Louise is still in bed.
It is almost eleven, Louise lies in her bed.
She lies, entangled in the multiple blankets that shape with lights and shades the delicate curves of her body.
Her hair flows softly on the pillow where they lay.
One of her leg, skinny but still forceful is spread out of the warm shield of the covers : A white arrow against the crimson mattress, and her smell fulfills the room.
It is a drunk sensation, that smell, like a rough rush of desire as a perfume.
Her white complexion distinguished itself clearly on the brass pillow, her sleek blond hair shining, her head hangs slightly on the left and she wears a dreamy face. And again that heady smell of her.
A man has taken his clothes and escaped by the window a few minutes ago, or more. The sound of a ragman praying in the distance is still ringing through.
The window open wide allows the breeze in, throwing the red curtains billowing. The chill is there too, engaged in a mighty fight against the protection of the blankets. The sun is pouring like burning coal inside, all of gold and beams.
The flowered wallpaper, yellowish now due to the ages’ action, emanates a soft warmth ; an old lady has just sneezed somewhere ; the picture of the madonna peers quietly over the room, all over the big brass bed, half-drowned in a vivid light.Oh, and that unwearable smell likewise a goddess body, entrancing.
Louise, she’s just near, she moves, rolling tenderly on her side, in an endless struggle against the reawakening. Stretching a leg now, crunching on herself then, the mouth slightly open ; a sugary breath blows between her ivory teeth.
The bed seems too big for her, she could have shrunk during the wild blazing nighttime, though I doubt it.
The murmur of the blankets rippling can be heard to the advert ear. The sandman is on a beach in Florida now : only the defense of her fragile eyelids remains. A deck of cards has been scattered on the floor, the jack of hearts swimming flat in a pool of hopes.
Outside, across Greenwich Village, nobody can guess that baby isn’t blessed, but that’s all our fate too. A man is sliding, a hat on his eye, round the corner of the avenue, God knows he paid some dues but now it makes it only seem so cruel.
The lamppost mule is holding up the skies, folding upon the world, that makes the dogs bark but they are only dogs, remember it.
What if Mona Lisa was not smiling and the Chineses were blind ? The highway happy, and the rumbling thunder shivering ? Like a roar, those questions still echo in the air, but she does not care, just like a little girl.
Her pearly fingers run across her face, through her hair and down her eyes. She bridges languorishly her back to the ceiling and falls back featherlike, lying now straight.
Two spotlights of blue and mist opened, staring at the ceiling, the dreadful ceiling. Images of past and future, of lovers and crooks swirling in front of her : she’s awake.
A fat budgie sings like silence from a corroded cage in the darkened corner ; A bra and a shirt hang from it but no one really cares. The rumbling of the crowds, the soundtrack of our life. A tree near the window shatters the blinding light that bursts in the room. And that smell… it’s so hard to get on.
Likewise the leopard, she stands out her nest, softly, without any noise and with great grace. She grabs a shirt that she let on her shoulders floating to her hips, to protect the body from the haunting chill, and she strikes the fat budgie.
The floor it is cold, she walks, she floats on her tiptoes to the window ; as she walks, the sunshine draw ghosts of valleys, hills and forests upon her flesh. Dignity is carved in her features, meanwhile the spirit of sensuality howls in the bones of her face.
A strand of hair taunts her eye as her mane seems to follow every breath, every pace she takes, timelessly. She removes that strand arrogantly. An eternity had just passed when she arrived at the window, an eternity of elegance that no school can ever teach, that no one can ever learn.
She stands, framed by the pouring light, bathed in clarity, like an angel on the window ledge. A restless memory of him has disappeared : she said she was called Johanna yesterday, she said she would never forget, neither of them believed it, she said watery words, she spoke from her watery lips, once. The egyptians pretended that every new day was a new world, she’s not egyptian. Still she does not feel yesterday anymore. She just stands there, framed by the pouring light, the beauty of the world and the beauty of my lover so entwined, an oblivion conquers our minds.
She looks but does not see ; She listens but does not hear ; she exists, she does not live and she spends a lifelong while at those window. Greenwich Village, the green and gold and brown and grey daytime light and tree and street. The shirt dancing on her sides, she smiles mirthful, her shiny eyes seem to encompass the whole universe in a sight, or two. She is present, she is here, she is her. Like she never done before…
Maybe she has stood the trial of time at this window, carved in an instant of perfection, maybe she is flying with the doves by now, heading for the gates of Eden, maybe, she has jumped…anyway.
Oh, and that smell of her, is now all that remains.
