asakiyume: (far horizon)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2013-05-17 05:56 pm

The Case of Maddie Lawrence

Sometimes people aren’t led to fairyland by ghost-pale lights or bewitching smiles . Sometimes it simply swallows them up, gulps them down. They fall into it without realizing. They’re lost and don’t even know it.

Like Maddie, walking home from the train station after a long day at work. She stops to admire a crabapple in full bloom, ghostly in the black-and-white of nighttime, luminous—from the starlight? Like the petals are cups filled up with it.

Her head becomes completely filled with petals and starlight, and then at some point she blinks and starts and thinks, Did I just doze off ?

And,

Where am I, again?

There’s a lake up ahead, filled with water lilies. Some are breaking free from their stems and rising off the lake, spinning lazily into the air.

Is she maybe dreaming? Did I maybe leave out the part where she got home, collapsed on the couch without brushing her teeth, and fell asleep?

Maybe I’m the one that’s dreaming, or maybe you are.

It gets worse. Who am I, again? she’s thinking. She knits her brow, trying to pull together some thoughts, trying to make some sense of things, but the only thought that comes to her is something about bells—is it that the lilies can be rung, like bells, if you catch one?

Maddie has that nagging feeling that she needs to remember something. It’s important, so she strains to, shuts her eyes squint-closed and presses her lips together hard, but it’s no good.

When she opens her eyes, someone with black and white fur on their cheeks standing in front of her, someone with a red tattoo in the shape of a star between their eyes.

“Lanterns, or bells?” this person asks, holding out both hands, and in both hands are lilies, tugging to be free from this person’s grasp. Those on the right are glowing slightly; those on the left chime, subsonically, when they brush against each other.

“Bells,” says Maddie, and the person smiles and hands her a lily, and she smiles and takes it.

[identity profile] judo100.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Gorgeous photo!

I like the idea of not knowing if you're dreaming or not. Introduces all sorts of possibilities.

[identity profile] cucumberseed.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
What if she chose lanterns? What then?
(I ask because that's what I would have chosen... maybe.)

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Not my photo--credit due to the artist,Tom Arbour. But yes, I agree--gorgeous!

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I suppose the person would have smiled and handed her a lantern. I'm not at all sure what happens after this.

[identity profile] queenoftheskies.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Lovely story.

[identity profile] bogwitch64.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Love, love, and more love!

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Mmmmm lovely--both the flash fic and the painting!

[identity profile] yamamanama.livejournal.com 2013-05-17 11:46 pm (UTC)(link)
You're right, that does look like the gateway to another world.

Whenever I realize I'm dreaming, I wake up.
pjthompson: (Default)

[personal profile] pjthompson 2013-05-18 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
Lovely! And it made this pop into my head:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

Burthen Ding-dong

Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.

[identity profile] readthisandweep.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 10:37 am (UTC)(link)
What she said... ;)

[identity profile] wuweibaby.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh what will you give me
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
Is there hope for the future?
Say the brown bells of Merthyr

<3 and <3

[identity profile] plantmom.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for posting this. Beautiful.

[identity profile] rowanryder.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
aaaaaaaaahhhh.
Yes
xxx

[identity profile] 88greenthumb.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Love, love, love this beautiful post. The photo, as well.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you--I felt strange about it after I wrote it, but I'm glad to see people have liked it.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
You're too kind by half,** Terri :-)

**except you never do anything by halves, so maybe you're too kind by whole.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
:-)

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
And I love your beautiful snow landscape in this icon--where was it taken?

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Are you ever in a state where you're not sure whether or not you are? Sometimes I've lingered in that state in a dream. It's very strange. And sometimes when I'm very tired, I feel that way even when I'm awake.

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
The friend who made me my cross-stitch Inda took this picture up in Washington.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I love that song. It's both melancholy and beautiful.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh and this one is *also* one of my very favorites, and right now I can't even read the words without getting a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

<3 <3 <3

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm really glad you like it.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
^_^

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Beautiful.

I have some more pictures to post today that you'll like--more lilacs, wisteria, etc.

[identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com 2013-05-18 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, yes! Flowers, please! How I adore lilacs, and they don't grow around here.
pjthompson: (Default)

[personal profile] pjthompson 2013-05-19 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
It's one of those bits of Shakespeare that lodged in my brain and never left—probably for the reasons you mention.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2013-05-23 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
So very glad ♥