It's Such a Beautiful Night
Liebe von dem Linden
The moment of sudden loathing
And the season of stifled sorrow
The whisper, the transparent deception
The keeping up of appearances
The making the best of a bad job
All twined and tangled together, all are recorded.
There is no avoiding these things
And we know nothing of exorcism
And whether in Argos or England
There are certain inflexible laws
Unalterable, in the nature of music.
Excerpt from "The Family Reunion" - T.S. EliotThe Boy sat alone on a beach. It was familiar to him. Without knowing where he was, the Boy could tell that he was somewhere far from home. Yet this sand and water and air were familiar to him. He sat there with only the company of the few stars that were beginning to adorn the sky. Nothing was stirring. Even the sound of waves lapping at the shore was absent.
The Boy picked up a stone and rubbed his thumb over the surface. It was smooth from years spent tumbling with the waves as it made its journey to this pebbled beach. Running his fingers over the rock and feeling the procession of eons, the Boy could sense the last whispers of the sun still contained in the rock. It wasn’t warm and it wasn’t cool. The night had yet to fully arrive.
Without rising, he flicked this rock across the surface of the lake. It was gone at once, consumed immediately by the inky darkness around him. But as he lost sight of the rock he stretched his ears to follow it as it met the water.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four skips.
He waited a moment with ears strained, though not listening for the stone. He knew it had settled down amongst the sand and stones of the lakebed, fated to another eternity tumbling. He sat listening, waiting for the sound of ripples meandering to the water’s edge. Gentle as they were, the silence returned loudly as they died off.
Turning his head from one side to the next, the Boy scanned the beach. It was far too dark to make out much at all, but he still had a nagging sense that he knew this place.
Abandoning one fruitless task, he looked to the sky for any indication the weather may change on him. The sky seemed clear, and yet there remained only a few lonely stars in the sky. He returned to his surroundings.
It remained impossible to make out where he was. The night was far too dark to see much beyond the holes he was digging with his feet. Yet the Boy still had the sense that he knew this place. Everything was much too familiar.
He was blinded to the landscape but he still had his good sense. He took notice of how the air felt upon his skin.
He had felt before the relief that comes from a summer rain; washing away the heavy, suffocating heat that builds through the day and into the night. He had felt the stark wind that stole hats as a strong storm swept the area. He felt none of that tonight. The air wasn’t cloying, clinging to his skin with the humidity that brings the horizon closer and yet less clearly defined.
The night would remain calm. He was certain.
He knew with the same certainty that he believed that the sun would rise in the morning. Yet, he still didn’t know how he came to be on this beach, let alone where he was.
Pondering this, the Boy felt around blindly trying to find another rock. It didn’t take long. The sand was softly cushioning him, but it seemed that this beach was peppered with rocks of all shapes and sizes. It was an old beach. Everything around seemed to have the same smooth finish as that first stone. Wrapping his fingers around its edges, he prepared another skip. The Boy released the rock into the abyss and once again found the sound of gentle splashing in return.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five skips this time.
He held his breath and tried to listen for even the most distant ripple as it made its way to the shore. As the sound slowly died down, the Boy noticed that the calming waters held a face. It shone on the waters surface bright, pale and cold.
No, not cold. There was no hostility or distance as he gazed upon the reflection, and the Boy was drawn to it.
His gaze locked in place, the Boy noticed how clearer everything had become. A light radiated across the water and seemed to fix him in place. And though the light was gentle and pale, it roared with life inside him.
There was a beauty to it unlike anything one could find in the daytime; it wasn’t the radiance that sunlight brought, and yet the Boy could feel a warmth resonating deep within his chest.
The face wasn’t cold at all, but ethereal.
“Nice to see you here,” the Boy said, speaking for the first time in what seemed to have been a while. There was a dryness to his throat, and those first words came out not unlike the croak of an old toad.
“I always come,” the Moon replied.
Sitting there, together with his thoughts and this blazing specter in the cool stillness of a quickly fallen night, many moments passed. Where there was once a scant few stars dotting the sky, many more soon arrived. It was as though the Moon was resuming some frozen moment. A stillness no longer lingered.
Night continued to pass in silence. The heavens turned above as did the Moon, shifting subtly over the water until the Boy was forced to lift his chin to address it.
It was a roaring thing, the sound of no sounds. Where once the Boy found himself scanning the horizon and his mind alike for any detail to fix his attention to, desperate for anything to ground him, he now found the act of perceiving beyond him.
Though more stars were emerging from the cover of night and the Moon shone on, everything was dark.
Though the lake lay flat and the wind dared not to breathe life into the sand and grass, everything was loud.
Though he had spent so many wandering nights and listless days preparing for this, the Boy found himself divorced from his mind.
When one lives a moment over and over again in their head, anticipating every action and re-action, how is it one can come to live it? Infinite repetitions and variations were preparations for a moment that could not happen; the suffocating mind squeezed every uncertainty from this moment so that all that was left to happen was the moment itself.
Yet this moment was unlike anything the Boy could have prepared for; he’s here and the Moon is here and they are talking. If only he could find the words he’d prepared so carefully. Instead, he finds only that they have abandoned him.
With nothing to do but watch the heavens turn and let this which was so desperately bargained for slip through his fingers, the Boy reached out into the sand. It’s coarse as it always is and will be, and it too passes seamlessly from his grasp into the emptiness that he’s come to know. He finds a rock and clutches it.
Smooth and firm, tangible and subject to will. Grounding, yet colder now than the last one was. The day continued to stretch further out behind the Boy, never again to be lived, while at the same time the end of the night rushes towards him. He doesn’t know, cannot know, when it will reach him and yet he knows it draws nearer.
