cloud-watcher on his hill. inscrutable & yet approachable. wise, wry smile which rises over horizon-lips. reflects in his eyes: twin sunrises. a gentle curve of conversation, gliding evasion, after every posed question. he is somehow akin to warm ice, oxymoron notwithstanding; constantly in the process of melting & yet, more solid than anyone else she has ever met before - including & up to her most recent boyfriend.
in fact, said boyfriend is the very reason she has sought out Kiesenwetter - the tumult of her dilemma has driven her to seek out the nephomancer, despite her loathing for divination in all forms. she instinctively, unconsciously, turns to the methodology of fate - when one has no God, she often (drunkenly) opines, one seeks out God anywhere one might find it ... and that is how she references deity - by the genderless, vague, indiscriminate pronoun. it settles easier in her stomach & lungs, like a less acrid smoke or a milder hot sauce. still causes heartburn, but nothing a quick pill won't quell -
& she stands before the (irritatingly) cross-legged Kiesenwetter on his prophecy hill, his too-blue eyes cast reverently firmament-ward, somehow discerning (through whatever meteorological calculations) the future of each & every cloud. at this point in their relationship, she can recognize the Linnean nomenclature of those moist bodies, tossing their particulate selves heedlessly against the unyielding wind.
she can tell, now, by the gentle, near-unconcerned furrow of his brow, that the seemingly placid stratocumulus are about to mount, galvanize, revolt, up towards the troposphere - gain vertical height & discover (somewhat triumphantly) a heretofore unseen power within their heavy, gray guts - become tyrants of the sky, and rage beautifully until they, inevitably & always, expend themselves & expire in the effort.
by the time this happens, she will have unmounted prophecy hill and be safe within the (albeit quivering) walls of her apartment, staring at the refrigerator-blue of her phone & wondering when he will call.
Anecdote: before she descends, Kiesenwetter will say, somewhat enigmatically:
'the compass, spinning,
always returns north.
why not follow the sun?
turn west.'
she will take it to mean: try something new.
she wonders if she is quiet love with the cloud-watcher.
seconds later, she dismisses the conjecture in favor of tequila - and later, beer.
the phone rings & it's him, and he wants information. she is tired and all day (all week) it's seeped, somehow, into her bones, and when she walks to work, she cracks & groans like an old floorboard. she calls him Simon though his name is Peter (it's an old joke, tarnished by too many years spent together like pennies rubbing together in a drawer) and answers his question while lying on her bare mattress. outside, the sky hums a tune to itself, which is rapidly shearing away by an increasing wind, turning ugly, basso profundo. Simon's voice is twittering away in her ear.
she looks up and backwards, out the window over her head, through the slats of dusty white blinds. blue is turning purple-black, and the now only the bottoms of clouds are to be seen, opaque & grim. her mind wanders to Kiesenwetter, probably now inside his small, one-room house (built himself) with the wide ceiling aperture.
'i feel like i never see you anymore is all,' he is saying, and she catches a glimpse of his pain through his words, but finds a callus growing over her feelings for him. 'are we still even friends?'
'of course we are,' she soothes with a false balm. 'we're more than friends.'
'what are we?'
bad question, she thinks to herself. come up with something poetic, that'll shut him up. 'twins,' she says, finally.
'that's kind of gross,' he immediately responds. 'twins don't have sex.'
'you know what i mean,' she deflects, and this is the precise moment the rain begins hissing against the ground, spattering virulently against the leaves, and the first unfurling of thunder works its way through the buildings. she imagines the sound like a panther, shouldering its muscular way through the jungle - lean, controlled, unblinking.
'sure,' he deflates, and she she can hear him sigh through the phone. his sighs are always accompanied by a hand through his shaggy blond hair. 'what are you doing tonight?'
'dunno,' she says, casually. 'maybe a margarita.' her eyes wander over to the empty shot glass on the desk. she'd opened a can of beer, but can't remember where she put it, and feels too lazy to traipse down the hallway to find it.
'i'm out of work around seven. i'll come meet you before i come home.'
she likes it that their work schedules don't align. having the whole apartment to herself is a luxury. she sometimes walks naked down the long corridor, hearing the sound of her bare feet sucking at the hardwood floor as she goes. she takes a shower with the door open and doesn't wash the dishes when she's done cooking. 'okay,' she agrees. he has to come home sometime. better that she's a little drunk and in public before he does - or at least, that's what she's telling herself. 'will you pick up a bottle of Silver on the way? i just drained it.'
'we just bought that bottle on Sunday.'
'and it's Thursday,' she says acridly. 'what's your point?'
'nothing. nevermind.' another sigh.
'i'll see you up there?' all sweetness & light. more thunder, from behind. she sits up and rakes a hand through her hair, viciously, through the snarls. lightning reflects off of the white walls of her room.
'yeah, i'll come by after work. love you.'
a fraction of hesitation. 'love you too.' she hangs up first, almost too fast, and worries over the speed for a second before collapsing back onto the bed and closing her eyes, silently repeating the cloud-watcher's words.
she dreams of compasses, of mountains, of lightning seaming the sky, of a dark-clad individual with no face leading her into a chasm, of crossing a pewter river in a boat with a man in a hood, and of a song that is gone from her mind the second after the second she opens her eyes.
