Gone The Tides Of Earth: A Novel

There they sat, stilled in the cold, minds a hemisphere apart, gone overcast the ether, fell over the city silence. Therein was, irrevocably, the last time the continents-crossed lovers would see each other. They had expected - verily anticipated its eventual fruition. Now come, neither could believe it a thing true.

Reality bereft as home, faith, hope, he could no longer to any degree nor manner fathom it - any of it - in the same he couldn’t sensate the presence of himself nor hers, or pay witness the architectural spectacle of veined marble courtyard just below, shaded trees in the gardens and breeze which came brisk, fluttering the purple velvet drapes hung before the broad window, which’s haunting form cast - over the walls, sandalwood doors and vestibule - gothic shadows of the expressionistic.

Quite a while they remained silent, estranged with the air of a couple where one might’ve expressed admission of their having committed infidelity. Becomes a silence whereof everything external gains the natural place of what goes internal; outside-in inflection; sorrow-driven omission of truth per interiorities.

So they were still, and sitting stared vacantly at frayed plumes of paper-machete decorum crafted into little birds, fish, beasts strewn up in the corners, and at vibrant silken sheets hung with tapestries of Revolution and Emperor on the walls. These articles animated as did the ribbon leaves of tassels, willow trees and honey-locusts in the yard, streaming the air like bows of laburnums vivified in haloed golden fire; heard the gentle sound produced as air percolated the room, stirring easily permeable fabrics, sifting without until displaced on the foundation of hotel; breathed long and deep into their nostrils aged, incense-chic aroma of the outmoded hotel room. Anything, everything, all things of triviality they observed in current state, except daring speak to each other.

He stared from the bed out the window and she gazed the back of him; nothing to behold but breeze, smells, sense of loss and exterior of monument and nature.

‘You knew this was coming, darling,’ she spoke, the silence over. ‘We’ve only a few hours left. Come here - hold me tight.’

‘Sorry, I can’t right now.’

Gathering himself the young man strode from the back of the room, where was only shadow to lean against a dresser next to the window. Outside light shone whitish, opaque, the wind gusting in strong dins as though dragging with it that same strange shade of effervescent light. Lingering aside, fellow tugged lethargically at the chord dangled beneath a beige, hair-straddled lampshade and shutting off its electrical light; with only natural source the room seemed less jarring. Facing away he stared out the window, where the breeze streamed and died then flew once more.

Finally eyes interlocked, glossy, unmatched for the moment; each betraying hallmarks of certain emotive traits, registering disparate polarities. Off a simple wooden nightstand the girl lifted a leathern notebook, folded inwards, lashed thrice with strands of woven hemp. Then she looked sharply into his gaze before ambling, barefoot, across the woolen carpet to poise at the foot of the bed. Her hand faintly trembling, she offered up the small leather timekeeper; there was a poignant look, both eyes clouded with moisture.

‘Everything that mattered in there is gone.’

‘You haven’t lost everything, Henry,’ came her answer.

For a while, without replying he peered listlessly through the grime-smeared antiquity of a window, at something unperceivable within the empty courtyard several floors below. Centered there amidst columnar pillars and street benches was an emerald statue of a soldier mounted on a warhorse bucking the air, also an obsolete brass fountain of stagnant waters. Sidewalks ran beyond the limestone of the courtyard, with the farthest bordered by a tramline and road through middle, sleek jet, shining in the rain, automobiles parked both sides. Upwards from the road, tramline glistened the wet trees in a park, confines shaded from view by bulbous, leafy green tops of deciduous trees.

Alone or coupled, dozen or so people went along their way in the rain. Most disappeared under trees, around edges of the old, reticulated hotel. Some lingered longer, smoking cigarettes beneath shelters or waiting. Soon enough no one was to be seen heading past the dimly lit lampposts with the heads hanged over sidewalks, past limestone, granite and past the scattered, barren oil drums, no more conspicuous persons dissipating as purgatorial silhouettes into shadows and then ending up gone away in the dark.

The man paced feebly before straightening up, mustering a sense of courage. Only then did he fixate back unto her clotted vision. She looked like she wanted to speak, caught stammering and he felt sympathy for putting her nerves on edge.

