Bradley Heden

An Underpainting That Might Have Once Been Elise-An X Rated Version

On a low table by the window, a small raku urn embraced the early morning sunlight. Variegated striations of shadow and light fell across the table and angled into the bedroom through the windows that faced outward and onto the beach and the enclosing breakwater. One white plumeria blossom rested beside the urn on a neatly folded square of bleached linen. Alden lay awake in bed listening to the sound of the trade winds moving through the palms and the leaves of the wide jacaranda outside and listening to Elise moving about restlessly about beneath the sheets beside him. He eased his legs slowly down to the floorboards and crossed the room and looked through thin Venetian blinds and out at the breakers and at the jetty that ran along the forward edge of the headland. Seabirds shrilled above the surf and he could hear the jangle of the chain lanyards from the small fishing boats moving sluggishly together and bumping against their fenders against the pier. He gently lifted the urn to his forehead. The mottled silvery milk blue glaze of the ceramic was cool against his skin.
“What is it that you think about when you are so far away?”
He lowered the raku urn to the table slowly, “I didn’t know that you were awake yet.”
“I watch you when you don’t know you are being watched as often as I can.” Elise said, “Then is the only time you ever really allow yourself to be seen.”
Through the thin slats Alden saw that the water in the bay had turned a dull emerald gray green and he watched a line of mist that lifted from the horizon just beyond the point that the swells surged upon the outermost edge the encircling reef. He watched several small white fishing boats moving in single file toward the entrance of the encircling breakwater.
“Will you be able to stay for the rest of the day?”
“I have a husband I need to get back to eventually.”
He stepped away from the window and came over to sit on the edge of the wide futon beside Elise. He reached out his hand, cupped her small tanned breast, and felt her nipple quickly harden under the touch of his palm. Her charcoal black hair was fanned out behind her on the pillow and her tawny amber skin was darker than the cotton sheets and he noticed that there was now a thin strand of grey that ran through her hair dramatically like a tiny corner of white space suddenly noticed in the corner of a painting or between the etchings of a woodblock print.
“I might be able to stay for a while. Let me make some telephone calls and I will see what I can do.”
He lowered his head to her hair and breathed in the delicate henna and lavender scent of her shampoo while quietly listening to the sound of the waves moving against the beach. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly before flinging aside the sheets and stepping out of bed yawning and stretching. Elise leaned down, picked up her blue calico sarong, and wrapped it around her waist tightly knotting it just below the curve of her hips. The intricate henna tattoo that rose up from her hips and traced the contours of her muscled back was dark purple against her skin in the dim light. She slipped a long gray hooded sweatshirt over her and smoothed out her hair with her fingers.
“I told him that I had to show some properties out around Waimanalo this afternoon. I think that I can get someone else to do the showings if you would like me to stay a while.”
“I’ll run into town and get some things.” Alden said, “We can grill outside on the hibachi like we used to.”
“That would be very nice.”
Through the slats in the blinds, he saw that the tiny column of fishing boats and charters had cleared the breakwater and were fanning out and moving toward the open ocean. Alden watched her from across the room as she wound her hair in a loose bun and stretched her arms high over her head and looked at him and smiled tiredly. He poured a glass of mineral water and brought it over to Elise who had propped herself up on a large mound of pillows on the futon. He reached out a hand and placed it gently on her throat as she drank the water.
“I love watching you drink,” he said, “The way your throat moves and the curve of your mouth.”
“And is that all you miss about me when I am away? My mouth?”
“I miss the underpainting that you and Allison provided to my life.”
“We tried,” Elise said and rested a hand against his cheek, “We did all that we could and the way that things are now is the way that they have to be.”
“How is this all going to end?” he asked, “I feel as if we were trapped together in amber. I do not know that it is a good thing for either of us for you to keep coming here.”
“It was good last night.”
Alden walked over to the refrigerator; inside was only a cantaloupe and a slice of withered brie and some fresh spinach and eggs. There was an empty plastic jug of mojito mix and a carton of skim milk and a few cans of tuna. He slipped on a pair of canvas carpenters pants, rinsed his face under the faucet at the kitchen sink, and ran his hands through short gray stubble. Walking over to the wooden Japanese hot tub in the in the corner of the outdoor lanai he dipped his hand into the water.
“He is a good and compassionate man.” she said.
