A low-frequency ebb. Some would call it. These oscillations of the soul. Renalto in the springtime of. He, what, kind of lost his bearings somewhere in all that. All that. Whatever that. Was.
“What were we talking about?” Trying to bring himself back into some kind of focus. He’d not touched the tea she’d bought him, generous gal, which at some point had grown cold. And though it was still a cup full of tea, and very nice, it was maybe now a little less charming and lovely for having been neglected.
“Oh, you know, this and that.” Always Ghost, the Ghost who was (apparently) Always so, amused, bright, poised… while he… he was a bit murky.
But he felt good. That was the thing, wasn’t it? He could be murky, fine, but so long as he felt like this…
“We were talking about graffiti,” Ghost told him helpfully. “You’d said there was a structural language you’d begun to notice in the street art in the city where you’d come from, and how you think it has something to do with why you’re here. Best as you know.”
Here.
“Eh, right...” Renalto sort of pressed his face together with both of his hands. He would be the first to admit he was awkward on a date – if that’s what this was – but even for him, the gesture was a bit extreme. He didn’t know why he was doing it. He actually felt pretty good, right? So what was he doing?
The loose skin of his face, all bunched up, lips puckered like a fish, a fish with lips. Then a sudden release of pressure – dextral, sinistral – and a return to the normalcy of faces. “Erm, there’s probably a reason why I’m…”
But she seemed to be paying very close attention, less to what he said, less even to his odd expression and behavior, but rather to something more… ambient. Something in the air that surrounded him. Which is to say that, though she studied him with intent focus, she did so without quite looking at him. Above him, yes. In front of, yes. Maybe even behind and through. But not at.
It didn’t really matter. He felt… good. He picked up the little china teacup full of cool green liquid as if he didn’t quite understand what either it or his hands were for, carried the krater, the container, up toward his lips (hesitant and slightly suspicious, as if he didn’t know what his lips were there for either), but paused just short of taking a sip, as if that next and final and most natural step were too much. Just really too much.
“Wait. When did I tell you that?”
“Hm?”
“About the street art. Being a… a portal.”
“What? When? Just now.” All innocence and sweetness.
But he knew he couldn’t have told her any of that. Because he hadn’t made the connection until she’d just said it. Had he? Maybe he should have. It was the logical conclusion to what he’d been thinking earlier – the stylistic similarities of several murals he’d noticed throughout urban Portland, the common root they’d had in something he’d found here, an old poster tucked away in an unseen corner, ur-text of a typographical language which, in its simplicity, had somehow contained all the rest, and the feeling it brought, however ambiguous, that his, what, study of this language had been somehow responsible for having carried him to this place. A portal, a means of conveyance… Yes, that’s what it amounted to. He could see it now. But he hadn’t reached that conclusion, not quite yet.
“Are you going to drink your tea?” she asked him. Because the weirdly dainty little china cup was still held to his lips.
“Oh, right.” Gulp.
Cold, or if not exactly cold, the same temperature as its surrounds. Atmospheric. Ambient.
[For cello and drum]
