Scribbilus

Maybe inspired a touch by people and places I hold dear. =P

Artistic liberty, however, I snatched up and shamefully exploited. I meant it to be subtle, but couldn't fight the caricature in the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

:D

I cannot undo the mistakes of your father.
No more can I heal the wounds of your mother's infliction.
But I can hold to you,
Lend you some of my strength;
And if, with me, you feel as though you could right those wrongs,
If, in me, you can find some balm for your battered heart,
Then I will never let you go.

Cling to me, forever if you must,
And never doubt or fear.

I have little to give, and what little I have
Is worthless in the grand spectrum of humanity;
But all my humble store is yours.

I want to be your comfort.
For you, dear, are the world to me,
and it breaks my heart to see you sad.

Alistair

Cities like these are the crossroads of humanity. Every morning, when Apollo’s lantern is lifted from behind the curtain of stars in the East, Fortune orchestrates its elaborate play, drawing together just as many people as Diversity can lend him.

As the sky diffuses with a rosy tint, the established gentry are already trickling out of their town houses and mingling in a swarm of guests and wanderers. They are the aged and the callow, the aimless, the decided, the righteous and the corrupt. Not everyone has a purpose, not everyone has a destination, but everyone has a life and with and of it a story. All are shrouded in anonymity, unidentifiable in the sea of faces. Here, Propriety encounters Bad Taste daily and never knows his name.

He came to the city after twilight, with his wallet in his coat-pocket, a small suitcase containing a few days’ changes of clothes in one hand, and his violin case gripped in the other. Fair Luna was glowing from somewhere behind the tall buildings and he stepped between short, silver shadows as he looked for the address of his boarding house.

He was a stranger here and he arrived under cover of night, when most of the city were slumbering and he could not offend them by turning up in the revealing light of day. Sunlight was for the reputable, and his reputation had always been tarnished. He hoped that here it would pass unnoticed.

Some choose to dwell in darkness, where their ink-stained hearts and underworld cloaks are camouflage; he was cast out into shadow by society, condemned for being what he could not help. He was unlike his contemporaries, faulted for what was no sin, no stain to defile his soul. But a deaf ear was turned towards his pleas for understanding.

Seldom did the upright have occasion to chance upon the scum that make their homes in sewers. He was exiled from the drawing rooms of the principled but too decent to sit in the gutter with the lawless. Nobody ever guessed that a demoralizing environment was a greater punishment to him than any. He tried to make the best of it always, for never was there another as high-minded and patiently enduring as he. Sometimes it took everything that was in him to not crumble; he wanted to lash out at the injustice, break free from the fetters of ignorance and willful intolerance.

But the world had doled out its inequitable provisions, and what prerogatives he was denied were supplemented liberally with hardship. He knew how take the thrashings of fate like a gentleman and how to carry himself with dignity. He always walked with his head held high; he clung to the scraps of his dignity because dignity was the one birthright that they could not conspire to steal from him.

*******************

This morning a flock of cedar waxwings visited me outside my bedroom window. My friend, the clamorous cherry tree, stretched out its cracked and crooked arm to bring our little guests closer. Maintaining their grace though a fury of fluttering feathers, the pretty birds alighted onto the tree's giving boughs and nourished themselves on its clusters of berries. Grateful creatures that they are, they never ceased chirping their thanks; and before taking flight again, as a return for the hospitality, one brave bird, the most outgoing of the flock, approached the window, considered me a moment, and offered this secret: Spring is following me.

Then, with a flick of its yellow tail-feathers, it pursued its cheerful companions, leaving my friend denuded of its last ornaments - but happy, hopeful, anticipating its coming, pink-petaled glory.

Grandmother, by nature or by habit, was nocturnal. She would go to bed after seeing that we were well and happily filled at breakfast, and not emerge again until the time came to prepare supper. Daddy once told me that she had adopted this cycle during his childhood, after being awoken by a burglar when Grandfather was away, but that might have been another of Daddy’s tall tales. Not that I cannot imagine Grandmother heading off an intruder as her unsuspecting brood slept, but fifty years of sleepless nights seems a rather extreme solution.

Sometimes I would feel a pang of hunger in the drowsy darkness of the Witching Hours, so would slip out of bed and pad my way quietly to the kitchen. Grandmother was invariably there, with yesterday’s newspaper spread out before her on the kitchen table, and she never looked surprised to see me. She would make me a pot of tea and extract a package of biscuits from her cavernous biscuit bin.

Then we two would sit a while, cradling our warm mugs between our hands and talking of cozy matters and the little curiosities that she had found hidden in the columns of the Times. The package of biscuits, however full it was, would be peeled open to reveal the proud two-toned stack inside. We did not rise until the last slightly melty, crumb-flecked round had been finished off.

Then she would hold my face between her warm, dry hands, plant a kiss in my hair, and say, “Now off to bed with you.”

“I won’t be able to sleep after the tea, Grandmother,” I would protest, not wanting to leave.

“On the contrary, my dear,” she would say. “You will sleep the better for it.”

To this day I have not found a better panacea for any nighttime trouble.

A treasure-trove was delivered to me today,
In an unassuming disguise of recycled green paper.
Music-makers were nestled amidst wooden charms and sticks of incense,
And a patterned plastic bracelet that was a token not only of taste, but of hope:
Of recovery and restoration.
I found information and inspiration within the colorful pages of books and pamphlets;
A veritable feast for the mind. Whilst without there abounded
Cocoa, coffee, sugar -- and tea; a morning elixir now truly sweet,
Tainted no more with the bitterness of guilt.
Imbued with the sweetness of justice.