‘It’s up to you darling, your choice to make,’ he said simply.

‘I’ve made it, I can’t stay here any longer.’

Her heart was breaking, dreadful to witness and this he knew, though since his mind had long been gone his heartstrings could not tear in the same.

‘Why do you have to go back there? We could go anywhere else.’

Poised awkwardly by the dresser he awaited reply, she didn’t answer and in lieu went about the room toiling in their complete silence, folding clothing splayed at the base of the bed, then afterward retrieving a wheelable aluminum luggage-case from a musty, paint-chipped closet.

‘Why go back, truly?’

‘Henry, is there nothing you still care for?’ she asked desperately, aloof.

The young man unslinged, began trifling through the materials messed within the leathern timekeeper. Once opened it betrayed a melange of foreign articles, images, portraits, of letters and reminders, of keepsakes.

The two apart came closer, sitting down on the bed, then not moving. Neither made a fuss nor spoke, preliminarily withdrawing from the other. Although given instinct and obedience to feeling they eventually gravitated closer.

‘Won’t you come with me, sweet?’

‘I’m sorry - I cannot.’

Sophia smoothed both hands over the knees of the gown she wore, Henry looked thoughtfully ahead at the silks, tapestries. She stared at him searchingly, an expression of consideration painted on her face. In a passing moment she swept both hands along his shoulder-blades, caressed him around the waist, then soon laying back unto the soft, polyurethane mattress, heads lighting delicately upon a mound of beaten goose-feather pillows nesting under a quaint wooden headboard. Only then, bodies soothed by a tranquil breeze washing in, propped ears listening to the patter of rain as it fell softly upon paved stone and metal, did they reconcile their silence.

‘What will you do?’ she asked her lover. ‘Where will you go?’

‘East.’

‘Where?’

‘Greece, probably.’

‘Why?’

‘To see if I can’t understand what started all of this.’

‘But you know, already.’

‘Not really.’

‘My darling ascetic, your romantic ideals will be the death of you - good-heartedness shall be bane of Henry Owen.’

Later in the afternoon the rain ceased, air become much cooler. Sweetly smell of the rained, watery grass, dewy saps, bark, moss, shrubs, floral plants evoked in them the subtle ghost of a youthful hours. Still later, outside darker, he watched raindrops drip from windowpane, admiring wet quality of the glass which made it seem more like opulent crystal. After breeze picked up, pervasive damp sinking through cloth, into bone.

He got up, went to close the window, crossing room and at frame behind the dresser pushed down on the olden reticulate. It would not budge; stuck in a sort of inordinate lodging as older windows are wont. Resolving effort, he went back over to bed, whereas Sophia; for her part she was receptive, consummate, upon his return.

She awaited him comfortably after his brief embarkation, wrapped in a poof of the white duvet, a naked, smooth-shaven leg straddled across, toes pointing directly at an unsuspecting Henry. Gazes stayed fixed as he made peregrination to the edge of mattress. More greyly than white, outer light shone in the olden hotel upon her; yet despite he could see her deep-sea emerald eyes gleaming amidst wild mane of onyx-coloured hair.

He stood there, she lay where she lay, they merely saw each other. Last thing beforehand, he watched her slip out the blanket from between legs, rolling onto belly, dangling a leg in the air; despite nightgown everything below midsection was bare, ivory flesh toned, supple, heaped over with smooth, symmetrical cheeks abreast. All else enervated in the instance, stripped off clothes and slid onto bed, atop the gorgeous, deep-sea-emerald-eyed onyx-haired girl, wherein tantrically gazed, kissed.

Seeing into eyes were soon deep within, wet, warm, at the end they lay back, head on chest, wild mane liberally dispersed. Both bodies soaked with perspiration, illumed in pale sheen in dull light; placed a hand beneath head to feel heartbeat, sparing the side of face sticky salinity of their skins.

‘I love you,’ she said, slow and honest.

‘I love you,’ he answered, for his part sounding grim, though earnest, as well.

