The old woman who lived by the sea.
She had a bedroom with a window that looked out to the bay in the island, one palm tree and two moored boats. The water was always glass and had been that way since 1956, the year the wind stopped. There was no more smells of sea farers or the onion that used to waft across from the other side of the sea. The cries of the old wailing their grief to the breeze. The sounds and smells of Italy left when the wind did. Now there was only silence.
The old woman was alone on the island. 1956 had been the end to the little city that rose slowly to a summit where the old tower still stood. The quiet death had come with the last gust down from the bay of Dubrovnik where it was said the lepers had finally made their curse to the well and dammed the whole of the Dalmatian coast. Korchula with its one port and its slow traffic had been the last to go. She wasn’t alone as such; there was one other with a beard as long as the tower itself. Imprisoned there for breaking her heart, in one room and with seven hundred tins of canned meat with a window also to the sea. The cobble stone streets now had three generations of plant life pushed up beneath the cracks and the daisies someone had once planted in their window box had overtaken everything, the flowers attracted the butterflies and the butterflies the birds until the city itself had become a garden. Without wind the sound of small wings could be heard by the old woman and the bearded man every day without fail and it reminded them both of the times they had sailed in the wind to the point half way between her country and his coast.
In those days it was love that dictated the machinations of the city. Those that came, came for love those that left, left with an empty heart. She was the daughter of the mayor, the man whose power came from the fact that everyone, down to the last child and the first crone loved him. You would have loved him too, it wasn’t his eyes or his looks although both where beautiful beyond compare it was the way he could listen to the breeze and know what weather was on the horizon, the way he could see a womans hands and know that she could no longer take the pain. The way he kissed old men on the mouth with passion and without guile even though their teeth and breath had long before begun to spell their death. He was an empath and he had glorious toes.
When an affair ended in Korchula, as they do, there was a funeral, a rite which saw the youngest members of the community burn the first love letters and adolescent poetry of the grieving pair. A pyre was made and on this an effigy burnt of the two so that in letting go they could be born anew. When someone died they pulled down their house and in its place they planted a fig tree because figs were the fruit of love and good digestion. The ones left behind were moved to a new house where there was blue glass mosaics on the bedroom ceiling to remind them that it was they that were still alive and that love would come again.
Every house on the island had open windows facing the sea in all directions for the heat was terrific and every bit of wind had to be allowed passage. It was this that had saved the old woman from the sickness. When her heart had broken beyond repair of the rites of the city and the consolation of her father the most generous heart in the world, she had boarded up the windows that faced away from the bay, the windows that faced the mainland of Croatia, the windows that faced the tower of her lost love. She had not let them build a pyre and could not let go of her letters. She had a box under the chair she sat in most days and in here she kept the words he had once written to her on the long voyages he often took. He wrote about the mermaids and sea cows and dolphins and the day he saw Atlantis briefly flash beneath his boat. He wrote about love and about the memory of her body as he lay awake at night, the salted pork and the smell of other men so close that some nights they took comfort in each others arms and thought about the ones they had at home the traces of whom they still felt on their finger tips. He was never embarrassed for these moments and she loved him more for the way that he could kiss lips that weren’t hers, for she knew that all the world was full of people who are beautiful and kissable and whose bodies should know the gentleness of his touch.
TBC when I don’t have an essay to write…
The old woman was alone on the island. 1956 had been the end to the little city that rose slowly to a summit where the old tower still stood. The quiet death had come with the last gust down from the bay of Dubrovnik where it was said the lepers had finally made their curse to the well and dammed the whole of the Dalmatian coast. Korchula with its one port and its slow traffic had been the last to go. She wasn’t alone as such; there was one other with a beard as long as the tower itself. Imprisoned there for breaking her heart, in one room and with seven hundred tins of canned meat with a window also to the sea. The cobble stone streets now had three generations of plant life pushed up beneath the cracks and the daisies someone had once planted in their window box had overtaken everything, the flowers attracted the butterflies and the butterflies the birds until the city itself had become a garden. Without wind the sound of small wings could be heard by the old woman and the bearded man every day without fail and it reminded them both of the times they had sailed in the wind to the point half way between her country and his coast.
In those days it was love that dictated the machinations of the city. Those that came, came for love those that left, left with an empty heart. She was the daughter of the mayor, the man whose power came from the fact that everyone, down to the last child and the first crone loved him. You would have loved him too, it wasn’t his eyes or his looks although both where beautiful beyond compare it was the way he could listen to the breeze and know what weather was on the horizon, the way he could see a womans hands and know that she could no longer take the pain. The way he kissed old men on the mouth with passion and without guile even though their teeth and breath had long before begun to spell their death. He was an empath and he had glorious toes.
When an affair ended in Korchula, as they do, there was a funeral, a rite which saw the youngest members of the community burn the first love letters and adolescent poetry of the grieving pair. A pyre was made and on this an effigy burnt of the two so that in letting go they could be born anew. When someone died they pulled down their house and in its place they planted a fig tree because figs were the fruit of love and good digestion. The ones left behind were moved to a new house where there was blue glass mosaics on the bedroom ceiling to remind them that it was they that were still alive and that love would come again.
Every house on the island had open windows facing the sea in all directions for the heat was terrific and every bit of wind had to be allowed passage. It was this that had saved the old woman from the sickness. When her heart had broken beyond repair of the rites of the city and the consolation of her father the most generous heart in the world, she had boarded up the windows that faced away from the bay, the windows that faced the mainland of Croatia, the windows that faced the tower of her lost love. She had not let them build a pyre and could not let go of her letters. She had a box under the chair she sat in most days and in here she kept the words he had once written to her on the long voyages he often took. He wrote about the mermaids and sea cows and dolphins and the day he saw Atlantis briefly flash beneath his boat. He wrote about love and about the memory of her body as he lay awake at night, the salted pork and the smell of other men so close that some nights they took comfort in each others arms and thought about the ones they had at home the traces of whom they still felt on their finger tips. He was never embarrassed for these moments and she loved him more for the way that he could kiss lips that weren’t hers, for she knew that all the world was full of people who are beautiful and kissable and whose bodies should know the gentleness of his touch.
TBC when I don’t have an essay to write…
posted by kel at 9:55 PM
1 Comments:
used me last one writin bout colonial discourse and the construction of the caste system. now my dear megspegs when am i gunna read/see your stuff eh? eh? all these lovelyites around and yet to see their creative headspaces, whilst my little naffspace is open to the world. hope your essays go well IM ON HOLS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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