tenebrae
The work of the eyes is done.
Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
He has begun to think that the sea might enchant all girls. Is it a siren itself? The way it lies, at times so still and yet at others wild and strong and utterly lethal. It is depthless, its deepest reaches undiscovered, keeping parts of itself so well hidden. He can see how the ocean enchants all girls out into its depths.
And Tenebrae has learned that he has come to love girls who love the ocean… It is what draws him out to the sea now. Shape of him upon the sand is dark, forlorn. He does not see the girl who stands so close, who looks out at the sea and waits for it to unleash the souls it has swallowed. The wind grooms her as she waits. It tugs her mane into wild tangles and breathes salt as fine as dust along her lips, her frost-bitten cheeks (for the chill of winter tries to remind them that it is still more than a memory).
Upon the monk the wind is coarser. It hisses in his ears and scours him with salt. The tide spits and hisses its warning as it falls upon the sands and reaches, crawling and rolling, up the beach toward his limbs.
The lone man stands, like he waits. About him his shadows billow like a pirate’s sail. At its fore, before him, it rises, almost like a hand, a finger reaching out into the bruised-grey sky above the sea. He stands still, this warrior monk who has, for the moment, armed himself with weapons of sorrow.
He might know how the girl beside him suddenly turns, her attention caught by the movement of his black shadows. They reach for her, rippling flags, extending fingers. With a touch cool as midnight, his shadows yearn to press upon her skin and whisper to him that a girl stands here, so near…
They reach, they reach…
But Tenebrae stands oblivious. He looks to the sea but sees nothing at all. The worn bandage about his eyes has been worn thin by time and weather. It is fraying, threads trailing loose across his nose and cheeks in the wind.
The Disciple senses nothing as he stands beside the sea and wishes he were not monk.
