Waiting for Rebirth

It’s QueerBlogWed! Time to post about something queer…Christopher definitely qualifies as he continues to explore his new existence in ‘Waiting for Rebirth’. He’s just met himself in Damian’s painting, only to be awed by what he sees. Alas, others aren’t nearly as impressed by Damian’s depiction of the boy he drew from the shadows…

Damian’s prediction turned out to be only too true. Duessa detested ‘Waiting for Rebirth’ as soon as she set eyes on it. All eight of them narrowed in disgust.

“It has no definition, no shapes!” She glared at the finished portrait, wagging four of her index fingers accusingly at the exquisite panaroma. “You can’t even see Christopher’s face in this mess of color!”

“I have to agree,” Gabrielle said, after studying the play of colors with a frown. “There’s nothing resembling a person in this, let alone Christopher.”

“That’s because it’s not supposed to be the shape I wearing,” I explained, or tried to. “It’s the sky I’m seeing, how it’s becoming a part of me, as I look at it.”

All I got were blank, uncomprehending looks at this statement.

“I really don’t understand how you can see that in what’s on the canvas,” Juno said, examining the painting with a shake of her head. “It’s not exactly unattractive, but it makes no sense.”

No one felt the same way about Damian’s painting as I did. Not even Damian himself seemed to care as much.

“It’s not like I expect anyone to understand it,” he’d explain, as he leaned against the Navel’s counter. The painting hung in a clear space, right next to the mirror. “What I’m hoping for is some kind of clarity for myself.”

“You mean, you expect a Door to open in the painting?” Of this I was skeptical. “You need a lot of magic to open a Door.”

“Which is why I chose a magical spot in which to create a Door,” Damian explained. “This painting should bring some of its magic into this place.”

I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. If the Navel was Gabrielle’s Place of Power, she could very well object to this.

At first, she didn’t. Gabrielle stiffened at the sight of ‘Waiting for Rebirth’ on her wall, but she said nothing. For all her scary power, Gabrielle avoided conflict. This was why she tried hard to get along with everyone, even difficult women like Duessa and Juno.

 

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Waiting for Rebirth

It’s Me, Me Monday! A day to strut, celebrate, and enjoy your Me-ness! Not to mention promote. 🙂 My own contribution to this Cauldron is another step in Christopher’s journey from ‘Waiting for Rebirth’, prelude to ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’. Damian’s painting is about to be revealed…

I swallowed and walked towards the canvas, feeling my breath catch in my throat. My feet sank into the grass with a surprisingly reluctance.

Damian didn’t move. He stood as still as a statue, stretching his hand out towards me. Would I come to him? Or would I walk away?

I willed my legs to move, forcing myself to approach his hand. Forcing myself to come closer and see what my creator truly saw in me. Once more, I coaxed my arm into raising itself up, so my fingers could touch my artist’s. His were stained with paint, but I grasped them without hesitation.

We turned together, like partners in a dance to see the boy he’d created on canvas.

He looked nothing like the skinny creature reflected in the mirror. It was as he’d become one with the beautiful sky. My shape had blurred, to include all those wondrous colors overhead, along with a few I hadn’t seen. Never had I beheld anything so magnificent.

“He’s waiting for rebirth.” Damian lowered his eyelashes to shield whatever glimmered behind them. “What do you think?”

“I like your vision much better than my own,” I told him shyly. “It’s a marvelous painting.”

“Well, don’t expect anyone else to agree,” Damian said with a slight wince. “It’s not exactly the sort of thing anyone can understand or enjoy.”

Waiting for Rebirth

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets! Every Saturday, six sentences of GLBTQ+ fiction is posted and shared. It can be your own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be GLBTQ+.

To read a wide variety of samples from many a GLBTQ+ story, go here https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/

For my own, I sharing the next step of Christopher’s next step in ‘Waiting for Rebirth’, my prelude to my ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’ series. Damian has just finished the painting…

One afternoon, the paintbrush stopped dancing. Its silence tingled in my ears, interrupting my contemplation of the sky.

“It’s finally done.”

