In-a-blink...

Are you sometimes so tired that you cannot sleep, though you could weep for sleep? To be far beyond the edge of the ability to fall away, fall from consciousness, into a blissful grace... into unawareness? Sleep is release.

Morgan lays sleeping; how innocent and peaceful sleep makes us appear. I watch her; jealousy gnaws at my edges. Years ago, I used to wake her, hating the utter isolation of insomnia, hating her carelessness. Now, her peace is a solace.

To sleep is to waste life; not to sleep is agony.

Our architect's wife, a glorious gaunt harpee, assures me the reasons for building a dream-house are strikingly similar to those for owning insanely-over-priced sports cars. (A key to such a motor sits between us, a silent little accusation.)

I gaze at her candidly, amused.

'Felice, you are far too young to know your dreams, let alone have access to the quantity of cash required to fulfill such high pretensions,'she snorts, pointing a teaspoon at me (as if it were a wand able to bestow common-sense). 'What is wrong with the ten dozen perfectly adaquate dwellings littering Cornwall like so much tossed confetti?'

'It's keeping your husband in pin money,' I point out wryly.

'I thank you for that: keeps him out of my hair,' she softens. 'Nevertheless. You girls are fools.'

Is a dream-house one of those crunching, hyper-critical self-indicators of how far one has managed to get in one's life? Achievement indicators differ from person to person: some call it a day if they manage to drag their carcass from bed to sofa; others count the lives of stolen children as so much chaff in their scramble to showy success. A continuum from killers, liers and thieves, to orchids tenders or poets.

Me? Real estate is a buzz. Raising eyebrows, I tell her, 'You'll love my house like your own child.'
'True,' she concedes. 'But thank God I don't have to pay for it.'

Morgan and I talk at lot about stereotypes; in certain ways, we fit and in glaring ways we do not. In restaurants, for instance, we invariably get sent a bottle (with compliments) to the two sexy women out eating alone (!).

A crass and repetitive assumption which led to a favourite game: Morgan, elegant, stunning, enters a restaurant and is shown to a table.
Ten minutes later I arrive, settle, order efficiently and proceed to take-in the scene. We notice each other, eye flirt. The maitre-de is called, a bottle of the best wine ordered and dispatched. With glassy expression, Morgan is presented with the offering: she glances in the direction indicated, hesitates, nods an acknowledgement.
A neat smile is dispatched with the maitre-de – who arrives, studiously unruffled, to inform me that my advances are accepted. As surreptitiously as possible, I am moved to join her.

Done properly, the silent ensuing scandal is divine. Suave and charming, I flirt; her intelligence glows. Leisurely, we enjoy the excellent food – if we are feeling particularly naughty, our stockinged feet stroke and travel. Finally, we leave - no doubts as to how we shall spend the rest of the night.

We fit beautifully.

Morgan's face is a stark lily on black polished lava; sculpted with an ancient quality - like a tranquil carved relief gazing from a silent corner of a temple: you desperately want to stroke, to touch, but daren't. A pearl suspended in swirling oil; something imminently disappearing.

People who assume assume her quiet exterior houses a serene oriental calm. People who know know it's the slate face of grit and determination.
Inexpression rarely results from stupidity; the converse is true - only the highly intelligent can master so much control. Morgan prefers to observe, but when she must, she acts with the sudden ferocity of an alligator ambush.
One of the disadvantages of being beautiful, we have decided, is that one's behaviour is almost always contrary to assumption and expectation. And as substance is not equated with beauty, the lesser-minded fail to recognise being toyed with. Which spoils the fun.

'All of them! Every damn one is lost,' she growls, furious, distraught. 'I don't understand it. I haven't lost a film in years. I took such great care over those bloody pictures.'

Morgan loses her pictures and I find a lover. The world turning upside-down is as easy as that.

Early morning. At the gates of the Alhambra: later, scorched tourists will loll toward coaches, another sight seen. Quiet, respecting the crisp morning air, only six people wait; for me, its that sense of privacy, a place barely vacated by ancient inhabitants – the fading of laughter, the swish of silk, the taste of intrigue.
From behind the scenes. I study a fellow early-bird. For the pulse alone, beating just perceptibly against the skin of her neck, she is worth attention; my concentration flows slowly along the collar bone, pouring into that perfect central hollow. Barely the width of a finger tip: my thumb tries out the tip of the index finger, rolling over the nail.
The gates open. I know exactly where I want to go and do not loiter – not even to admire the woman’s liquid, wet coal hair, so sleek it resembles the movement of muscle.
Of course, we glimpse one another: she is photographing details with a deliberate precision. The length of time taken to frame each shot distracts me from the murmuring echoes of Moorish princesses. Eventually, across the empty air of a cool interior, I wink – as much to snap out of my infatuation as to see what she will do.
A smile - a ‘God, you idiot’ roll of eyes. Off she walks. I am dismissed.
Blink. I’m not used to that.
Later, in the gardens, tucked away on my favourite bench, a click… Without turning, I know it’s her. Seating herself, she says, ‘I can’t believe you winked.’
I smile.

Blink and the whole world twists upside-down. Blink - someone dies and half of you is gone. Blink - you are gradually lost, and awaken one day without an anchoring equilibrium. Blink, you meet a stranger. Blink - you decide. Blink - your life is no longer what it was.
How many thousand times will you blink today? How many million blinks in a lifetime? A life can change irrecovably in the span of a single blink.
Case in point: six years ago, my world span inside-out due to a single careless wink. Blink and it could all be gone.