//------------------------------// // XV // Story: Wayfarer // by The Plebeian //------------------------------// Under a roof, now, the golden lights of the monumental glass buildings are found only in the windows of the background. Through the glass drift memories of the splotchy crowds beyond, coated in grey. Between the wide windows rests a door, swung open by a recent entry. Across the floor are black and white tiles, arranged in patterns and checkers, whatever may have come to mind. Round tables are scattered around atop the tiles, fashioned of cast iron, and painted a plain black, with matching chairs. Along the side walls are lined a series of booths of similar make. The café is full, each table taken by some form of color, singular or plural, having some form of breakfast. They are vague figures, though not so rushed as those outside. They take distinguished shape, and one may recognize them separately, but they are still strangely left out of detail. Perhaps that is how they are remembered. Memory has a strange way of blurring those other parts of reality. The mind remembers the colors, the forms, but not faces or clothing or interaction. It is disappointing that it only holds so much. Perhaps it would make the scene seem brighter. The two are seated directly across from each other, and yet for once their eyes do not meet. She turns her head to her left, surveying the lovely place with keen interest, wondering if she should paint it sometime. She would very much like to, should she find the time, though it would be much to paint, not nearly so easy as the glassy buildings at night. There are others here to sketch and detail, all within the time it takes for them to eat. It would be a challenge, she thinks, but she would rise to it. Sometimes a painting is better rendered with such a rushed tempo, improved by the quick, bold strokes. It takes practice, though. She remembers her first time speed-painting, as they called it. She still carries the painting with her in her bag. The strokes are confused, and many parts of the paper left white. It is a river she had done in watercolor. The sky remains a blank white. All the trees she remembers are manifest in a slur of green smudges, each missing a trunk. The river is rendered well-enough, although she has left gaps for rocks that she never had time to fill in. The riverbed is hastily stroked two long stretches of a plain tan, and a few red dashes in the air signify a couple of songbirds that had flown by as she set up the easel. She keeps it to remind herself that her best art should take time. Still, she is quite happy with the rendering from the night before. She has caught all that she wants to, and wonders if she should sell it. No, it helps her remember. She wonders how he can remember a place so well without pictures, how he can hold it all in his mind. He knows the way perfectly to this place, without even faltering. It is all ingrained perfectly. She wonders what the paintings mean to him, then. He stares down to the floor, to his little trinket-filled bag. It is baffling to him. She has elected to pay for breakfast alone. He cannot bear himself, unable to support her. Is that not his duty? His heart is wrenched between the material and the sublime, that she loves him regardless. How can she ignore it? Perhaps she has anticipated it. He does not like that idea. It makes him feel weak, unfit to care for her, if he cannot even provide for her. He wants to ask, but will it always be so? Must she always pay for their travels? Before, he could merely work small jobs, but now, he cannot imagine putting her through such demeaning labor. Yet, as much as he thinks, he cannot find a way through the barrier. He has no money, and he never will have any. Can she love that? Will she agree to travel with that looming over her? He cannot say; he can only ask. It returns to that, the asking. It is a mere few days with her, and already, he finds himself at this question. Would she let go, forever, just to be with him, just so he can wake up to her smiles? He knows not. Once again, he must ask. Once more, a pause. She loves it, now. She has said that she loves him too, but whether it is enough, he does not know. Perhaps she merely loves the change of scenery, the new things to paint. She will have to sell her paintings for them, he imagines. Would she let them go for him? Possibly, but he will never be happy with it, regardless of how she feels. He must ask her. Everything but her art he must ask her to trade, just for him, just to travel. He cannot ask now. The sting of his poverty still pains him. How could she smile so brightly, even when she is responsible for him? It is alien, and it hurts him to accept so much grace, so much generosity, without hope of repaying. Yet, he fails to grasp that such is the nature of generosity. It gives all it has, until there is nothing left, and then it gives itself, all that it is, where there will always be more. The heart may never stop giving, even should objects and trinkets run dry. He does not understand it yet. He cannot accept it. Strange how one of his love’s most wonderful traits he finds so cruel. He wants to resist it, rebuff it. He wants to pay it back, and void its heart, but another day, he must accept it, for generosity gives regardless. He seems to be thinking. Perhaps there is something about the place he remembers, something he needs a bit of time to ponder.