I blinked, looked down and across the garden in a direction I’d always avoided.

Eyes filled with with a pink dawn and a purple twilight locked onto my own, gleaming with a shy hope. Damian smiled at me and beckoned, just like he had when I first laid eyes on him.

“Come and meet yourself,” he said, pushing back the stool I’d never noticed before.

Waiting for Rebirth

It’s #QueerBlogWed! Time for Christopher to take the next step of his journey in his new existence. He’s doing just that in the next part of ‘Waiting for Rebirth’, prelude to my ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’ series.

“Welcome to the Navel, center of everything bizarre!” It was the greeting Gabrielle often greeted customers with. Her phrase was more than a catchy play on words. I was certain of it. Perhaps I’d learn more if I spent more time within the shop’s walls. I was certainly willing to. Perhaps I could take some of the burden from Damian, who couldn’t wait to leave the shop everything afternoon.

“All in good time,” Damian said, when I suggested this to him on one of our jaunts out to the garden. “You’re preparing to do exactly that, but there’s no need to rush it.”

No need at all. It was only too easy to lose track of time, especially when I was alone with Damian. It was only too easy to stand still, looking at the sky, allowing my thoughts to wander with delicious freedom. To listen to the sound of Damian’s brush, dancing step by step across the canvas.

It would be only too easy to let his nearness possess me. It already made my flesh tingle and my ears prickle. Pixies seemed to dance upon my arms, making the tiny golden hairs upon them stand up and sing. Only pixies appeared. It was only Damian, silent, filling the air with his presence, stroking my awareness of him. The only way to stay still was to look up at the sky. It calmed me, centered me.

Eventually, Damian would call me back, let me know he was finished for the day. I’d blink, drawn out of my trance, which the spell of his brush had cast upon me. I’d feel his hand on my shoulder and tremble. His slightest touch was almost too much to bear.

The only thing worse was looking at the painting. Nothing made me feel more flushed than seeing the boy emerging from Damian’s hand and my moments of quiet.

Waiting for Rebirth

Welcome to Me Me Monday! It’s a day to strut, promote, and celebrate my Me-ness! Or this situation, Christopher in all of his Christopher-ness. Here he is, in the next part of ‘Waiting for Rebirth’, prelude to my ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’ series’. He picks up right where he left off on Saturday…

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind while he worked that I belonged to him. Yet a part of my mind floated free and untethered in the sky. There was such liberty in a real world, a luxurious safety in allowing one’s thoughts to roam. They could always come back to me without hurting anyone, if I kept them to myself. I could belong to Damian, remaining still and quiet for his art, while my own imagination escaped.

It was glorious, too glorious to be true. Surely there was a price for all this. My tasks in the Navel would grow more tedious and dreary. Both Gabrielle and Damian did their very best to protect me from this. My new mother only required me for a few hours within the Navel. I wondered if I was actually doing anything to help her. My transactions were always instinctive, like they’d been with Hebe and Juno. I’d let myself be drawn to a certain part of the shop, to a particular item. I handed crystals, statues, and a variety of items I hadn’t even noticed, until I found myself drawn towards them. I often wondered if they didn’t mysteriously appear in the Navel.

I was in a real world, a solid world. The Navel, however, didn’t always follow the rules associated with that world.

Waiting for Rebirth

Time again for Rainbow Snippets, when six sentences of GLBTQ+ fiction are posted and shared. They can be your own. They can be someone else’s. They just need to be GLBTQ+.

To read a wide variety of samples from GLBTQ+ stories, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/

For my own snippet, Christopher continues his journey in ‘Waiting for Rebirth’, returning to Damian’s side once more…

If I shared my mornings with the presence, my afternoons were Damian’s.

I shivered under the warm sun, caught between the spell of the changing sky and the intensity of my artist’s concentration. Yes, my artist. By fixing his attention upon me, allowing it to be shaped by his hand, Damian Ashelocke had become mine. I’d claimed his fingers, just as he’d claimed my own.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind while he worked that I belonged to him. Yet a part of my mind floated free and untethered in the sky.

