High Noon

ORCHARD PRESS MYSTERIES, SHORT FICTION & POETRY

May 2007

High Noon
a short story
by x&al danzabel

writing and reading female coplanetarian, at the moment in an English language and creative writing b.a. course in college to suss out more about language with 'nsatiable curiosity

HIGH calls low - low calls HIGH.

The lower I am, the higher my mind will want to soar.

Unrelenting suffering turns to the spiritual power responsible for A l l of it.

I love my huge mirror in my big living room with French windows leading out into our garden. I am in an ongoing conversation with the mirror image for it is my visible shadow.

I am my name - DULCET which stands for agreeable = kind = lyrical = melodious = mellow = musical = pleasant = silver-toned = soothing = sweet.

I am married to my man whose name is SENZA which is Italian meaning without = deprived = destitute = in need of = in want of = lacking = requiring = short of = wanting.

I am looking out onto the autumn lawn and his wheelchair with him in it quietly sitting there and I cannot see if he sleeps or looks out at the trees and shrubs and clouds high up there in the drunken blue sky.

There - I go again - mentioning the word HIGH. This word tugs at my heartstrings without drawing blood, however, anymore.

HIGH NOON is our one and only daughter. She flies as high as a kite now - somewhere out there - unreachable in substance any more - but she sustains him - her father - keeps me alive, too, her mother. The apple of his eye and more.

We were married - we were the Noons and we wanted a child – a baby Noon. As it turned out - he could not father a child. So we decided on a donor baby. I had the choice. I suggested and got a dark skin with black curls with black eyes child. We did not know if a boy or a girl would be our lucky lot, though. He wanted a girl. Desperately a girl. I wanted the surprise of 9 months waiting. The baby came as a girl. Hilarious happiness. The choice of name was his because that is how he felt from the moment she shouted herself into our life...H I G H!

She was a leading and ruling little ebony princess in our midst. She was influential in our marriage in so far as we no longer were lovers. We were parents. Established in society firmly as mother and father and daughter. Our relationship was very intense and at times violent with her and about her. He never used or even tried the word NO with her but with me. I stopped being his dulcissima. I was Mum or Mammie or Mother or Queen mum for very good motherly behaviour.

He used the words...my precious...my darling...my sweet...only for HIS one and only daughter. She showed character traits, which were really way beyond our genes, and the word proud describes her best and the balance quality of humility was just not present in that outfit. Her willpower was strong and she was born in bright August making her a true Leo female.

Her birthstone was gold stone, which stands for The Stone of Wealth – associated with good luck and reducing stress, which really was funny since from the moment of her conception she was stress per se in all our lives. Not in the bad sense of physical suffering. It was her extraordinary supply of energy over 24 hours – even when asleep.

I had the feeling that simply sitting beside her supplied us with the energy to survive the nights somehow and the next day. She was so generous with sharing her whole being. She loved us to bits and knew how to get her every whim granted. Her smile. Her radiant face. Her imploring touching gestures. Her high vibrant voice.

She really seemed to be drugged somehow sometimes High on joy itself. Short attention span. She could not stay on her own usually. She fed always on public outside adoration. Yes, she was courageous and generous and charismatic and simply joy. I suppose her motto for living was I AM. Her planet surely was the sun. Her element was fire. Her colour was gold and her lucky number was nine, which in German language means NO.

Her father who is now my lover again was born in May and his birthstone was rose quartz, which is known as the stone of love and is associated with reducing stress and building confidence. His life motto can be I HAVE and his planet is Venus. His element is Earth, which he really loves most – sitting in his wheel chair not being able to move with High again. There – again this word high…

His colours are pastels – so I dress always in pastel colours for him really. And his lucky number is eight.

It happened on a day number eight.

A very stormy spring day - 22 April it was - we were out on the lawn on the other side of the house. Suddenly I jerked around to look at her father's face. He had emitted a tiger roar and groans and was already running towards the house with high-outstretched arms and waving hands. I was rooted to the spot. Immobile. In shock. High was high up on the roof of our house and tap danced to the edge of the flat surface. She screamed with delight and wide-open joy - her father was down there and would catch her. She just danced in the air with a wild shriek. Her father was crushed to the ground by her weight and fall.

