The Two Spades (A Beginning)

There was a funeral.  It was raining in a sleepy village in England.  Few people turned up to hear the last comment of the deceased.  It was a sad affair, as these things normally are, and people were numb with tears over the middle-aged lady who had a peculiar control over some certain people’s emotions.

Craig Reinen was one of these people was currently wiping a single tear from his collar.  He came on his own-too tired to be with anyone else- and he mourned privately leaving the service earlier than most.

He went back to the hotel crest-broken and spent a little time at the bar before noticing the pattern of stains his handkerchief had collected.  It was a set of circles.  Trying to decide between going to bed and having another drink he was approached by a man he hadn’t met in decades.

“So you came along too, after all these years- the intensity of our meeting was too powerful for me to ignore its passing as well”

“Charles Kingsworth, how could I not expect your presence?  Though it dawns on me obviously now”

The two decided to rest the conversation back to the hotel room while they talked with a couple of bottles brought up with them.  Charles seemed rested and remarkably tanned as he had come back from a long holiday in which he did very little other than read books.  Craig was wrecked with work.

“From what I hear it had been terrible for her for months”

“A long while”

“Just make sure you don’t follow into the same track”

Another drink is poured.

“You know looking after oneself gets very tiring-this is why people get into couples; so that there’s someone to look after you when you’re tired”

“Is that the reason she died?  Because she never coupled?”

“She was beautiful being single-she did what was best for her.  It’s still sad without doubt”

“You don’t mean that”

Rain started hitting the windows again.

“It’s so sad an occasion that even this part of the world is crying”

They both took a moment to look out from their room.

“The world hasn’t ravished you too much.  Still pretty, still young”

“She was beautiful for the both of us when we were ugly”

“Now we have our share of her beauty”

“Not that we deserve it”

“Give credit where it may be deserved”

“I’ll never listen to you again”

“You can never help yourself with it”

“You have no power over me today”

“But what about her ring- the one with the key-is it buried with her?”

“Where else would it have gone-she had no next of kin and we were wiped out of her history”

Craig drank his glass “no-where to go”

The sadness was swelling up, the room shimmering.

“She would have left provisions”

“If you want that ring you’re going to have to dig her up, which would take a good week to do”

“So I will pull her back up to former glory, seize her enchantment, put all to right like the errand knight or knightly prince that I am supposed, in her eyes, to be…”

Tears made symmetrical marking opposite the rain.  They looked at each other in sympathy.

“I was helpless before I met her- now she’s gone I am helpless again”

“Your powers don’t rely on her being- just the invited contact is good enough for it to work.  You’ll see”

“I said to her to wait and when she did you came.  I can see your young face again when we first met; you were all so clever then.  You look foolish now”

“Accidental circumstances can make brave men cowardly.  I do act out of character of at times, that’s when I feel my power slipping”

“Your standards are falling”

“You’re jealous of my skin”

They stood against each other, matching and mirroring.  A new dimension opened up between them underneath the surface of their skin.

“She’s in hell, you know that”

“You don’t know what hell is”

“I can speculate”

“That’s all your powers can do for now, lazy assumptions”

“I resent that” which he didn’t mean.  Charles loved toying, teasing.  “No really.  It takes a second order of analysis for me to come up with the things I do”

“You’re a bitch”

A crunch of bitter ice.

“I don’t follow you.  Yes she’s dead and all of our meetings go with her but still isn’t there something that had better come out from it?”

“Now I don’t follow you.  What do you expect?”

“A little gift, perhaps- from you if not from her”

“I have a spare ring that I don’t need”

“Preciesly perfect- that would be it”

Craig was hesistant.  He didn’t want to move.  Slowly he got into his luggage and brought out the bronze circle.  Taking it out was something magic.  A moment polished in marble- how he wished it could last but he knew the end was near, he wasn’t a fool.  With the ring in hand he passed it over to Charles.

“Thank you my sweet”

A dusky silence spread over the evening and between them everything came to pass.  Charles left and Criag stood over the windows with the dense sensation of loss.  It was almost a pleasure feeling this fractured quality that risen in his life.  He was not a lossful person, he never needed it but now it hounded him from behind and as much as he grit his teeth over the pain he realised that overall he needed prickly people such as Charles to give the pleasue of relife when they separate.  He didn’t need a revelation just sensation; a great pool where life ekes out into a million different nerves, interlinking and outerlocking.  That, he gives a moment to thought, is where she is.