“He should take a greater interest in your art, like I did,” Alden began, “I know that you both have your jobs and understand how busy that you must be but I do not like to see you wasting your talent like you seem to be doing.”

He slipped out of his rob and let it fall to the floor and stepped gently into the hot water allowing it to envelop him slowly. Sighing, he closed his eyes and slipped down into the water“Sometimes artists take time off. Am I wasting anything just because I am not painting now?”Elise stepped out of bed and walked over to him. Her dark amber skin seemed to radiate the early light. Lowering herself gently into the water beside him she rested her head on his shoulder. Alden leaned back against the smooth sandalwood side of the hot tub and rested back comfortably on a folded cotton towel. He drew Elise closer and felt the soft brush of her hair against the side of his cheek and smelled the gentle lavender and eucalyptus scent of her skin over the cool clean smell of the beach outside and wood smoke drifting through the window from his kiln. “I am with someone,” she said, “And I really shouldn’t be here at all.”
“If you were not supposed to be right here with me now you wouldn’t be,” he said, “I suspect that nothing happens in life without a purpose or a reason. Most of the time we never know what that reason is.” Elise moved closer to him and could feel his cock pressing forward through his boxers short on the gentle mound between her thighs. From the edge of the hot tub he took a bottle of almond oil and poured some into his palms and began to rub it gently onto her shoulders and neck. Elise reached behind her as he massaged the tension from her muscles and slide his shorts quickly down past his hips and began to stroke him gently to hardness. He know that she could feel beneath the pressing warmth of the heated water the slick lubricate glide of his precum on her questing fingertips as he moved his hands up to massage her temples. Elise turned her head and drew the tip of my index finger into her mouth and sucked gently. And with a low a hushed muted moan she pushed away from him and turned and looking into his as if for the first time. She slowly worked her hands up his legs toward his cock and he stood in the waist deep water he slightly spread his legs and moaned knowing what she was about to do.
She was experienced enough to know that rushing her actions would bring about his pleasure much too quickly and wanted to savor the moment and him. Her hands continued moving. As they brushed across the hair surrounding his groin, another moan, but this time accompanied by a shudder. He was close. She felt herself getting wet just thinking of his cock in her mouth. His manhood swelled and twitched before her, aching for her touch. Catching his eyes, she saw his need. Not breaking eye contact, she ran her hands up and around his cock and fondled the thick patch of hair that began at his navel and worked down into his balls. As she did, her mouth drew ever closer to its goal, her tongue flicking in anticipation of touching it to his tip, tasting the small drop of pre-cum glistening and beckoning her towards it. Elise knew that this was always the best part of giving head. Tasting that sweet, welcoming fluid, which told her that he was enjoying her efforts and getting closer to filling her mouth with his warm thick fluid. She began circling her tongue around the glans. His excitement was apparent by the ever hardening flesh in her hand. Slowly she stroked, and each time she did her lips would follow her fingers so that no contact was ever lost, thus giving him the sensation of always being enclosed within a moist, warm embrace. Each time, she went deeper, until her hand was no longer needed. She had finally taken all of him, and so held him there while her tongue now performed what her hand had done earlier.
Soon his hand moved to grasp the base of his cock. It was his signal that he was nearing orgasm. Knowing himself as well as he did, and to offer her all of what he had within him, he pinched firmly, and pulled away from her. Taking both her hands, she placed one on each thigh, inwardly smiling as she felt his trembling, which signaled he was about to come. Opening her mouth, she looked up at him with expectant eyes. Taking in the head of his cock, she gently sucked letting him know she was ready. He released his grip, and allowed his orgasm to take over his senses and each spurt, she sucked, and in between she swallowed, thus never letting a single drop escape her enjoyment. As she leaned away from him, he took her face into his hands preventing her from going far. Pulling her up, Alden hesitated, looking at her with a newfound lust and appreciation. Elise moaned as she closed the gap between his face and hers. Their lips met but it is not a passionate kiss, for as his lips caress hers, he gently parts them allowing his tongue to savor the moment, and his essence that lingers in her mouth.
“We can’t all spend out time living in a cabin on the beach firing pots for a living or painting to get by. Life doesn’t work that way.” Elsie said finally
“It worked that way for us quite well for the three of us, Elise, until we lost Alison.”
“We didn’t lose her. She died. She is what tore us apart and that which is now keeping us bound together.”
Turning away abruptly, he grabbed his car keys from the countertop.