When I finally arrived at the heap of bones and clothes and hair – my Senza was stunned and breathing and could not move. Life had left the gorgeous body of our ebony daughter of 5 years on the spot with the impact on the ground. Death was acute and extravagant. I still hear her penetrating piercing piping soprano voice in my pituitary gland behind my front head.

Her father had willed her into our life. He admired her. He adored her. He worshipped her. He was delirious with worry during her infant’s illness bouts. They had a strange Morse code of feelings. An osmotic understanding.

We never talked about the real father who had provided his sperm who would never ever know about her very existence. I phantasized about meeting him, falling in love with him, and this dropdown dead beautiful ebony black prince showering me with that boundless love my white husband who once was my Latin lover, splashed out for her – my brown dark ecstatic and prodigal dream child.

High had also this streak of all proud people – the gift to hurt, sometimes subtly, contemplated even, sometimes openly aggressive. She squeezed two cats to death because of love. She raced my aunt’s little boy on a visit into our French glass window door and I cannot forget her earnest quiet stare at the blood oozing out of his head and hands. A "Mission accomplished" look.

I know for sure that not any real donor father could have outdone her Noon father in lavishness of affection and deep love, which reaches beyond the rim of death.

Mirror – mirror – Do tell me – was I jealous? Of my own boisterous bouncy cheerful joyful lavish powerful one and only girl child?

Once while making love he said "you must not ever be jealous of High" And I broke into tears. I felt so offended. But High knew in her own way that she had the power over him and me and that in case of fire he would rescue her first.

We spoilt her rotten in between us and she acted up and went dangerously mad when there was any tension between us or any other person present around her. She never ever asked why we were white and she was brown.

We buried her somehow staying alive. The father is my husband again. In a wheel chair. He is all mine now again. We are lovers – clinging to each other.

We cannot sell the grounds and the house. We cannot move away. She lives in our memory – fresh, invigorating. We make up episodes about her growing up – her schoolgirl life, her return from summer or winter camp. Our holidays abroad with her let us browse through international travel brochures. We have booked four times cruises around the world on the QE2 leaving on 15 December and arriving in Southampton again end of April next year. Years go by and we never leave our home island.

We listen intently to the puberty stories of the children of other people and weave the adolescence story of High. Her college life is difficult as can be expected. We wonder about her falling in love with him or him or him. But we never get to the stage where she is married and maybe expecting her first child.

In a way she will never grow beyond that first love stage.

We collect adjectives for her memory album when sipping tea or relaxing after having had guests around with whom we share their stories about their children or when we watch TV or listen to the radio and then we use these words to ask questions or make statements – "Remember, she was such an approving little person" – "Yes, and the most costly presents were just the best for her" – "She was such a beaming dear" – "On her birthday she went right out delirious and could not eat anything" – "She liked the word...distinguished ...and kept on asking: Is this lady or this gentleman dressed?

Distinguished?" – "The words elated and euphoric and exalted are invented for her really" – "Come to think of it she was excessive in all things" – "She was excited and exciting likewise" – "As a young woman her demands are exorbitant and expensive" – "She needed extreme attention and was flattering everybody at the same time" – "At school her forceful character creates quite havoc" – "We never showed signs of freaked-out without her" – "All in all she is a good and grand and happy girl and could never have come as a boy" – "Her high frequency took us with her really from one day into the other" – "Do you think she was high-pitched from the start ?" - "Well she just came hyped-up, didn’t she ?" – "She knew that she was the most important person around us and others!" – "We were always in high spirits with her, weren’t we?" – "What a jolly young being she was also in a crowd of peers" – "She had a distinctive greed for luxurious living" – "Remember – when we taught her to say Merry High instead of Merry Christmas?" – "She sure was our potent and principal treasure" – "I felt a prominent person with her around" – "On the other hand also she is quite a sharp little person" – "None of us could have been called ‘spaced-out’" – "Although she was rather strong I sometimes think she was a bit tainted" – "She aimed to be treble" – "She was the most vigorous member of our little family."

We never stopped to be a family.

There never was the need to have another child. We have gone through the process of parenting and were intense in our memory reservoir and somehow knew that she would not have permitted another child robbing her of her unique position in our family set-up. Come to think of it - jealousy was one of her most prominent attributes. The colour of our skins was never mentioned as long as she was dancing around in our lives.

My mirror image shows me how beautiful I am, how unique

Contact the Author - hewesufa@yahoo.co.uk