THE GUEST V
Delicious.
Your guest sneaks in, all secret unexpected wonder. Sliding up to your table, sitting in their blackened flaming chair with a comfort and ease that would strike any other guest with a well aimed spear of jealousy. The verbal delinquency is a delightful lashing of the mind, the soul, a yearning for transition to the body. Your guest gives blatant vulnerability in unexpected gestures, thorned vines, covered in edible ornaments. And your mouth is adventurous. Each burnt offering comes together in the night. Your hands, black and sticky with red dripping sap. The silhouette always shaping into something infinitely familiar. The ash is staining your fingernails. But the sap is delicious and you lap at it with lazy satisfaction, eyes closed as your skin listens to the echo of delight. And here sits a dangerous satisfaction, the glinting edge of a self sharpened knife. The night is turning to daylight, the flaming chair is smoldering, wafts of smoke carried in the air, and the sunlight comes creeping in, all sweet and comforting warm, a feeling you want to know forever.
END PTV
THE GUEST IV
Crashing.
A fire starter. Your guest is an arsonist. And you, a pyromaniac. Who’d have seen that coming? The stars, the moon, the sun, the water, they are all laughing. Obtuse as you are. Your guest is holding the fire, you are a moth infatuated. The table is burning, the chairs are smoldering tinder, and there is not a care for any of it at all. The destruction of the familiar, to bring in new growth. Who knew your guest was a gardener too? But the fire is a threat. Can’t burn the house down. There’s so many others in it. Your guest is unabashed with their truth, and you return the verbal assault in kind. A lashing of tongues, a contentious agreement in baseline desire. Stark confessions of long standing obligations. But the eyes do not lie. There is no concession here. No solid ground. All the chairs will wobble. And you will cackle with delight. Laughter is medicine after all. Your new guest has a secret chair, black as night, tucked neatly beneath your table. A hidden comfort on the darker nights, when the clouds gather, and the lightning strikes. Illuminating a silhouette in the night, distant, yet always infinitely familiar. An echo from the past beating into the future, layers upon layers, upon infinite layers. Folding you under like violent waves crashing, making foam out of your plunder.
END PTIV
THE GUEST III
Surrender.
There is the sweet exchange of gestures in tongues. A polite meandering down an old familiar path. But your guest has other plans, slowly revealed to you, through the clever machinations of subtle observation. You see the journey unfolding, you see the reckless means, and you intend to participate in every subtle turning, consequence be damned. Gleeful, reckless abandon. Dancing in a thunderstorm, delighted at the prospect of being struck. And so here is the next adventure. Another new and unexpected journey. Full of delight, and wonder. Stars winking down on you with the gentle ebb of water on the shore. A soundtrack in the backdrop. A trickle of the truth, words you are certain you have never heard before, yet echo like whispers to a time before. The warmth of an embrace, so familiar, so new, such comfort, such rest. With your guest. They find peace at your table. A subtle compliment wrapped in gloomy knowing. And so your guest comes and they take a rest there, with you, under the soft glow of twinkling stars.
END PTIII
THE GUEST II
Rough edges.
Your guest leaves you there, on the floor, full of wonder and excitement. A bittersweet sadness, watching them leave. Thinking, what a wonderful adventure. Knowing, you’ll never have it again. And that’s okay. You know the value of one great unexpected journey. The world, your table of life is a little different now, and you are better for it. You, are grateful. Your days turn on and on, most of the company you keep stays the same. But you look longingly from time to time at that summer sunshine beam, wondering at that unexpected journey. You move on, reflecting upon it occasionally, a small smile pulling at the corners of your mouth, your eyes are far away with remembrance. Those around you, with the sight to see, wonder where you’ve gone, so near, so far. The chair creaks next to you with easy acceptance. Your unexpected guest has returned, wholly unannounced. Without advancement. Without prompt, or prequel. They are there, and you are joyous for it. All caution abandoned at the prospect of more. More anything. A speck of their time, a blink of their attention. You are unabashedly eager for it. There is no shame to be had, here.
END PTII
THE GUEST I
An unexpected guest.
A beautiful surprise.
Life is full of little interruptions. Side quests. Unexpected journeys. People that filter in. Some of them take a seat at your table, and they stay a good long while. A welcome unexpected guest. The best kind. Sometimes, that guest comes in, quiet and lovely, with softly spoken words, you have to lean in to listen. They steal all of your attention. It is a theft you gleefully accommodate. You think, this guest is only a moment. A passing ray of sweet summer sunlight. So you stretch out in it. Basking like a greedy, lazy cat determined to take it all in. And you do. A wandering day of unexpected wonder. Your guest takes you to see things you’ve never seen before, your favorite thing. Though, they don’t know it. Couldn’t possibly. And at each moment, when you expect the journey to end, it doesn’t. It carries on, a little further, and then a little further still. The guest becomes less and less of a figment. The lines of their face become more focused. Solid. Less ethereal than the summer sunlight, turning into the welcome petrichor of summer rain. You can’t quite recall all the words they said, but you can see clearly the shapes their lips made. You could see each moment like a tiny echo, just before it happens. Like it always happens, like it has always happened, and always will happen. The unexpected guest at your table, pulling the cloth off, and tossing the settings to the floor, in the most marvelous way. You were napping, fully content, and now you are on the floor, wondering why you never thought to be here before.
END PTI