weight.
I awoke alone in the room with a jolt.
Breathing labored, I frantically checked my body and touched my face feeling nothing out of the ordinary.
I scanned around for her and called her name out in vain.
I used the fur blanket that was covering me to drape around my waist and walk unsteadily to the daybed.
My clothes folded neatly on top of each other where I left them in a heap.
A note nestled at the very top.
I unfolded the paper before reading.
“Adrian, Thank you for making my night. It was a pleasure getting to know you. I look forward to seeing you again, but if you decide not to return, I want you to know something. You really do make me nervous, and you really are quite handsome.
I’ll be wherever you need, Whenever you need.
Forever yours,
-Savannah.”
I dressed as fast as I could, jamming the note in my pocket, trying to make sense of what just happened.
I was halfway through zipping up my coat when I was hit with her perfume that had penetrated the leather, remembering when she had placed it on her face.
Snapping me out of whatever spell it cast was my eyes meeting the portrait adjacent to hers, and I shook my head and stared in confusion.
The warm sensation that her scent caused in my blood was replaced with the flow of icy waters streaming steadily to every corner of my extremities.
The canvas that earlier stood empty now began to fill with unseen brushstrokes making up my very own likeness exactly as I stood like the snapshot of a Polaroid, dumbfounded, I simply froze there, staring into my own eyes.
I backed away, still disheveled, and looked around the room for the doors that Savannah had used to retrieve her tray, hoping to see a friendly face as I threw them open.
Sometimes you get exactly what you ask for.
The room was dark and empty with only two portrait frames standing proudly on podiums that faced me.
Each of them individually spotlit as the only source of light. This room could be massive, and I would never know, judging on the blackness of my surroundings.
One was full, and the other was empty.
Floorboards creaking loudly at the weight of my footsteps, disturbing the silence that enveloped me as I made my approach.
My mind finally made the connection of what I was seeing as I drew near.
It depicted Savannah in all her beauty like a biblical painting of Mary cradling Jesus post his crucifixion.
An emaciated and lifeless corpse who lay sprawled on the floor head in her lap with a face not unlike my own when I gazed into the bottle.
The plaque beneath it bore a name.
Greyson 2023.
I felt sick to my stomach when I finally realized what unsettled me the most about the grotesque scene that it depicted…
It wasn’t that he was dead or that his white eyes appeared to be staring right through me.
It was the fact that despite the gruesome nature of his demise, he beamed happily.
As if in death, he was in on some joke I wasn’t in on.
The empty portrait space to its right also bore a name. This one I recognized as my own.
Adrian, 2024.
The thought of escape emerged faintly through the chaos of my mind, and I reacted on instinct when I left the building with a stumble on my way out.
My eyes burned at the sunlight overhead as I ran down the exterior granite stairs of the entrance, shielding them as I did.
Searching frantically for my phone in my pockets, my belt still undone and rattling noisily, I contended with the dread of my realization.
Thankfully, I was on the sidewalk and not the street when I turned back to debate retrieving it, because I just sat down in the slush completely dazed when I saw that there was nothing.
No lanterns,
no staircase,
no Babylon…
An abandoned lot in its stead between the buildings of steel and red brick.
An empty space devoid of anything except for dirty snow, rubble and the needles that littered the ground.
I didn’t know how much time had passed when I finally returned home soaking wet with my wife nowhere to be found.
She couldn’t have waited long after my departure to abandon ship because it was exactly as we’d left off.
January 2nd read the digital clock on my wall.
“I want a divorce” read the note on my fridge.
The glass shards of Christmas dishes still scattered on the floor, cracking beneath my shoes as I passed the dining room table displaying the now-rotting roast turkey.
It’s been a few days since then, I think… I’ve lost count.
The bird is still there, and you would think that I could smell it, but my sinuses have been scorched by her perfume now and she lingers with me always.
I tried to keep away, but any addict will tell you that the poison doubles as the cure.
And it’s hard to resist when it’s everywhere.
That beautiful Moorish building stalks me in random locations as I try to carry on with everyday life.
It never pounces, but it’s always on demand.
It started as a familiar light in the distance.
A warm beckon calling to me with a familiar lullaby through the frigid air.
As the days faded into nights, when my thoughts were loudest, it grew bolder, showing itself more frequently and always closer to my residence.
It stood in the park tonight on my way home.
Obstructed by trees as I walked faster in a panic to escape it.
The beams of light scattered through the winter branches with the vapor of my breath accentuating the crisscrossed rays with every labored exhale.
Only to find it on the street corner when I thought it was far behind me.
It lulls so sweetly with its shackles as I pass, trying to block my ears.
Never judging.
Always welcoming.
My clothes itch my skin constantly, and the food I once enjoyed tastes like ashes on my tongue.
It all seems so tedious when you can’t feel a thing.
And I yearn to feel again.
As I write this on my laptop, a warm glow shines brightly through my window pane with the unmistakable flicker of lantern light casing shadows to dance along my walls.
Right outside for my convenience.
“The Babylon” is still proudly written above the wide-open threshold with classical music pouring through, hypnotic and ever-rising in volume.
It stands so close that it obstructs everything else from the view of my aperture.
You may be wondering what reason I have to post this here.
It’s difficult to answer, maybe I just wanted to be heard or helped.
Maybe I wanted advice, but I’ll offer my own instead because I’ve had a change of heart.
I’ve thought about Greyson a lot since I last saw his portrait and what that smile he wore meant to tell me and I laughed a long time with tears streaming from my eyes when I finally got the joke.
One ‘right now’ is worth a million ‘thens’, and for some reason, that’s hysterical to me.
Surely, a single bolt of lightning through my body eclipses a lifetime of static shocks…
I hate to end this with a travel brochure-esque endorsement, but since we’re on the topic of world wonders;
Should you ever find yourself standing before some flickering lanterns attached to some strange building you’ve never seen before.
Slow your stride.
Take a moment to bask in their glow. I swear you’ll never feel such warmth again.
Close your eyes and enjoy the aroma, breathe it deep, and walk right in.
The wooden boards like to creak as they swing to close behind you.
But don’t hesitate and crane your neck to catch a final glimpse through the ever-thinning gap.
Just remove your shoes.
It’s only scenery.