 

Waiting for Rebirth

It’s QueerBlogWed! Time for Christopher to continue exploring his new existence in ‘Waiting for Rebirth’. This ongoing story is a prelude to my ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’ series. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, a little more of Christopher’s story is posted. He’ll pick up, right where he left off on Monday after glancing up at the hill…only to sense an unseen presence.

I stopped in the garden to breathe in the ghosts of my own entrance into this time and place. The air was fragrant with the sweet scent of roses. I could wander among them, if I kept my distance. The flowers trembled on the vines, but they didn’t wither. I regarded with especial tenderness the purple red blooms. The ones the color of Damian’s eyes.

“I’ll give you the chance to bloom,” I murmured. “I won’t ever let you wither.”

How many mornings passed with myself wandering in that garden? I found myself looking for certain paths. A presence lingered here, watchful, wary, yet innocent in its wide eyed curiousity. Sometimes I felt like I was standing in a pair of battered boots, feelings the presence congeal around my current form. I welcomed it, but it always fled, scampering back to whatever time and place it belonged.

Waiting for Rebirth

It’s Me Me Monday! A day to promote, share, and strut one’s me-ness! Once more, I’m doing so through Christopher. He’s experiencing life in a tangible, ‘real’ world after his limbo in the Shadow Forest in a strange little town called Omphalos. He’s getting to know the woman who’s become his mother and the man who’s shaped his existence.

‘Waiting for Rebirth’ is the prelude to ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’, a series about gender fluid alternative realities and an anti-reality which can be anything you wish. Tarot imagery dominates the landscape.

Christopher picks up right where he left off last Saturday…

I’d wondered at my exclusion during this little preparation ritual. Perhaps Gabrielle and Damian wanted some time to themselves. The thought caused a wistful little ache in my chest. I came to relish my morning walks in the fresh air. The breeze was cool and crisp, never nipping at my flesh and thoughts. If anything, it coaxed them out of my imagination. I luxuriated in the simple act of letting my mind wander. This was something I’d never dared to do in the Shadow Forest. I never knew what might manifest from my free ranging thoughts.

This was the relaxed state of a real world. I had to do something in order to hurt someone or change anything. No matter what I might feel about Damian or Gabrielle, they’d be untouched by it. Not unless I actually did something to them. Such blessed freedom.

Only there was a shadow lying over Omphalos, one I didn’t wish to acknowledge. I wandered the street, looking at shops and cottage, trying to ignore its chill.

Impossible. It loomed over everything, crept over every building, every stone. It tugged at me, willing me to acknowledge.

“All right,” I said, hugging myself through my soft, velvet shirt. I looked up at the hill, in the direction of the cold.

A circle of stones crowned the green mound, keeping solemn watch on the town below. I’d half expected to see a tower perched up there.

“Of course there isn’t,” I said out loud. “I’m down here in the flesh.” I shivered, tightening my arms around myself. No, I didn’t want to go up there. Not ever.

Waiting for Rebirth

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets! Every Saturday, six sentences of GLBTQ+ fiction is posted and shared. It can be your own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be GLBTQ+

To read a wide variety of samples of GLBTQ+, go here https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/

Christopher continues to explore his new existence in the next part of ‘Waiting for Rebirth’, prelude to my ‘Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest’ books.

I lost track of how many days passed. Every morning, I took a little walk through Omphalos by myself.

“Christopher, why don’t you go out and catch a sniff of fresh air?” Gabrielle would tell me, right after breakfast. I never ate more than a little bit of food. My new mother’s bright smile revived me more than the small bowl of fruit I attempted to eat. “Damian and I will clear up, while we get the Navel ready for visitors.”

Waiting for Rebirth

Welcome to #QueerBlogWed! Christopher recalls his days with Damian in the next segment of ‘Waiting for Rebirth’.

Every afternoon, he led out of the dark confines of the shop, leading down the little cobblestoned path to the garden. Nobody else disturbed Damian and I, once we passed its gate. The flowers belonged to the two of us alone. The gazebo was Damian’s art studio, his lair. His paints, brushes, easel, and canvas were always there, waiting for us.