Lonethorn

I was brought back to the earliest moments of joy. As clear as daylight, replaying the events with a vividness that I suppose to be transcendental, what with the onset of a terrifying demise close at hand. A death so horrid it brought me passing through once more on the dawndays of my young life.

I found myself in that modest abode of our loft, atop the Seventy-eighth floor of the Tower of Resplendent Inspiration, amidst the Thousand Seaspires.

The place of my birth. My beginnings.

My mother ever so lovingly referred to it as a rustic garret overlooking the great spanning seas. A small two-bedroom apartment leased to us by none other than the Master of the Tower himself. It’s most striking feature was that it was a corner loft as well as possessing massive opening where two walls should be but instead made up for an angled window that enable the inhabitants a full striking view of the Mare Veridium. Some deepest part of my brain, dredged up a memory of when we first moved in and I remember a fragmented recollection of laying sight of it. An endless expanse of beautiful aquamarine waters that stretch well beyond the horizon. A man could look at those waters all his life and be filled with the selfsame tranquility that so inspired the multitude of painters that have made the Mare their muse.

I was at best four or five years old at the time. The year before, my mother made me sit through piano lessons via a colleague of hers. The Seaspires have no shortages of self-styled artistes from across the world. My mother (after a certain fashion) being among them.

She had done an exemplary job of settling up in that corner of the Seventy-Eighth. As I’d come to know in the later years of my life, she can be vexingly resourceful.

One day in particular struck to my mind than the rest. She had invited much of her peers, all in mutual patronages of the Master of the Tower. My mother

They watched me play Amara d’Orléans’ ‘A Rhapsody of Ravens’ in the C minor. They lauded and gave sweet kisses till my cheeks ached and I sought an escape from their grasp. I suppose I was an adorable little child then. Innocent and obedient and eager to please my sweet darling mother.

A sigh escapes my lips, remembering it all those years ago. That naivete of mine.

My mother made me play two more songs (the names of which has eluded me) before finally acquiescing to my demands and play with the other children. I wriggled out of their grasps and dashing amongst the adults legs. Her colleagues brought their own children. At the time I thought it nothing more than just a simple get together but in truth it seemed it was more of a boasting sport that is played amongst the adults of certain levels of the Tower. Amongst aristocrats, artiste, musicians and the odd wealthy merchant or two just eager to spend some much-needed wind atop the heights of the Seaspire we inhabited altogether.

While the adults were busy playing their games with complimenting words dripped with two-edged meanings and smiles hiding concealed daggers, the children were busy playing hide and seek and tag.

Looking at it now--naïve to the fact and wiles of the world at large--this is one of innocence, the kind children only know and exhibit brings about a peace to my heart that I hadn’t appreciated in recent years.

Meanwhile, the men and women of talents, prestige and breeding –the very lifestyle that I sought later on-brings about a new perspective. It was like seeing through thin layer of ice, at any moment risking plunging at the dark abyss beneath.

Oh, how I cherished those days of innocence now.