***
The sun was strong and shown through the windows like a scorching hale that slapped me out of my dream. At first I didn’t remember what had happened. I think that for a moment I forgot about the fire flower and Noelia. As I laid there, for some moments, the blaring rays of light broke through my focus, while I tried to figure out where I was and what was going on. When my eyes came to a focus and I looked up and felt her soft chest below my head; and then it all came back to me like a mist-breaking wave.
There she was under me. A beauty. Her mother and father were already awake, staring at me from across the room; both of them were sitting on a small bench, without desire to wake me. I smiled at them and kissed Noelia’s cheek. She looked warmer now (not dark as before), and she was rosier like a half bloom – red with life.
Her hands were hot when I held them. She still looked weak, but much better... Then a miracle took place. Her eyes fluttered and opened. “Oh!” A sigh of relief rushed me. Joy and magic filled my veins, and then she spoke to me; very confused.
“Where am I?” Her voice was soft and sleepy, but she was alive!
I didn’t care to answer, just took her in my arms and kissed her whole face. Her mother was crying now and grasping her hands for joy. In my heart I leapt: She was alive! Still a little weak, but at least not at death’s door any more. As she recovered, and remembered, she looked into my eyes. Some of the anger came back, but her mom came, as an angel, and explained everything that had happened; and how she was able to do it, and with such description, using just two sentences is beyond me. But she did it.
There was nothing needed to tell it any better, so I kept my mouth shut. There wasn’t anything I wanted to say anyway. I already felt like a criminal off the hook, deserving to be hanged by this lovely girl. And yet those two little sentences worked, for all their simplicity – words that I cannot translate.
The anger left her as quickly as it had come and now she just reached out to place her hands around my neck in a sigh of forgiveness. Accepted and forgiven now... Everything wrong had been made right. I don’t know exactly what I felt at that moment, with all the millions of things rushing through my mind, but perhaps I was even a little glad that she had gotten sick. It was a shameful thought, but what could I do? I was holding her in my arms again, and besides that no other event nor consequence mattered. She had let me back into her life.
I stayed with her the rest of that day and well into the night. It was the greatest day of my life all over again. When I left, it was only to be proper. It had been alright to stay by her side all the night of her illness, but now that she was better it would have been inappropriate; especially on the island of Natial where ill behavior was uncommon. I didn’t want to give a bad reputation to her family, which now considered me to be their son, so I did not make myself a burden on them, even though they would have let me stay had I asked to do so. It was best that I left when I did. We were unmarried and that was what etiquette required. Even to stay innocently would have been unfitting. No, the best thing was for me to go, so I did.
The walk back to my room was long and boring, but well enough. Everything was good now that she was all right! As I arrived, again I saw a piece of paper stuck to my door. I didn’t like those poems any more. They had been the cause of all my adversities and they meant trouble! Whoever was their author was a madman! I was so bothered that I got to the door with intent to smash the poem. Snatching it up, I crumpled it and was about to throw it into the bushes, but curiosity got the best of me, so I unraveled it and read.
Once again, I found myself caught up in astonishment. Funny how so many times I’d changed my mind about them. One day I’d think the poems were awful, the next I’d be franticly be searching for another, like an alcoholic looking for another drink, and still the next day I’d be impartial to it all, like an unaffected stand-by.
In one week’s time my mind had gone from hating them, and what they’d brought me, to admiring and appreciating them. Not only for their beauty and elegance in words, but for their clarity in describing the events that unfolded in my life. No longer was I in doubt about their ability to foretell my future, for whoever had written the poems could not have known what was in my heart so that they could write my own mind down on paper; nor could they have followed me through-out my entire stay. No, these poems were real and whoever had written them had done so by some higher means, which I was unaware of, but which gave them greater powers to look into my life.
When I thought about those things I felt chills again, but they were not the same goose bumps I had felt when thinking of Noelia. These were the scary kind, although I don’t think I was scared at the time. At least not at the content of the words, for they were smooth and beautiful, like a lunar eclipse. But it was certain there was something about these poems. Something very strange and very dark. They were interwoven with me somehow. With me, with Noelia, with the island, and with something or someone else. Hopefully that someone was not one that sought me ill; but of that I was not certain.
I set the poem down on my bed and lay down beside it. It made me think about Noelia even more, and became the cause for all my dreams that night. I thought about it continuously until the moment I fell asleep. It was good that I could now fairly read the native dialects. It made it easier for me to like this poem even more.
FIRE FLOWER
Sky of brilliant white
Wrapped in sheets of light reflecting
Bending rays of sun that bounce
Without the strength of fiery breath.
Then comes the essence of the moon
Falling softly like a touch of winter
Covering the horizon
Watching the water freeze to match its gloss.
But without hesitation blooms the flower
Growing from its own sustain
A single seed to start the growth
The glow from within keeps its own existence lit
And takes it steps further
To break through the rock and ice
Above