-

A shroud overtook the light as a blood sun sunk to loom merely above horizon. Fragile wisps of pink, purple and red stood out, infiltrating the dark clouds, shining fiercely. Therein their last evening, whilst day came to dusk and the sky had yet blacken they commenced again, any light velvety violet, darkly metallic.

‘Look out there.’

‘Magnifique.’

He kissed the tip of her nose, gently over both eyelids. She looked into his profile, flashing the bright, doey eyes of a loving lecher’s doting. He gazed the same back at her.

‘It’s so calm,’ she said, turning away, looking back out the window.

‘Nothing like the fierce barren grey north.’

‘There are beautiful skies to be found everywhere.’

‘Really, quite so?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘In Casablanca?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘Beirut?’

‘Quite so.’

‘What about Buenos Aires?’

‘There also.’

‘In Eritrea, too?’

‘There, too.’

‘And Los Angeles?’

‘Once the prettiest of all.’

‘Can you tell me about the skies above Antarctica?’

‘Antarctica has beautiful glacier-gleaned skies of blue and white.’

‘Like in the Arctic with Aurora?’

‘Accurate, yes.’

‘There is no sky so pretty to be under as you.’

She rolled atop as they kissed, firm legs straddling either side. Out the window they peered a little longer until turning away from it to see each other, coming together as before. Then, resting abreast in the finale of final accompaniment, serene pleasance with the cool night air and dim starlight overcoming. Pecking lips softly, wrapped up in each other, indulged in feeling of liberation from stress, worry temporarily provided.

Pitch-black and cooler whence they came back into themselves, ascertaining time, veracity of their predicament, dampness without no longer pressing. Both of them lay back, staring into the shadowy ceiling where nothing was revealed, no answers and minds racing with thoughts. Within that cold dark, at a distance from what came prior sentiments were undone, awoken from illusions of bliss, nighttime arrived in earnest.

In state of birth, carnally exquisite, Sophia sat up on her knees in bed - due palely reflected light Henry saw it run with consistent viscosity downwards, porous along the back of thighs, calves, buttocks, even streaked as far as the heels and soles of feet. She looked finer and more beautiful than ever in the lustrous moonlight, beauty as though her soul objectified the tinted light and atmospheric aura to her will.

‘Henry,’ she said, moored where keeled. ‘Are you ready for us to talk serious?’

‘Sure.’

‘It leaves soon - within the hour.’ They met in the middle, chilled fleshes finding warmth. ‘Is there nothing for me to say that’ll convince you to come home?’

Raindrops trickled off the branches of pines, oaks, from the heads of lampposts onto the pavement of the sidewalks, in the grass of gardens and out on the street. Road gleamed a sleek black that shone like that of reeled film. Below, voices could be heard always rising and faded out quickly, the sound of bootheels traversing the street, occasional muffled conversations ignored by the pair abed inside.

‘It’s time, darling. The ship leaves soon.’

‘I know.’

‘Are you ready?’ she asked.

‘If ever could be.’

With that last the girl rose out of bed, began collecting things, placing them into a suitcase. Henry watched her make ready for the departure, noted in the illumination of fragmented light the worn timekeeper smothered in duvet at the base of bed. He lifted it up, opening to a page he marked beforehand, when he stood by the window and all had felt much more terrible than it really was. He flitted best he could through the timekeeper, absorbing an abundance of torn photographs and letters interspliced with the genuine sheaves of the book. Added articles seemed to account for at least half the weight of the digest. There were many photos old, torn, stained and some of white edges barely any darker from the corners which existed upon original printing. Most letters were crinkled, creased and dirty with a beige quality of age like the school-child technique of smearing teabags over parchment to affect an antiquated aesthetic befitting class projects on pioneering pilgrims or medieval society. Despite mind racing, drifting far away, he reeled it in and brought his attention to hone unto the notebook nonetheless.

A man with short mess of dark hair dressed in flannel, jeans, tractor boots and grasping shaft of a pitchfork. Aside were bales of hay same height as the man, barn in the background, rustic red frame at least a century old. This man, uncle and sole sibling of Sophia’s mother cared for two school-age daughters and an ailing wife who perished shortly before the invasions began. Not happy yet not an air of sadness either, merely aspect betraying he had lived hard, bore stress, become stoic at heart.

