Behind me there was the soft patter of bare feet on the wet stone floors by the pool. But I didn't notice them. It was too fleeting a sound, when compared to the music I had playing. I was adrift through gentle melody, afloat not just in water but on the sweet lyrics that floated into my ears like lilies on a pond of still water. Carried there by the very water I was in. A massage of harmonics voices, entwined with deep growling thunder from a bass guitar, which moved across my skin.
I not only heard the music I felt it. Every word like fingers, touching in the most intimate of places.
I shall live only in darkness, and I shall not cry for the light.
I weep in the shadows, shadows of an endless night.
I lay hidden for those killing me.
Forever night, Killing Light!
Hidden places, the darkest of places,
In the darkness there you shall find me, living shadow that I be.
Those hidden with me, lost in the night, shadows
Creature lost from the light
Forever night, Killing Light!
Far am I from the land of the sun.
This lost land, terror to behold, scarred by night.
Lost to light.
Forever night, Killing Light!
I'm lost in the forever, ever night.
Forever night, Killing Light!
High above me the star pattern programed into the ceiling projectors began to shift. On one side of the pool a glow began to spread up from the floor. The sounds of crickets and frogs, which had been all but hidden behind my music, began to fade with the stars.
Chased away with the shadows.
The music played on, the water still delivered it to me, but without the darkness it lost so much of its emotional impact. The acoustic power was fading when the light penetrated my eyelids.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted a morning swim."
Turning around in the water, I was lifted up by ever increasing waves. The sound of surf on a beach began to push my music aside. Those waves lapped at the feet of a woman, the one that had spoken to me, as she was stepping into the pool about ten feet away from me.
She was, to put it simply, gorgeous.
What her skimpy two piece left to the imagination wasn't even worth imagining. I must admit to having to check for drool by the time she was up to her waist in the water. The waves hitting her belly button, and then retreating to show the bikini bottom plastered to her skin.
"I hated to change your program, but I always try to take a swim at the beach, every morning about this time."
That I was being apologized to by this goddess, who could have had me begging, on hands and knees, to change the program for her, was a surprise. It took me a moment to get my mouth to working to answer her.
"Hey, that's okay. I was starting to get too sleepy to stay in the "Night at the Lake" program anyway." As I watched her, she swam out to where I was treading water. As she entered the five foot circle around me, I saw a startled look cross her face.
"Oh, you have the heat
really
turned up over here." She backstroked to where the temperature was more to her liking.
"Yeah, I set it to higher. A friend and I played Wii Tennis, down at the digital courts, after lunch. I was a little sore in the shoulders." Not taking my eyes off her, I swam out to where she was at. "I don't think I have ever seen you here before?"
"No. I just moved in yesterday. I'm Bonny."
"Eric, but most of my friends call me E.B. So you just moved in? Where from?" I asked. We bobbed in the tidal surf together, drifting back towards the
beach.
"If you don't mind my asking?"
"Chicago."
That was a shock.
"Really? You know I don't think I have ever met anyone who was not a native of Detroit. I mean online sure, but not in real life. Why did you change cities?" I noticed a slight change in her expression then, a startled look that turned colder. "Way to go E.B," I thought to myself. "You haven't said twenty words to the girl and you've already pissed her off." Speaking quickly, I began to apologize as best as I could. "Look, I'm sorry. That was a bit rude of me, we just met. Let me make it up to you. I have two tickets to go
~Neurosliding~
this weekend. Would you accept one as an apology?"
She smiled sweetly and nodded that she would accept the ticket. I mean who wouldn't take one when it's offered. They're damn hard to get!
Well, she and I stayed at the pool talking about this and that for several hours. Sitting on the side letting out feet dangle in the tidal surf washing across them. She asked me about the music I had been listening to, and was amazed that it had been my own playing and singing. That led us to talking about music, which led to a suggestion we go to a local pub I know where they play good music.
A Server-Float* could have brought us the drinks, we could have listened to the music here, but you know nothing beats the feel of a good pub. Not on a hot summer night.
We took my car, the
StarMaker2000*
to the pub, since her own electric car was in the shop, being reassembled, following its transport from Chicago by bullet train. We stayed at the pub till nearly dawn, the conversations getting more and more personal as drinks and hours passed. I learned that she was an amateur poet, as yet unpublished, who was trying to make ends meet by waitressing. That was why she had moved from Chicago, she finally told me. The market for poetry had died there long before she ever got started trying to write them.
The sun was coming up outside as I drove her home to our apartment complex. Under the