“I won’t be too long,” he said, “And as I said before, it would be nice if you could stay for the rest of the day.”
He stepped outside and climbed into his jeep. The torn vinyl seats were damp with morning dew and several pink orchid blossoms had fallen onto the dashboard during the night from the branches of the tree beside the driveway. He smelled the salty seaweed scent of the sea grape that covered the dunes that surrounded the beach house in a delicate olive lattice and it reminded him of the coolness and the watery scent of Allison when he had pulled her body from the water. Again last night he had dreamt that they had been flying colorful box kites together on the beach. He roughly maneuvered the jeep over the rutted path that led to the main road and into Wahiawa. As he drove Alden imagined that she were running beside him in her yellow muslin sundress and that her wavy golden hair was bleached from the sun and the seawater and tumbled loosely about her face as she laughed and as they ran together. Often he believed that it was not as if she had actually gone but that she was waiting for him in the most likely of places.
Listening to the boats as they murmured and gurgled against their berths Alden finished his tea and pushed his chair back from the small wrought iron table. He first stopped at a small café on the way to buy groceries since he wanted to give Elise time to leave if she chose to leave and time to arrange to stay if she decided to spend the day with him. He paid for his food and crossed the square while pulling a mesh shopping bag from his rear pocket. Along one side of the market, long aluminum trays of fresh seafood were lined in even columns on painted wooden sawhorses in front of the display windows.
Heaped trays of crushed ice melted slowly in the trays under a green sun awning that leaned out from the white clapboard storefronts. In the early morning sunlight, the sweet caramel aroma of fresh pitch rose from the warming asphalt. Through the steamy plate glass windows he saw tawny orange and yellow smoked Beijing duck hanging in bound clusters from the ceiling beneath the bright fluorescent lights. Glaucus papayas and toad skinned avocados glistened in the cases and the aromas of fresh seafood mingled with the fragrance of exotic fruits and spices. On a low display in a corner of the window, colorful boxes of Chinese tea were stacked in a tall uneven pyramid. Lifting a long strand of sweat dampened hair from her eyes as she unpacked a case of fresh prawns a young girl smiled as he approached. Gesturing at the violet prawns she was piling in dripping handfuls on one of the trays she gathered her long ebony hair into a bundle and twisted it in into a loose ponytail and looked into his eyes quietly as she fastened the wound bundle with a dun colored rubber band.
“Good morning,” she said, “How have you been?”
“Okay I suppose.”
“Zheige shi ren shi bu neng bu hai xinde.” she said.
“Not today, but thank you. Just two sea bass, one pound of prawns, and three of mussels. Oh, and I almost forgot, an octopus.”
“Octopu?” she asked.
“Ah, pulpo, octopus…”
“Ah, pulpo, si!” she smiled, “Jiushi uno?”
“Only one, yes. I have company from the mainland for the weekend“I saw your pottery exhibition at the gallery last week with my father,” she said, “We both enjoyed it very much.”
“What did you like about it the most of all?”
“The cha ye,” she said, “The tea set.”
“Tell your father that I will have it sent to him.”
“Oh you don’t have to be so generous,” she said, “It would be too much.”
“I want him to like me,” Alden said, “Sometimes I think that he doesn’t really approve of me.”
“He is just kind of old fashioned that way. He wants me to marry a good Chinese boy who will let him live with us and help us to bring up his grandchildren.”
“Maybe you should then…”
“Can I come by again tonight after work?” she asked.
“I have someone over,” Alden said, “Maybe we could go snorkeling again next weekend if you are not doing anything.”
“Elise?”
Alden nodded and looked away.
“May it would be better for you to just let her go. Maybe it would be better if you both just let Allison go.”
“You may be right,” he said.

“Wait, I have something I want to give you. For the tea set.”She quickly went through the swinging doors at the rear of the store. In a moment she came back carrying a large rectangle object wrapped in white butcher’s paper and bound with string. She tore away the paper quickly and held it up to him. In the center of the watercolor print, a gently arching trestle bridge spanned the banks of the river estuary; torches like luminous fireflies lined the trellis of the bridge and smoke from the countless cooking fires on the boats drifted across the water. Rising high on either rocky bank twisted cypress, Japanese red maple climbed the rocky shore, and the sense of inexhaustible liveliness reminded him of bees in a hive patiently forming their hexagonal treasure chests of honey. He remembered the tiny figures in conical straw hats as they scurried like purposeful insects among the uneven thatched roofs of the houseboats; each figure in the watercolor print certain of the purpose and order of their world and resolute with the permanence and security of their world.
