I carefully pull my copy of Spring Snow from its place on my desk; wedged tightly between Kundera's Life is Elsewhere and The Decay of The Angel (The last book in Mishima's Sea of Fertility Tetratology -which I still have not yet read).
I open the book and the scents of various perfumes; faint now but present still, greets me softly. I had stuck about twenty strips of paper all saturated with different perfumes between the pages. This I did back in Melbourne, and now the book smells as enchanting as its content. Deceivingly so perhaps.
What is love anyway? An affection for another. In my case perhaps, it feels like a fixed point in time; my affection for M. Like a derelict fortress built within the confines of my heart, secluded from the currents of Time. A garden surrounds it, now barren where it used to flower. My words have mostly shrivelled where it used to bloom.
I can say though that when I usually perceive this fantastical, infinitely precious place as if it is nighttime where it is, now I perceive it in daylight. The walls are lit by an afternoon sun, its broken windows letting various slants of sunlight spilling onto its cracked marble floor. Dust motes everywhere, broken things everywhere. What was waterlogged now dry and crisp like the yellowed pages of aged books.
This fortress. It truly is invincible. It is mine. Built for another yet it is completely and utterly mine. It is quiet here, and I am uninterrupted where I set foot in it. Loss is the soft winds stirring the dusty ground. My friend the wind; sole companion, witness of me.
These words its very walls. Each visitation feels like an astringent to an open wound. Sharp, and then; just numb.
I shall write candidly, for it doesn't matter anymore. A relic of old I can now examine like faded photographs.
How keen. How vapourous. How dark.
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