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[Cezanne Abella]

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Look out of any window,
any morning, any evening, any day…
Maybe the sun is shining,
birds are winging, or
rain is falling from a heavy sky -
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?

A box of rain will ease the pain,
and love will see you through.
~Robert Hunter (for the Grateful Dead)

Autumn was taking Her first sure and steady breaths. Summer had left everything parched and crying out for rain. Souls empty and aching, reaching up to the sky for even a drop of relief. Overhead, the sky was heavy and full of promise as obese clouds loomed, blue-grey and ominous.

Cezanne sat in a stone-walled corner, a sketch pad in her lap, her hand poised above the parchment with a charcoal stylo as she watched the way the breeze toyed with the leaves of the red maple before her. She continued her work, attempting to capture the fingers of the autumn spirits playing among the leaves in shades of grey.

Pausing, she examined her sketch – a maple cornered by two benches against a heavy sky – and she was satisfied with the outcome of her endeavour. Mostly. Something was missing, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on the gap to close it.

Spat…Spat. Spat, spat, spat.

And the rain came in fat drops, spattering the crimson leaves and painting them with silvery edges. Cezanne pulled the parchment pad close against her chest and sheltered it from the rain as she arose and ran to the door. She paused again at the window, to consider the size of the miracle – the ease with which the rain painted her soul in hues of peace, and uplifted her.

Watching through the window, she pulled the stylo from above her ear and worked quickly as she watched the leaves of the maple dancing in the rain. She added streaks and drops to the picture at precarious and hopeful angles. Cezanne added rain and silver edges. She added hope and light and laughter. Carefully, she laid the parchment on the table and removed a small jar of natural pigments from her pack. She opened the jar and dipped two fingertips into the powder, working swiftly to catch each leaf of the tree with a crush of deep crimson, until the tree was alive and the parchment no longer held sway with the depth of the tree’s dance.

Cezanne rested her chin on her hand and held up the sketch, deciding whether she was happy with the end result. After a moment’s studying, a smile crept across her face and she sat up again, leaving a smudge of crimson across her cheek where her fingers had touched. Hearing the door downstairs open to the rain, she quickly slipped the sketch into a leatherbound portfolio, enclosed it in a flat wooden box, and slid it in beneath the music box in the corner.

[Arahim]

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The Sea Song's cabin was close and sparsely appointed. A low writing table, and high backed wicker chair. A stout banded chest, and two narrow bunks crowding a corner in clean straight lines. A roughspun carpet of concentric, alternating deep blue and black the room's only adornment.

A single lantern, half shuttered, hung above the cots on an iron hook. Its orange tinged light spraying shadows crazily over the square, confined space. All four walls and floor a parade of dark movement. Indistinct shapes gesticulating. Pouring into cracks, slithering through windows and out into the night. Growing, shrinking, and shifting with the simple, subtle rocking of the tide.

Arahim sat unmoving in bed while the dark crawled around him. His kness pulled up, and covered with a thin grey blanket. The rhythmic rocking of the sea, the creaking of wood, and tightening rope, lulling him into a calm he could not help but to think of as false. Wishful thinking at its insipid best. A reminder that he had stopped moving. That he was alone, and still left with wide gaps unfilled.

A leatherbound portfolio sat on his belly, propped up against his thighs at eye level, and unopened.

[Arahim]

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Night set a thousand thousand lamps upon the sky with a careless hand. Breathing intemperate life into every tiny light, giving free reign for each to sing such songs as met their varied fancies, until the sunless places of the world thrummed with a secret music no one soul heard quite the same.

Pale silvery blooms the stars cast across the ink black sea. White winking fires flickering amongst cresting swells of dark, rippling glass.

A contentious moon hung high above, and crowded by constellations, a scant, curved sliver. Pale as polished pearl.

Through rounded glass eyes, the celestial peered through at Arahim as Sleep, with finality, found him at last. The thin leather portfolio on his chest cradled tightly and clutched by a hand whose fingers were lightly smudged in red.