“This is wonderful,” he said.
“I started teaching again and I began a woodcut to show the class how it was done,” she explained, “I wanted you to have the first print.”
“I like it very much.”
On a deep tray of crushed ice beside a heaped crate of slate grey mussels, a clutch of pale opalescent octopi twisted their tentacles languidly along the edge of the metal. Constantly at motion, the tips of their slim alabaster tentacles probed tentatively at the ice and felt along the smooth edge of the aluminum rim of the tray. One tentacle extended out along the edge of the tray into the sunlight and quickly recoiled into the shade beneath by the awning. She dug her small hands down into the pile and eased a large brown speckled octopus from the writhing mound. She held it up to Alden; the tentacles wrapped tightly around her slender wrist and forearm and moved carefully along the fine black hair on her forearm. Lifting the octopus deftly to her mouth she bit down hard on the raised mottled ridge immediately between and behind the staring marble eyes; a quick crunch of cartilage and the octopus stiffened into a tight ball that wrapped around her hands and then slowly released. Alden held out his mesh bag, she dropped the octopus into it, and he twisted it closed.
“Na, women shenme shihou keyi hai jianmianle?” she asked.
“I’ll work something out as soon as I can.” he promised, “things there are complicated now but I want you to know that I will do my best. It’s hard for me to get away from all that I have going on sometimes.”
From the road, he could see the terra cotta shingles on the roof of the beach house and then Elise lying recumbent on a large tatami mat under the pergola that shaded one side of the lanai. Over the bay, he saw storm clouds forming out to sea and a dark blurred grayness of rain falling in the distance. He parked under the branches of the sweeping East Indian walnut tree that grew beside his corrugated tin pottery shed. From the driveway, he saw rain moving across the bay toward the thin strip of beach that sloped upward into the luxurious green hills pied with seriated pineapple terraces. Elise was lying on her stomach on a large beach towel sunning on the lanai. He felt that the air had freshened since he had gone into town for groceries and the air felt cooler with the approach of the rain. Elise heard the jeep approach, opened her eyes, and shielded them with her hand as she watched him park the car and lift the groceries from the rear compartment.
Alden lifted his grocery bags from the bag of the jeep and set them on the ground beside the work shed. Green glass floats were stacked in several empty pineapple crates along the far wall. From the ceiling hung a bright red ocean kayak. Several geckos ran along the walls and ceiling startled by the light. He stepped inside and took a folded canvas tarpaulin from one of the shelves. He knew that he would need it to cover the top of the lattice wood frame that surrounded his kiln. He dropped the tarpaulin on the ground beside the kiln, picked up his bags of groceries, and stepped onto the porch just as drops began to fall heavily onto the roof and to beat against the rolled wicker sunscreens. Elsie came forward and took one of the bags from his arms.
“Could you help me with something,” he asked, “I don’t want it to rain on the kiln. The firing is almost complete.”
Elise’s hair was wet from swimming, the backs of her calves were coated in fine white sand, and her blue calico sarong was pulled very low on her hips. Together the wrapped the green tarpaulin around the latticework that surrounded the firing pit. Once they had finished Alden went back to the jeep and unfastened the woodblock print from the bungee straps he has used to secure it to the rear fold down seat. He came inside and leaned it against the sofa.
Elise was standing at the kitchen with her back to him when he stepped inside. She had placed the mussels in a colander and was rinsing them in cold water. The bright silver sea bass lay on a stainless steel cutting board on the wooden butcher block in the middle of the kitchen. While the mussels were rinsing she went to the refrigerator, took out the basket of fresh limes, and placed them on the counter. Noticing the painting, she came over to look at it drying her hands on a dishrag.
“I made us some lemonade,” she said, “And I will be able to stay for the rest of the day.”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw the print leaning against the wall.
“Where did that come from?”
“Someone gave it to me.”
“That girl at the market you’ve been seeing?”
“Yeah.”
