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Authors: Dusty Miller
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back to the wall and her knees drawn up in the
deepening gloom.
She had certainly gotten her wish. She
had all night to study the blasted mosaics. The thought rattled
Jayne, for the dark held many terrors, not the least of which might
be rats. The idea disgusted her, and she clutched her purse as if
it might be a weapon, which it most assuredly was not. She’d smash
her reading glasses and that wouldn’t do. Her little read before
bed-time was the only thing keeping her sane lately. Maybe they
would have them for sale somewhere in town, but that wasn’t the
point.
The purse was no weapon. Not a very
good one, anyway, but she hadn’t seen anything looking like a
viable stick or club or anything like that in the ruined old
building. It was all stone around here. Using indigenous materials,
especially away from the capital in smaller centers, was a feature
of many Byzantine buildings. A bitter irony, in that she knew so
much about the place but had no idea how long it would take to be
missed. She couldn’t even really picture where she was. On the
other side of the lake was a dock and a village, and a highway went
through there. It was in the suburbs. She knew that
much.
She didn’t even know if there was a
daily tour of the place. Maybe no one would come back for days or
weeks. That was a sobering thought, that and the chill creeping in
with the night. The faint images on the walls mocked her. She was
hoping for salvation, of the most pedestrian kind…sooner or later,
someone had to come.
Jayne began to cry, in spite of her
best efforts, but coming after all that had happened in the last
weeks, and months, and years, it was more than she could handle. It
might even do her some good. She had known, deep down inside, for a
long time even, that it was coming anyway.
Sooner or later it had to.
Fresh spasms of grief and hopelessness
wracked her form, as her sobs rang up and around the hard stone
walls, mocking her self-pity with a kind of harsh
insolence.
Occupied With Gloom and
Pain
Occupied with such gloom and pain,
including the first major pangs of thirst, she must have missed his
footsteps. A man stepped out from a corner aisle just as the pale
orb of the moon, hanging low and austere in the vast gap in the
southeast elevation, began to redden and dim in the beginnings of
an eclipse. He must have heard her crying and come looking. The
light was fading strangely and it seemed as if the whole world went
dead quiet. It was like the calm after the storm, when the air
tingled with ozone.
“ Oh!”
The eclipse. They were supposed to go
up into the hills above the city and watch it, then go on to the
all-hours disco, and she’d just remembered that.
She stood up as he came to a full
stop, turned and stared in wonder. The vague back-splash of light
off the walls and floor was enough to illuminate a remarkable
figure of a man with a homely but angular face. The fellow was
completely wedge-shaped, with big, wide, flat shoulders bulging up
into an impressive set of neck muscles. His naked torso gleamed in
the bloody glow of the moon, half gone it as it was now.
She wrung her hands and her purse and
carefully stepped out of the shadows, watching her step among the
rubble, moving out into the imaginary warmth of the moonlight. His
jaw dropped and his eyes swept her up and down. He straightened up
and took a half-step backwards, one hand lifted, knees bent and his
other arm poised in frozen action.
He looked downright cute like that,
and she was glad she had her everyday glasses on as he was quite a
remarkable sight in his own right.
“ Oh, thank God. I was so
afraid I’d be stuck here all night—”
He uttered some words in a language
that didn’t sound like Turkish at all, for she’d caught the flavour
and accents of it in a couple of days here.
She smiled encouragingly and stepped a
little closer. He stood there staring at her.
She sighed at the inevitability of it
all. Of course he wouldn’t
deepening gloom.
She had certainly gotten her wish. She
had all night to study the blasted mosaics. The thought rattled
Jayne, for the dark held many terrors, not the least of which might
be rats. The idea disgusted her, and she clutched her purse as if
it might be a weapon, which it most assuredly was not. She’d smash
her reading glasses and that wouldn’t do. Her little read before
bed-time was the only thing keeping her sane lately. Maybe they
would have them for sale somewhere in town, but that wasn’t the
point.
The purse was no weapon. Not a very
good one, anyway, but she hadn’t seen anything looking like a
viable stick or club or anything like that in the ruined old
building. It was all stone around here. Using indigenous materials,
especially away from the capital in smaller centers, was a feature
of many Byzantine buildings. A bitter irony, in that she knew so
much about the place but had no idea how long it would take to be
missed. She couldn’t even really picture where she was. On the
other side of the lake was a dock and a village, and a highway went
through there. It was in the suburbs. She knew that
much.
She didn’t even know if there was a
daily tour of the place. Maybe no one would come back for days or
weeks. That was a sobering thought, that and the chill creeping in
with the night. The faint images on the walls mocked her. She was
hoping for salvation, of the most pedestrian kind…sooner or later,
someone had to come.
Jayne began to cry, in spite of her
best efforts, but coming after all that had happened in the last
weeks, and months, and years, it was more than she could handle. It
might even do her some good. She had known, deep down inside, for a
long time even, that it was coming anyway.
Sooner or later it had to.
Fresh spasms of grief and hopelessness
wracked her form, as her sobs rang up and around the hard stone
walls, mocking her self-pity with a kind of harsh
insolence.
Occupied With Gloom and
Pain
Occupied with such gloom and pain,
including the first major pangs of thirst, she must have missed his
footsteps. A man stepped out from a corner aisle just as the pale
orb of the moon, hanging low and austere in the vast gap in the
southeast elevation, began to redden and dim in the beginnings of
an eclipse. He must have heard her crying and come looking. The
light was fading strangely and it seemed as if the whole world went
dead quiet. It was like the calm after the storm, when the air
tingled with ozone.
“ Oh!”
The eclipse. They were supposed to go
up into the hills above the city and watch it, then go on to the
all-hours disco, and she’d just remembered that.
She stood up as he came to a full
stop, turned and stared in wonder. The vague back-splash of light
off the walls and floor was enough to illuminate a remarkable
figure of a man with a homely but angular face. The fellow was
completely wedge-shaped, with big, wide, flat shoulders bulging up
into an impressive set of neck muscles. His naked torso gleamed in
the bloody glow of the moon, half gone it as it was now.
She wrung her hands and her purse and
carefully stepped out of the shadows, watching her step among the
rubble, moving out into the imaginary warmth of the moonlight. His
jaw dropped and his eyes swept her up and down. He straightened up
and took a half-step backwards, one hand lifted, knees bent and his
other arm poised in frozen action.
He looked downright cute like that,
and she was glad she had her everyday glasses on as he was quite a
remarkable sight in his own right.
“ Oh, thank God. I was so
afraid I’d be stuck here all night—”
He uttered some words in a language
that didn’t sound like Turkish at all, for she’d caught the flavour
and accents of it in a couple of days here.
She smiled encouragingly and stepped a
little closer. He stood there staring at her.
She sighed at the inevitability of it
all. Of course he wouldn’t
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