Next was a printed letter with lines scratched through each sentence transcribed - supposed act of passive, defiant aggression. It was an edict circumscribed by the last mayor of their hometown, Sophia’s father, decreeing that any formal act of belligerence back then towards their hosts would result in utmost austerity. Henry glanced over first few lines, reading between the thick pencil marks etched horizontally across:

Dearest Smithvillian citizens,

Let it be known that the occupants of our urban and rural territories, as passed down by parliament - possessing proper documentation and fiduciary rights to be here - will perform all duties and any others necessary, and deemed appropriate by Offices of the Prime Minister, in all legality as well as federal and provincial collusion. Suppression to these tasks in any form will result in severe punishment for any and all involved in such treasonous enterprise. As a refrain to several incidences that have already taken place

Henry stopped reading, letting the letter fall from the notebook to the floor. He stood afoot, having done so without realization nor perception of his own movement, feeling now the despair only ever partly forgotten. Sophia persisted about her endeavour nearer the closet, pale grey and distant now, already like a spectre past haunting future. Briskly, he went to the dresser, reading at the window stilly there; gothic frame stood out like a dark entity, shrill wind’s wisp its bitter, ancient voice. A disguise of refracted shadow bars cast upon vestibule a row of black echelon claws, seemed to curve floor into the ceiling. He glanced over many photographs of people from back home, foreign cities, shots he had himself taken of sites and events. He read through some letters, delicate enough not to tear the fragile parchments upon which most were written.

Henry looked up at some point as to assess Sophia’s progress; could only vaguely make out the outline of body, shoulders hunched over, phantom limbs toiling within the suitcase. Her nude form in the dim light like a gothic remnant of a mythological tale; perhaps Saturn’s daughter before devoured, or pornographic Nosferatu.

Night having come, darkness settled invariably throughout the room, breeze whispering faint as murmur of an anorexic stream. The drapes were stirred enough to rise only feebly, weak as quiver of leaves piled aground in raked mounds during autumn; barely both curtains lifted on occasion as with the calm, foreboding entice of a supernatural presence brandishing its slender, spectral fingers.

He returned to bed, lying down and flitting the remainder of its contents. A photograph with frayed corners of an entire family, children grown, all formally garbed and standing afore a kitchen island toasting wine glasses. Some pages had been burnt crisp with holes like a charcoal mosaic. Came upon delightful pictures of a century of people at an outdoor banquet sporting tables with rich cornucopias, all of them barefoot, dancing, laughing. There were musicians with instruments and toddlers who played at the edge of a weedy riverbed yonder. Then a photo of a teenager with two adults, each parent standing behind the boy, grasping his shoulder and each other’s.

Clamping shut the luggage-case buckles, Sophia loaded it by the threshold. Afterward she walked back over to the foot of the bed.

‘That’s everything,’ she said. ‘Are you finished with that?’

Henry carefully inserted its articles, stuffed shut and lashed closed the timekeeper. Sophia took it, immediately reopened it, withdrawing the photograph he had been gazing and also a picture with the two of them somewhat younger, another of herself taken after the voyage, one among friends. She kissed the one of them, staining celluloid with colourful lipstick before passing each photo along. Then waited until the time came.

‘Listen, I know the pressure when you feel compelled to meet a certain expectation - especially when nothing is further from your own desire.’

‘This isn’t that.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘Positive.’

They stared each other’s marble faces in clear moonlight, the sky clearing, and held on for what seemed dear life. Tears teemed and felt wet and cold against their cheeks. Throughout it all there were not any hysterics, nor would there be. Either was stunned in a thousand good ways, thousands that felt bad too. Their eyes, when not kissing seemed locked on for all eternity. Neither knew if there might be another moment or if this all would be, maybe would never breathe nor move again, always yet remaining entranced in that embrace of blue, green captivation like worlds lit with a million possibilities bereft millions of others, then that would be fine - at least they had known this love.

‘Ethereal,’ she said, aglow amid their sorrowful ecstasy.

‘As are you.’