In the center of the watercolor print, a gently arching trestle bridge spanned the banks of the river estuary; torches like luminous fireflies lined the trellis of the bridge and smoke from the countless cooking fires on the boats drifted across the water. Rising high on either rocky bank twisted cypress, Japanese red maple climbed the rocky shore, and the sense of inexhaustible liveliness reminded him of bees in a hive patiently forming their hexagonal treasure chests of honey. Tiny figures in conical straw hats scurried like purposeful insects among the uneven thatched roofs of the houseboats; each figure in the watercolor print certain of the purpose and order of their world and resolute with the permanence and security of their world.
“Excellent work,” she said, “she must really care for you.”
“I gave her father a few pieces he liked from my exhibition last month. I suppose that this is their way of saying thanking or just keeping the ledgers balanced.”
“Do you love her?”
“She is very kind and I enjoy her company,” Alden said, “I am not sure there is anything left of me to love.”
“You have good taste in women.”
“I always have.”
The rain was now falling in heavy torrential sheets against the side of the beach house as he stepped out onto the lanai to see that the tarpaulin was holding. Leaves and seedpods were being torn by the wind from the leaves of the jacaranda tree. Where the rain fell on the hot sand dome of the raku firing pit steam rose in thin wisps. Elise stepped off the porch and slipped a cardigan over her head.
“He wants me to move back to the mainland with him. His job.” Elise said, “I don’t know if I will be able to leave her and you here all by yourselves. I feel as if we were trapped in amber and unable to move forward. We are not the only couple that has ever lost a child and I do not think that it is like this for everyone.”
“I don’t think it is ever the same for everyone.”
Almost as quickly as the sudden squall had moved in from the bay the storm passed as the rain moved farther inland and into the surrounding hills. In the sudden silence, they stood listening to the water drip from the leaves of the trees and from the eaves onto the terra cotta lanai. Elise slipped out of the cardigan, wrung the water from it, and dripped it over the back of a webbed recliner. She gathered her hair together and tied it in a loose bundle that rested just above her slender neck. Drops of water gleamed like emeralds on the ferns and foliage and sea grapes as the rain cloud moved inland. Beads of water also glistened on her breasts and her bright blue sarong was clinging tightly to her legs and pressed tightly against her hips. Steam rose from the gently curved mound of sand in the center of the firing pit. He scraped ashes and burnt banana peels from the center of the mound. He could see the black rim of the raku pot buried among the dying coals. He heated a rusty pair of fireplace tongs over the embers and gently lifted the pot from the kiln and placed it beside him on the sand. Sudden changes of temperature could shatter the pot and this was the most precarious stage of the casting process. He knew that these would be the last pieces of pottery he would be able to turn before the movers came to dismantle his workshop at the end of the week and he needed them to be perfect. Alden knew that he would miss living in the islands but also felt he had overextended his stay and was looking forward to the squally change of seasons common to the northwest and the calm sense of purpose and resolve that teaching had always provided. Already he was imagining what other natural mediums he could use on the mainland to carbonize the glaze on his pottery. Driftwood and sea grasses might produce more sodium oxide when they burned during reduction and that would imbue the ceramic with a more silvery iridescence. Fibrous tendrils of blackened peel clung to the sides of the pot and the glaze was crisscrossed with a delicate marbling of intersecting ridges like the mottled skin of an octopus. Alden spread a layer of dried pineapple husks along the bottom and sides of the reduction pit and placed the raku pot carefully in the center. The husks immediately began to smolder from the heat of the clay. He would also miss their sweet caramel smell that always reminded him of the thin wraiths of smoke that rose every spring and autumn from the Waimea hills when the farmers burned away the sugarcane in preparation for planting. He tossed in a few more handfuls to cover the pot and then buried the steaming mound in a layer of damp sand. As the husks slowly burned, they produced the dense smoke that would crystallize onto the glaze as it slowly cooled and provide a depth that he hoped would have the diffuse translucence of a black pearl or a polished piece of ebony.
In the sudden overwhelming silence that followed the passing of the squall Alden heard the gradually rising susurrus of water rushing in the narrow stream that ran beside the driveway as it passed rapidly through a tangle of scrub pine and into the liman that opened out onto the beach. As the rain moved further into the surrounding hillside and the terraces of sugarcane and pineapple fields the sudden runoff was channeled downward through the rocks and hidden underground viaducts to feed into the stream. What only minutes before had been a slowly flowing mountain spring fed stream was not a rushing torrent of reddish orange water increasing in force even as the rains had passed. Red dirt from the fields colored the water a dull reddish orange and the roar of the water outpouring from the hills increased in volume as it rushed towards the ocean. Alden turned to see Elise watching him quietly. She took his hand and together they walked across the wet sand and sea grasses and stood at the bank of the stream. Here the once pellucid water was tainted reddish orange from the runoff from the plantations that terraced the hillsides. The water rushed and frothed over a rubble before the stream widened into a small delta at the beach. They stood silently looking at the flow of the water and then turned and walked back toward the house.