He flicks the stone and it sails out over the water.
One.
Two.
“I’ve missed you,” blurted the Boy.
Three.
Only three this time.
The calm quiet of the night crept its way back in. So rapidly shorn, it takes time to mend. Again the ripples on the lake fade away. They came quicker this time, and left much the same.
“I’ve missed seeing you as well”, replied the Moon.
Those words seemed to float through the air, coming to rest in the ears of the Boy. Meandering and gentle, they did not tear through the silence but merely waded their way to him, allowing the night air to seamlessly part around them.
“That’s not what I meant”
Again the Boy broke the silence with words sharp and hot, steeped red with passion. This time they came out more focused and certain.
“Tell me what it is you mean,” spoke the Moon with words cool and soothing.
The Boy grabbed another stone and tossed it out to the lake.
One.
There was no skip this time. The Boy had merely tossed the rock into the lake to disrupt the pale reflection in the water.
After some time, the Boy could suffer the silence no longer.
“How many days did I spend aimlessly under the hot sun, searching for refuge? How many nights did I lie down, unsure of where I would go the next day, hoping simply to find my way to another evening? How often did I awake between dusk and dawn just to greet your face and have a few moments of simple companionship?”, the Boy spoke out with stilted words that grew stronger as he went, “I’ve found nothing but heartache and contempt with all those that I’ve come across, and in you I thought I finally found something that would last. But how many nights have I woken to find a hollow sky, an empty and desolate heaven?”
Stopping for just a moment, the Boy threw another rock into the water.
One.
This one was larger than the others and it took quite a while for the water to settle down. Before the Moon’s image could resolve again, the Boy had resumed his soliloquy.
“I shared with you my thoughts, my dreams and intentions, my very heart and mind. I told you of my fears and the ways in which I’d been scorned. I admit that I wasn’t perfect and that I deserved a fair share of what I reaped. But you knew me. You let me open myself up to you. You let me trust you and think I had found a soul to confide in. That I would be known for who I was and loved regardless. And just as soon as I had found myself easing again into the unsteady waters of trust, I awoke to your absence.”
More stars had joined the Moon above and the evening continued without wind, but the air seemed to grow taut around the Boy. The tension continued to build as he wound the accusations about him.
“I was aware of your nature, of your comings and goings. I had felt the despair in my stomach before, the ache of a night without your comforting presence. But always you returned, always I could count on your return. What happened this time? How many seasons came and went, how many fruit were borne and seeds planted, how many times did I awake only to find you missing? What happened, where did you go? Why did you leave?”
Like a bow pulled past the point of breaking that finally snaps, the Boy was still. A great energy had been expended and now he sat quietly on the beach. His toes no longer dug trenches in the sand and his fingers ceased hunting for rocks. He sat there.
And many moments passed.
The stars continued to turn and the Moon continued to cross the sky.
The Boy felt his breathing steady and his nerves calm. He was without something he hadn’t known he was carrying, and this newfound emptiness was queer. He shifted, uncomfortably.
The Boy lay down and stared straight up. When the reply came he found the Moon directly overhead.
“I have come to know you only as well as you have let me, and I have loved every fleeting glance that you permitted.”
“You see yourself as a wounded animal, an outcast of society, an accursed wretch meant to languish in isolation. But I see something much different.”
“I see a beauty that can only come from the desire to be known; a yearning that has persisted through so many beatings. Not once in those many nights where I listened from above did you ever threaten to give up. It is not in your nature; you must continue for your love for life cannot be quenched.
“I understand that you are hurt and that you feel abandoned, but make no mistake: you lash out because of my absence, but you have come to trust me only because of my distance.”
“I became myself far before our paths crossed, and I never presented as anything else. You knew me as an occasional companion, a kindred spirit you might share an evening with. You knew many nights before our first meeting, and you continue to persist even during those times I am not around. In much the same way, my journey continues even when it takes me away from you.”
“I will not promise you that I will change. Nor is that what you want. It is my nature to come and go, guided only by my celestial ambitions. It is yours to love and cry and bleed and burn with your insatiable passion. Our paths bring us together on occasion, but we are not on the same journey.”
“I cannot promise you that I will change my ways and be there whenever you expect me. Nor would I, if I could. But this is not what you want, not truly. You know this as well as I.”
“But as I have said once tonight I will say again: I always come. Not always when you expect; not always when you desire or think you need me; but there will always be another time. This you can be certain of.”
The Boy listened to all that the Moon had to say, and then continued to listen for some time more. The words rang through his head and he replayed them many times as he watched the evening go on.
He had felt empty after delivering his speech to the Moon, and now found that this emptiness was gone. He wasn’t left feeling whole, but he felt he could more clearly see what had been carved out in his chest. He sat up, and felt a great weariness come over him.
Some time since speaking, the Moon had begun its descent. Despite this, there were still some hours until it would be replaced by the Sun. The Boy wasn’t sure when he’d see the Moon again. He didn’t ask.
He didn’t say anything. He sat there, in the dark and silent night. Thinking over all that had been said in this time together, this first meeting in so long.
As he sat his hands drifted once more over the sand, coming eventually upon a rock. It was smooth and flat, slightly oblong with a rounded point. He fingered it as he contemplated. Then suddenly, with practiced ease, he flicked this rock out to meet the others.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six skips out onto the water.
Thank you for reading! I wanted to try something new and challenge myself as a writer. It’s been years since I’ve written fiction and I had a lot of fun giving it another crack.
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