For a long moment they
stood before each other staring in silent blinking of the eyes.
Ovolon had indeed quite a few sagittarian ages to witness such a
beautiful sighting. I totally wasn't expecting this, he thought and
suppressed a feeling of instant elation, turning it into an
unnoticeable shudder. Her hair were long and curly and delicately
covered the better half of her breasts. Just enough to awaken
primitive instincts in his mind, which were asleep and forgotten
since when, even he could not remember. He noticed her gaze was in a
way a mix between apprehension and curiosity, but she too seemed to
welcome this unexpected meeting.
The girl spoke first and
said in a polite and cheerful way:
“Hello! My name is...”
she began and rolled her auburn eyes to the top left. “Sorry, I
haven't used it for some time and I never call myself you see.
Forgotten...” she jiggled cheerfully. In her voice there was
almost a subtle singing, especially in the way she dragged the last
words before she stopped speaking. Like the words in her mind were
constantly conflicting with other thoughts and images giving her a
hard time concentrating on conversation.
“Anyway, you can call
me, let's see...”
As she started to think
the bird flew off the tree and landed on the girls shoulder.
“She's the girl with
the magical hair” it chirped taking away her thinkful expression
from her face.
“Oh my, I’ve
forgotten you could speak Mr. Hummingbird” she said genuinely
surprised.
Ovolon was caught even
more off guard with the girl's aloofness and her sincere
introduction. At least for a stranger it was, strange. Countless
thoughts and speculations about the transcendent creature's
appearance standing in front of him passed through his mind.
Questions. Where is she from? Why is she here? What do I do? All in a
flash of sparkling colorful images pierced his head from ear to ear
and instantly brought him back to reality.
“My name is Ovolon”
he said. “Would you care to join me for dinner? Stew is about to be
ready.” He made a small bow and presented her the wooden chair.
“Only if you're hungry.” he added.
The yellow moon rose on
the purple sky and deep green glowing fireflies danced around the
fire. The girl was sitting on the chair holding a clay bowl with
steaming stew. Ovolon sat on the ground opposite to the girl holding
a same bowl too.
“This smells delicious”
said the girl and blew the hot steam from the bowl that was almost
covering her face.
“It's lamented unbison
meat, quaint animals they are. One needs to set his traps in the
correct places if it is to capture one. Usually they stop every now
and then under trees to play songs with their horn. Unbisons, they
are very much creatures of habit, so all you need to do is set a
silence trap under a tree and wait.” he picked a big chunk of meat
from the stew, gulped it and continued. “It kind of drives them
crazy if they cannot hear themselves, like their thinking goes away
with the sound too. It's nice meat I guess. For sure much better than
tree squalors. There's hardly any meat on them.” added Ovolon and a
more instinctual manly feeling overwhelmed him confessing the
mysteries of the trade, that is hunting, to the girl.
“Uh-huh” answered the
girl who seemed lost in the mental image of someone, it may have been
her too, doing all the things Ovolon described. The light of the fire
reflected in her eyes and she heard twigs crackling. She smelled the
voracious aroma of the stew and felt the warmth of the place on her
skin reaching under. She tried a full tablespoon of stew and started
feeling more relaxed and comfortable, as her last sense was
satisfied.
“It's nice here. I used
to pass around this place, but there always seemed someone was
already here and I wouldn't want to bother” she said and took
another mouthful from the bowl.
“That was probably me”
said Ovolon with a smile and hurried to continue before the thin
thread which was holding the conversation broke.
“What about Mr.
Hummingbird, is he your bird?” he asked
“No. Not at all.”
answered the girl “He's not mine and neither am his. We're both two
independent beings who happen to enjoy each others company from time
to time. You may think of it as necessary friends.” she cuddled the
furry little head of Mr. Hummingbird who was curled up in her lap.
“ Oh I see. So miss
girl with the magical hair, do you like listening to silence?”
“Yep, I like it a lot!”
Her eyes glittered with exhilaration that her new friend had such
interesting interests. “Which kinds of silence you like most?”
she asked in turn.
“I believe the one I
really enjoy is when I am on the top of a hill watching the meadow
below. A mellow breeze, I can feel the air on my face and the sun is
about to set between the sky and the ground.” he said and waved his
hands around his face imitating the wind with his voice. “Then all
stop for a moment, and it's a moment of a sublime silence. There's a
great hill nearby where I usually go. The Hill of Many Eyes, I should
definitely take you there sometime.”
Everything around them by
that time had blurred into a veil of twisted purpleness and their
fire under the tree had become a beacon of somethingness inside the
vast vagueness. Ovolon saw the girl nodding in approval for his
choice.
“And yours? What's your
favorite silence?”
The girl rolled her eyes
again and took a moment to think.
“I think it's when I'm
having my feet warmed by the fire, and my belly filled with tasty
dinner, and I'm sitting talking to a man about favorite silences.”
she said and smiled to Ovolon, like he could never forget. “ And
then we stop talking”
A complete silence
followed the girl's words. The twigs in the fire stopped crackling.
The squalors on the concealed by the mist trees stopped croaking and
the fireflies seemed to freeze in place. They both closed their eyes
and took a big breath, taking in all that quiet breeze, filling them
with a pure feeling of momentary completeness. Then they opened their
eyes to look at each other and they burst into laughter, stirring the
silence with their voices and making the whole sound around them
return too.
* * *
They made a portrait of
one another with a small part of each other's personality, creating
two new characters based on the mere, and the deeper, life
contemplations they shared. They laughed and smiled and told things.
Some same troubles puzzled them and some others found them unable to
empathize, but both of them tried to have understanding, because this
night they shared, only comes once in a lifetime for every person one
meets. And they both knew that.
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