Anise and Pomegranate
One
Country gardens. Lawn tennis and Earl Grey at afternoon tea. The stifle of the corset. Polite nods and the careful maintainance of decorum. Three dull English summers she passed before it became unbearable. In the beginning she'd wondered if she'd even go back at all. A promise made was easily broken, and after all, had she really intended to return? Seen from her world of dinner dances and routine toilettes, she wondered how she'd ever survived. Would she dare to do so again?
But no, it wouldn't do. The world up here was hemming her in. And there was always something, something drawing her back.
Her third fall was the least remarkable. Now she knew, now she sought it out. No longer the little girl or the confused adolescent; now she was a woman, knowing her own mind. She did not fall this time so much as jump. She laughed on the way down. Here she was again, her mind allowing for only one flicker of doubt. If things should be made topsy-turvy yet again, and it was he who had forgotten her. She need not have worried.
When she entered that strange garden, pushed aside the broken gate and picked her way across the china-strewn lawn, she knew. There he was, as marvellous as a hundred of her dreams. He had been waiting for her, static, all along. She only needed to reach out and take him. Anise and pomegranate on his lips. A strange taste, but like everything here, utterly sublime and delightful. Soft. Like the first time she held his face in her hands, when she was still so afraid herself. There would be no fear now.
They went on like this. Drinking strange, heady concoctions out of cracked teacups. Sleeping in the day and dancing in the night, for nothing was as it was supposed to be. Save for this.
But no, it wouldn't do. The world up here was hemming her in. And there was always something, something drawing her back.
Her third fall was the least remarkable. Now she knew, now she sought it out. No longer the little girl or the confused adolescent; now she was a woman, knowing her own mind. She did not fall this time so much as jump. She laughed on the way down. Here she was again, her mind allowing for only one flicker of doubt. If things should be made topsy-turvy yet again, and it was he who had forgotten her. She need not have worried.
When she entered that strange garden, pushed aside the broken gate and picked her way across the china-strewn lawn, she knew. There he was, as marvellous as a hundred of her dreams. He had been waiting for her, static, all along. She only needed to reach out and take him. Anise and pomegranate on his lips. A strange taste, but like everything here, utterly sublime and delightful. Soft. Like the first time she held his face in her hands, when she was still so afraid herself. There would be no fear now.
They went on like this. Drinking strange, heady concoctions out of cracked teacups. Sleeping in the day and dancing in the night, for nothing was as it was supposed to be. Save for this.
♠ ♠ ♠
It hardly needs to be pointed out how popular everything related to Wonderland is right now. It's all been done to death and possibly even to the point of cliché. I don't make an apology for that. I saw the film and I felt that I needed to write this. That's all.