The angel in the meadow
He looked for her in the news and discovered that her next concert was in a big city: Paris. So far away, he thought. And yet he was determined to be there. He went and got a ticket.
His wounds hadn’t healed and the trip was painful, but he took headphones with him, listening to her music on the way. He closed his eyes and her voice went through his mind, into his bones, under his skin, infusing his being with a light that erased any trace of hurt, easing the pain away. It was magical. He felt a lot better with her songs in his head. He envisioned her presence like an aura around him and he realized many years had passed since they had been close.
He felt the need rising in his chest. He needed her presence.
Just remembering her warm and delicate touch, her determined and firm energy, her bold and unexpected moves and the vast immensity of her mysterious eyes with an intimidating and fascinating stare, everything he knew about her made him need her more with each minute. It was burning under his skin. He wanted her there. He imagined her looking at him, reaching out and touching his face. He imagined holding her close and it was so thrilling that he couldn’t think any further. It was a shiver that electrified his thoughts like a short circuit and only light remained, overflowing in his heart and soul. He felt it was unfair to love someone so much, to long for someone’s presence and be apart by so much distance. And yet, whenever he closed his eyes, he could see her and feel her right next to him, shining from another universe where the colorful light brought them together, anytime, anyplace.
Finding his seat in the concert hall he wondered with anticipation how she had changed over the years. She was already twenty-five and the many years of meeting countless people, traveling on tours and being in the spotlight had made her wiser.
Her eyes were deeper, more peaceful and focused on the thoughts in her mind. Her attitude was more detached and relaxed, as if she was looking for something above reality, for another universe that remained unseen to most.
As she appeared on stage he saw the magic light and the summer meadow around her. He smiled. He knew there were many people around her and yet he was certain she would recognize him.
He hoped she remembered him as the boy with a colorful universe.
Her eyes turned in his direction, while she was singing. It’s me, and I love you so much, his eyes told her. She seemed to feel his unspoken message because she smiled with a familiar warm light in her eyes, brightening the big room full of people. For a moment, he felt they were together again, walking along the river, holding hands and looking through colorful glass.
She kept singing, but she came closer to the edge of the stage.
She leaned over and her hand reached out to him, as if to say hello.
It was unexpected and he extended his hand, touching her fingers.
There was something else: she had a hidden note that she passed to him. He took the folded paper, blissfully happy, waiting for the end of the show to see what it was. She waved one more time before exiting the stage and her eyes met his again. I love you and I’m yours, he said to her silently, smiling ecstatic to see her so close after so many years of absence and dark solitude in his life.
In the light of a stage lamp he unfolded the paper. It was an address in the city. It also said in her handwriting “If you want to meet me, come before the weekend. Love, Stella.”
Rick wondered if he was daydreaming. How did she know he would be there in front of the stage? How had she found the courage to write a note to him? And by what miracle did she mention love again? Maybe she still loves me, he thought and he felt as if heaven had sent him a gift, blessing his life again into a beautiful story, written in the sky.
He went to the villa she had rented for the summer. Nobody answered the door, so he walked around the steel fence. He found a meadow behind the yard. It was the edge of a residential area and the view expanded on a pond and a bright horizon over the hills of grass and flowers.
She was in the meadow, by the water, painting something. She had wrapped a pink scarf around her hair and her blue light summer dress camouflaged her in the field. She was like a patch of blue sky sent on earth. He thought he hadn’t ever seen her so beautifully and peacefully harmonized with the heavenly view. She seemed bright like a shiny angel. She was like a painting herself, sitting there by the pond, covered in light.
He walked towards her.
She heard his steps, long before he approached the place where she had set up her painting tools. Her feline-like instincts made her look over her shoulder and see him coming. She smiled. Her pastel pink scarf was making her blonde hair softer in sunlight.
“Hi Stella”, he spoke when he stood by her side, near the pond.
“Hi Rick. So you came”, she answered.
It was wonderful just being there. He stared at the painting. The water on the pond was glistening in sunlight. It was a bright summer morning and something from the colorful universe of glass reflection seemed to hover above the meadow.
Stella seemed enveloped in an aura of pure light, as she was peacefully adding brushes of paint on the canvas in front of her, dreamily glancing to the horizon then back to the canvas again.
“You look like an angel”, he told her. “And this place is like heaven. What are you painting?”
“It’s just a landscape… and somehow I’m trying to immerse my vision into the colors, you know? Like something you see with the eyes of the soul. You have to feel it. You have to adjust your perception to the subtle energy around… let the brush have imagination, let it flow…”
He sat down on the grass next to her.
He was happy just being there, watching her paint.
“What’s with the bruises?” she asked him after a few minutes of silence.
She had noticed the scars and bruises on his face, the blackened eye and the stitches on his brow. He looked down.
“I got into some fights. I joined a boxing club, but I’m out now. I won’t do it anymore.”
“Good. You know I don’t like to see you fighting.”
“I know.”
“Why did you do it?”
He shrugged.
