Date:         Thu, 30 Jan 1997 20:35:01 -0800
Subject:      SUB: Valentine's Contest: "The Corsage": Short Story

There's still barely time to send your entry! Check out
http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/val97/val.html for details.

Please reserve all critiques on contest entries until after Valentine's
Day!
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The Corsage

The park was almost empty at twilight.  Only a few people were still
there, sitting on benches circling a crystal lake.  The sky was
diamond-studded velvet, mirrored in the folds of the water's surface.
        A man, dressed in a neatly-pressed dress uniform, paused along the path
and looked up at the sky.  The reflections of the stars danced in his
blue eyes, just as they had on that night so many years before.
        They had said goodbye at that park on another star-filled night, so
many years before.  She had worn a blue gown with a yellow carnation.
Her hair had fallen in auburn cascades across her shoulders.  They had
danced to Strauss until early in the morning, then explored their love
in a quiet clearing.
        Then he let his eyes drift down to the path ahead, and she was there.
She wore the same blue gown with the same yellow carnation.  She stood
in the distance, her face hidden in shadows, and stared back at him.
        For a long time the stood there, staring at each other, paralyzed by
their own overwhelming emotions.  Then, slowly, she began to walk to
him.  He watched her as she came closer and the veils of darkness were
slowly pulled away.  First he saw her raven hair, still long and arrayed
in sweeping curves across her soft shoulders.  Next, her mouth was
revealed.  Her lush lips were pulled back in an unaffected smile.  He
remembered the light freckles on her cheeks more than he saw them.  Last
to be revealed were her eyes, brown and mysterious, their watery surface
shimmered in the starlight.
        When she was close enough she began to speak, but he held a finger to
his lips, silencing her.  Then, he kissed his finger and moved it,
slowly, to her lips.  She also kissed it, a soft tear glistened at the
edge of her eye, only to be blinked away the next instant.
        He produced a bouquet of flowers which he had concealed behind his
back.  She took it and smiled, demurely, then rubbed their soft petals
across her check.  Her eyes closed as she drunk in their sticky-soft
surface.
        Then she reached out and brushed his cheek with the back of her hand.
He took it in his hands and kissed it, softly.  She laughed silently,
and he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close.
        Her eyes opened wide in excited surprise.  She put her arm around his
neck, the bouquet brushing the back of his warm neck with their
exquisite coldness.
        Then they began to dance.  Strauss' Blue Danube played in the man's
head as they moved to the music.  Her presence was intoxicating.  The
warmth of her hand in his own, the feel of her waist, her body pulled
tightly to his own, the sweet lilac of her perfume.
        As they danced he felt lighter and lighter, until the very earth
dropped away beneath them and they swirled inches from the ground.
        They waltzed past the other people in the park, young men and women who
sat on benches without seeing them.  Still, two by two, the other people
began to stand up.  For reasons they probably did not understand, they,
too, began to dance.  Before long, the entire park was full of men and
women, waltzing to Strauss in the moonlight.
        But the man and the woman were oblivious to the others.  He never took
his eyes from her eyes, and she never took her eyes from his.
        Soon, she became less solid, her continence fading in the moonlight.
Then, she was gone, and him with her.  Only the gentle eddies of wind,
sweeping along the ground, bore witness to their passing.
        And somewhere in that park, on a forgotten seat beneath a spreading
tree, an old woman rested.  The dried remains of a sixty-year-old yellow
corsage was clasped in her dead fingers.


-------------------------------------------
"Yesterday they said today was tomorrow, but today
they know better."
                  --Poul Anderson, _The Visitor_

Michelle
winebird@inreach.com