Friday 31 August 2012

A Rooftop Moratorium




She and Piper hide on the crown of a minaret, feet dangling over the sides, tunics and hair rumpled by increasingly strong winds. Piper tells her stories of the illustrations carved in the archways of the palace’s doors. They are such intricate stories, so well told, that she feels as though she and Piper and in the garden with the patch of pumpkins, they are wandering down a path of lady’s slippers and daisies and calla lilies that smell sweet and charming.
The wind whips her hair, snarls it like a basketful of snakes. “Have you been practicing?”
In answer Piper plucks a leaf from the bushes behind them, turning to her companion and holding it aloft, turning it this way and that with showmanship, as though presenting the illusion to an audience. She narrows her eyes at the leaf, which does not move for a long time. Both girls are completely still, only their clothes and hair writhing in the increasing gusts of wind. Slowly the leaf twists, spiraling deliberately until it has been twisted into a long line of dark pointed ridges and pale green veins. Piper releases a breath and the leaf unravels, returning to its original state though slightly more limp and sags forward.
“Very good,” she remarks.
Piper releases the leaf, which is snatched by a breeze and tumbles away. “Thank you. I should practice more. I haven’t had the time. It isn’t as good as it should be.”
“It was well done. Practice will only help you so much. After that there is nothing to be done or added to.”
Piper looks up at her. “You spend hours practicing, it looks so manageable when you do it. Yet you still practice. There must always be more to do. Especially with your natural talent.”
She clasps her hands in her lap. “There is always more to learn. It is not necessarily a good thing, father always strives for perfection and I am a disappointment if I am anything but.”
Piper begins to speak, to refute her friend’s statement or to reassure her, they will never know. The wind howls and throws them both off balance, sending to the side while clinging to the lattice on the underside of the cupola beneath them, narrowly avoiding tipping off the minaret entirely.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

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