Imbued in pensiveness, she gently stroked the glorious mane of the half-asleep beast crouched at her side. The soft breeze softly whispering in her ears brought to her the gentle and gay sound of the chickadees and robins.
Everything was so at peace in the warmth of the afternoon that it drew a slight whisper of release from her chest. She then let her drift again to memories arisen from the past, mingled with glimpses of probable futures. Caught as she was in that state of preternatural clarity of mind on the fringe of drowsiness, she saw under her closed eyelids, bright patches of colours twirling in an infinite and vivid dance amongst the shades cast by the tall cedar, celebrating in all of their versatility the unique beauty of light.
She began to find herself back to her youth, running joyfully in the high grass with her little lion cub. So innocent, so carefree and yet so blissfully aware of the totality of the instant.
The sullen noise of the lion annoyed by a humming ladybug startled her back to the red velvet sofa where she had been sitting to enjoy that sunny spring afternoon.
Strangest thing, she wondered, that her life felt so tied up to that magnificent creature at the cusp of its glory. More than tied up, she thought, mirrored. As though it read her mind, the lion awoke from its seeming heavy sleep and cast to her an intense and bright look. She petted it under its soft chin, her gaze full of undivided love for the creature, the most faithful companion she ever had.
To the least pleasant traits, their lives mirrored one another ; as she did, it grew up from a dejected cub, abandoned by its mother, to a gorgeous expression of radiating self-confidence.
That was probably the brightest idea her benefactor ever had in his angst to see her out of her mutism and distrust. To simply entrust her the little ashen thing as if it would suffice to wither away the sum total of their respective pains. And indeed, the magic worked out, as only ruthless pundit or plain desperate soul would have slyly expected or barely hoped for. They tamed each other, building their strength to face the world on the common ground of their bruised feelings. She actually felt so close to the creature that she could not deny it having feelings, nor could she deny grasping them almost empathically.
Sometimes she even wondered if everything was not but the embodied form sprouted out from the unspoken wishes of a disturbed mind. Even the baroque decor of the room in which she now dreamily paced in, once so familiar, somehow was now alien to her.
Idle thoughts of a head made dizzy by a few drops of red wine perhaps,… Still, she could not let go of them, in a way she would have been at a loss to explain if asked.
Strolling by the arched alleyway, gazing at the reflections of the lake, she felt mesmerised by the plays of the sunny light on the rippling undulations of the lake… yet another mirror for herself.
As if even the past was springing forth from that very present, she could easily go back and forth in time and feel her switching over the memories of her youth. The delicate silent child with fierce eyes, the slender sun-tanned freckled adolescent to the gorgeous fragrant women in shinny adorned gown she was now. With same acute clarity, she marvelled at how easily she could conjure up the image of herself as an aging woman, with short-blanched hair, hard-body and steel-blue lucid eyes. All these women so remote one to another yet all facets of the same beauteous gem.
Some murmurs echoed through the high vaulted structure, while the reflecting light on the lake expanded to a blinding shimmering radiance. She felt the rapture of that one moment of clarity, of encompassing unity.
« Hé petite ! »
D. opened her eyes. The opaque form of a bulky uniformed man emerged behind the halo of his flashlight.
Not yet fully emerged from the depths of her dream, D. realized that she had fallen asleep past the closing time of the museum. Night had already fallen some hours ago, and the snow had now stopped falling as far as she could see through the high windows dimly lit by the orange lamp-posts of the street.
« - Qu’est-ce que tu fais là toute seule ? Tu t’es perdue ?»
« - Excusez-moi Monsieur, j’étais un peu fatiguée et j’ai voulu me reposer… »
« - Tu sais comment rentrer chez toi ? Tu veux que j’appelle quelqu’un ? »
« - Non, j’habite à côté du musée, merci Monsieur. »
D. swiftly rose from the wooden bench and walked past the man, slightly embarrassed not much for having been caught asleep alone but more for having lied to the nice-looking man. She was not living near the museum, to the contrary. The circus had settled on the outer periphery of the town, bordering a wasteland of utter desolation, which meant there were some hours before she could be home, even for a quick one like her. But that was less trouble than explaining the ins and outs as she had learnt long ago.
In truth, there was nothing more to say than she had felt attracted to the broad clear hall of the museum and its strings of shiny alabaster statues for as long as she could recall the circus passing in this town. And that, benefiting from free entrance fee her young age allowed for, she had spent countless afternoons in awe of the sculptures caught in the thickness of time, frozen for all eternity.
Before stepping in the fresh snow that felt like puffy cushions, she noticed a twitch on top of her spine, that odd feeling of being observed. She had thought that, reassured by her determined demeanour, the overweight attendant had already returned to his meticulous watch, but perhaps he had changed his mind. She felt compelled to look back, just to catch a flickering reflection in the eye of the very statue behind which she had fallen asleep. The powerful and supportive presence of the alma mater Cybèle in her lion’s carriage.
She shrugged, clenching her fists in her anorak’s pockets : perhaps she had not awoken from her dream after all…
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