“You weren’t there anymore…”
She placed down the brush and turned to look at him.
Her deep eyes were still intimidating and fascinating, making his skin tingle.
“I was there by the river that morning”, she said. “And you didn’t show up. You didn’t come. I went there to meet you – and you weren’t anywhere.”
He was surprised. He didn’t know about it and he suddenly regretted it profoundly. He instantly understood that it could have spared him so much pain and struggle if only he had believed in their love a bit more.
They could have been together earlier.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t know.”
She came to sit closer, in the grass. Her hand reached out and touched his face slowly, going over the bruises in a careful caress.
He closed his eyes. He could feel warmth and light in his skin, starting from her touch and expanding over the scars, easing the pain.
“Does it hurt a lot?” she asked him softly.
“No, not so much anymore… not now…”
She watched him attentively.
“I’m taking a break from music and I’ll be painting and doing some thinking, away from the stage. I’ll be here for a while. You could stay with me. What do you want to do?”
He had thought about his future. He could see it in a better light each day.
“I want to study architecture and build houses of colorful glass.
I think I can make buildings that connect to the other universe… if I gather enough portals, I could do it.”
She seemed interested.
“Houses of glass?”
“Yes… buildings of light and colors… they would be ways to get to another universe. Places where space and time are not fixed. I think it could be done. I think I can do it.”
“I’m sure you can.”
He looked at her.
“I hope you don’t give up singing. Your songs are good for the world… you have such positive energy that you bring with your music. I know there are many people who admire and love you and I understand why.”
“I love my fans equally”, she said.
He sighed.
“Of course you do… “
He added, passionately and somehow melancholic: “And what about me? I think I need you and adore you more than all of them put together… you’re my lifetime miracle…”
She smiled and her hand touched his shirt.
“You…” she started, pushing him slowly and he willingly laid back on the grass. “You”, she said leaning above him, “you’re an angel of light and you touched my heart with your beautiful soul…”
He couldn’t believe she was saying those words to him. He opened his mouth to say something, but her hand covered it gently.
She rolled over to come closer, adjusting comfortably above him.
Her lips touched his bruises softly, then the blackened eye, going down his face, tracing the jaw line. After she retreated her fingers away from his mouth she leaned directly and her lips finally met his. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the sweet overwhelming light, while his heart was beating madly in his chest.
He realized he had hungered and longed for that moment for so many years and letting his mind drift while her lips were softly enclosing his mouth in unexpected heat, sending shivers in his heart, he knew she had longed for it too.
It felt like ecstatic seconds of eternity before they paused and looked at each other again.
“You know, we never really…” he started and didn’t continue.
Her warm presence above him was making his skin feel electric tingles traveling up and down his body. She could guess his thoughts so easily, instantly, effortlessly, as if she was reading his mind because his entire existence was enlightened by her presence at that moment.
Even though he hadn’t spoken the words, she knew them. She answered:
“Yes, but our souls have been together so many times”.
He looked at her hands, resting on his shirt. The closeness was making him feel ecstatic and shivering. Waves of emotion stifled his speech.
“Take it off…” he said and she understood he meant his shirt.
He didn’t want anything to separate them, not even a piece of clothing. He wanted to be closer to her: to feel her directly on his skin, in his soul, melting away his heart. He wanted everything.
She smiled. Her cheeks blushed a bit.
“Are we reversing roles here?”
He was too eager to hesitate: he felt irresistible desire like unquenched thirst and hunger rising in his soul. He answered immediately:
“Yes, whatever, I don’t care… just do it. I want to feel this love with you and it doesn’t matter how… you’re so much into my life, my mind and my heart that I don’t even know anymore in this energy where we are, where I am and where you begin… please do it now. I need to feel you… Let only love between us… I want you and I – and this heaven… forever.”
He looked at her in absolute adoration. Her eyes were indescribable; the sparkling light that appeared in her fascinating stare was something feverish he recognized in his own soul and he knew what it meant. She didn’t hesitate. She just smiled and the next moment she moved.
Her hand unbuttoned his shirt with unhurried rhythm, as her eyes remained steadily fixed into his. Each move was sending a new shiver in his skin, making his heart speed up.
“You don’t know” she whispered leaning closer to his ear, “how deeply in love with you I am.”
“Am I about to find out?”
“Yes…”
She wanted to make him feel better. She wanted him blissful.
She wasn’t going to stop until she saw him absolutely happy, oblivious of everything except love and happiness.
He trembled unknowingly as her hand went down the buttons one by one, releasing his naked skin in the sunlight, sensitive to her touch. When she finally unfolded the open shirt, he breathed deeply with anticipation. His arms went around her waist. She untied her scarf in a releasing gesture and her hair went freely around him, touching his ears, like soft blonde rays of light. And then she leaned over gently and kissed him again, making magical lights and colors dance around them as he felt his soul already as one with her and the eternity above them, breathing alive with one heart.
Light was blinding him and it seemed they were an infinite expansion of love in a universe of pure energy.