‘But it is, really - this moment,’ she insisted. ‘Hold onto it.’

He ran his fingers upon her cheeks as heads, bowed together, and hands interlocked upon each’s lap. Consummation of theirs, all they ever had and for what had been between them belonging to love. A moment for romance sparked to soar above all else. Infused with magic, as if what emanated from eyes and constitutions of sight, seeing could ever be extracted for lover’s purpose. As before they remained there, still, mortally entwined, holding on ever tight against the tide. And it was ethereal, as she said.

Although fleeting, ethereal as the shine of the rain-slick road and sleek lampposts radiating ghostly light in the fog enshrouding their dangled heads.

Ethereal as she would soon look going out the door, smiling, waving goodbye with a sort of half-sad smile. As she would cross the road in grey woolen overcoat bartered, luscious mane of hair tumbled down her shoulders.

Ethereal as she would walk briskly out into the dark, cool night air beyond the olden hotel walls, and disappear forever.

‘You could still come.’

He looked at she and realized her mind had not gone away from that place yet.

‘Sophia, I love you,’ he said to her.

‘I love you too, Henry,’ she said back.

From somewhere slightly distant out across the city streets boomed the noise of a ship’s horn clearing the air, shattering any veneer of peace or silence. All peoples were awoken, feet soon to be scurrying and those left behind weeping. At the docks of the pier, beyond the wharf at the end of harbour would be a mass congregation met in a swelling lamentation for farewells and forget-me-nots.

‘That’s thirty minutes.’

Another blast went at fifteen minutes to boarding, Sophia on her feet crying silently and Henry sitting up in bed. As she stood there dressing Henry started feeling vulnerable, in an acutely esoteric way he did not understand, and decided to dress as well.

She wore a lovely blue dress and white heels. Her wavy hair was wild in its tangled courses. Moving forth swiftly they found each other center of the room, Sophia coming into his embrace endearingly, peering up at him and he down at her. For a moment neither spoke, though in lieu of words went a tender silence.

‘Keep it,’ she said eventually, a hand upon his heart.

‘Keep what?’

‘The icy fire. Your northern spirit. Keep it in here, promise?’

‘Always. And you the most of all.’

‘You as well, darling.’

‘Promise that you’ll be okay, won’t you?’

‘I’ll be just fine, don’t worry about that. Maybe one day you’ll come home and set out to find me?’

‘Maybe one day I’ll come home to find you.’

Standing there amid au revoir they kissed for the last time; a long, impassioned yet subtle kiss, gentling and when over, Henry knew nothing after could ever be as perfect - that despite wishing to have another it would be folly for that last to be anything but. The horn of the ship blasted, blew with certitude, an echo that seemed would not go away. Time for boarding.

Her heart thumped against his chest, eyes were fearful yet in their depths he could tell she was not really scared. Such a state was entirely unavoidable and, further, the sole purpose for existence of bravery. He knew with complete conviction in her vessel she carried an indomitable spirit which would bear herself nobly always, lead her to triumph through any dark.

‘Goodbye, love - Henry Owen.’

They smiled true and sad, eyes met and tears brimming, and then she left out with the luggage and closed door behind. He went over to the window, hoping and waiting to see her come out onto the street. A few minutes had past when he started fearing perhaps she had gone a different way, but then he saw her come out through the courtyard and pass small gatherings of individuals speaking furtively in the dark as they warmed themselves over fires in rusty oil drums, whom looked after her as she went by. She went out across the limestone into the night, past the emerald statue, fauna, broke-down fountain. Afterward he noticed her silhouette darken at the far end of the courtyard, watching as she disappeared beyond the west wall of the old hotel. Then she was really gone.

Crossing room back to bed he realized it was raining softly, hearing pitter of raindrops dappling paved street. Thirty minutes later he heard the horn of a ship, more distant, emphatical clearing the air for a last time. The night fell pitch-black, city silent after the wailing of the horn and more silent after.

He undressed, lifted the sheets, got into bed under the covers. Still wet were the sheets from lovemaking. Laying wearily, closing eyelids, he tucked his chin into chest, eyes shut now and for what in a bitter way felt must be always.