Inside the beach house, Elise wrung the rainwater from her wet sarong, retied it around her waist, and walked across the room to their daughter’s reliquary. She laid her hand upon the side of the cool smooth ceramic. Alden walked up beside her and gently traced his fingertip along the edges of the intricate henna tattoo that covered her lower back. She sat down in a large papasan chair; her blue paisley sarong was lifted high on her thighs and her tanned breasts moved gently and she slowly rubbed her calves. Alden knelt down on the cool bamboo floorboards in front of her and took the bottle of scented almond oil from her hands. He began to rub her feet gently working the oil into the soles of her feet and moving his fingers gently between her toes. Elise leaned back and rested her head on the cushions pushing her legs apart wide against the sides of cushions of the chair. Alden leaned down in front of her, spread her legs apart, and poured a pool of warm almond oil onto the palm of his hand. She arched her back upward and away from the cushion and placed her hands on either side of his head pulling him closer as Alden brought his lips close and breathed gently against the delicate darkness between her legs. Running her fingers gently through his short gray hair, she pulled his lips forward deeper into her as sweat beaded between in the hollow between her breasts to roll forward down her stomach. Her blue calico sarong was bunched around her hips and was growing dark with dampness and sweat. Suddenly pushing him back onto the floor she leaned forward with her hands astride his hips, gently touched the tip of her tongue to the head of his cock, and lightly licked the delicate blond pearl of precum that had welled at the tip. Alden arched his back suddenly and moaned softly as he watched her slowly draw him deeper into her mouth. He wrapped his fingers in her hair and wound the thin strands of gray around his fingertips and watched her lips move along the edges of his penis and then slowly downward before suddenly sitting astride him and easing him into her. She rode up and down on him hard pounding his lower back into the rough floorboards. Later they lay together entwined in a warm muddle of sweat on the floor listening to the last of the rain drip from the shingles and onto the lanai.
“You should have been watching her better,” Elise said, “She was just a little girl and you should have been watching her much better.”
Alden dressed and rinsed his face in front of the sink as Elise stepped into the shower. He walked outside barefoot and poured a bucket of water on the coals that ringed the kiln and hung the tongs on a wooden peg above his worktable. He noticed that the wind had changed direction and he suspected that it might rain that evening. He went inside and walked quietly over to the urn on the table by the window. Elise was humming softly in the shower to a song playing on the radio. He believed that the urn was his finest work: the perfect glaze assumed a shifting opalescence in varying qualities of light. Each morning, as the sun first filtered through the narrow Venetian blinds in their bedroom, the purplish cast the ceramic assumed was at its most vibrant and in the full light of day the violet hue faded to a subtle suggestion of lavender. Cradling the urn gently in his arms, he walked quickly down the beach toward a ridge of scrub pine that bordered the stream that flowed down from the mountains through the beach and into the sea. Here under the overhanging tufts of pine, the afternoon sun was cool and green and the sound from the beach was muffled and rendered indistinct by the dense foliage. Here amidst the undergrowth the water coursed through a pool of broken shale. Alden pictured her as Elise had described her turning slowly in a pool of frothy umber water with the hem of her dress hook on an exposed root with her hair floating out behind her on the surface of red clay imbued floodwater. He knew that he would one day meet her in the most likely of places just as he now searched every large crowd unconsciously for a glimpse of her face. Even though only a child his daughter Elise had been his best friend and was someone he had felt that could share everything with that he could never tell anyone else. He dipped his hands into the cool water, rinsed his face, and ran his wet fingers through his hair. He set the urn beside him and listened to the trade winds moving through the pines. He upended the urn and poured the fine white ashes into the swiftly moving stream. They wheeled around in a tight eddy before catching the main current and rushing toward the sea. Alden scooped up a handful of sand and pine needles and poured them between his fingers into the empty urn. He lifted the urn to his cheek and gently and pressed the porcelain to his skin. It was as cool and smooth and as polished as a shell.

Written by Bradley Heden at redbubble

~ by littlehelen on May 16, 2008.