The Tale of the Last Night

Baba Gene began:

The hazy spray of distant stars winked at the Earth below and then hid themselves behind a niche of blackness. They were perhaps afraid that an eye might behold their dazzle for too long and become lost in their light. Nameless and unknown, they wandered the anonymous darkness alone, bringing light to dark places.

Aware of this, the little Chinese princess spared their sensitivity by gazing with a loose focus. Her eyes were like a deep pool that swallowed all she saw. They filled to their capacity, watching with perfect detachment the final hours of the dream.

Her muslin sleeve fell back with silent grace as she moved to wipe the first trickling tear but then she changed her mind and withdrew her slender forearm so that both her tiny hands rested on the porcelain rail before her. Her tear fled down her burning cheek, emitting scented steam en route. It continued its escape down her soft throat, led by sinew to the net of her yellow evening dress, glowing softly in the darkness.

Inspired by the example of the first, more tears followed in its wake. Several drops departed from the set course entirely, diving to the floor, where they froze into ice, hard and cold as death.

She stood in the middle of the balcony, serene and poised, simple cloth slippers on her feet. Although her face was that of a child, she had an ageless quality about her. Her composure was not perfect however and, on close inspection, a slight tremor could be seen around her cheeks.

The roof arched above in a soft arc, silver icicles piercing down in perfect symmetry either side of her. The points remained at hand-stretch above her silken black hair tied in pig tails. Further to the sides two porcelain pillars ran up to the ceiling and each was carved with images of long-forgotten creatures; they were engaged in the passions and dramas of the days when they were the prime movers of the world, commanding the play of the worlds with the power of their dreams and desires. They directed by the authority of their existence, fatefully proud.

Goose pimples appeared on the hands of the Oriental, as they gripped the rail a little fearfully in spite of herself. Her fingers felt frail and futile and she struggled to remember the sunshine that had once brought life and love and warmth to all things. She thought of the long fuzzy grass nourished by honeyed days of summer and how she had loved to feed her hands through it when it was coated with the cool morning dew.

How could the days have passed when she had complete leave to wander the courts and paths below? The intricate arrangement of hedges and flower-beds used to complement her each turn in mood as she strolled through them. In each aspect of Nature she'd found a mirror of the principles of Creation, losing herself in contemplation of its undulating fabric.

Standing on this front balcony, she was spared the visual torture of the decay of the other gardens which would by be beyond recognition. The splendid statues spouting fountains of rainbow water had fallen and cracked. The majestic walkways between the tree tops stood no longer. All was cracked and fallen and rotten. An entropy of grey dust on a lifeless ground.

Gone, too, were the birds that had used to flutter from branch to branch, hurrying with nervous urgency. They used to fly down onto her out-stretched palms to voice their news in excited song. They would come near to falling off her out-stretched hands with the sheer fervour of it all. The princess would nod in polite appreciation though she knew all their hearts had to say, before a cavern of her mind had ever given them birth.

No life could be seen in the gardens, now, though they extended to the great lakes a mile in front. Lapping reservoirs that rolled away to the silver-lit horizon. Dead were the magnificent horseflies who blazoned the sky with stunning aerobatics, and gone also were the amorous crickets in the long reed who had flooded every evening with a orchestra of love-songs. But most of all, she missed the hum of industry of the tireless red and yellow bees. The flower-beds they’d tended with such endeavour now lay in degradation and decay.

And yet the princess knew that not all was done. It remained for her to stand and, with the patience of a long-suffering director, witness the last scenes of her own play. Chilly gusts swept the grounds. The winds whipped the trees in sharp taunts that caused the bark to crack and peel, brazen fragments falling to the ground with a soft platter.

On the finely-tapestried wall behind the princess, the first traces of a shadow began to grow of her stoic five feet high figure. The eye of the moon hooked over the horizon’s lip and directly met the princess’ gaze. She gave a small, involuntary gasp though she knew perfectly well that it was due. By her telltale fright, she guessed that some small part of her held out against reason, hoping beyond hope that this was not the end. This part now faded and died as the moon heaved itself into the heavens, assuming a low perch in the sky, ominous and full.

Its light illuminated her face with the pale memory of warmth. The moon hung at a modest height as a reflection of her heart - melancholy yet unrepenting, yearning to shatter into a thousand forgetting fragments but obliged to see the last hours through. Silver light cast a bridge of dancing shards across the lakes, shimmering in the darkness. A long, narrow channel of water stretched from beneath the balcony to the dead turf of the lake shores. Upon it the lunar path swayed and glistened to a thousand different shapes and figures. Visions and dreams played on the pages of the ripples and tugged at the princess' emotions with each new scene and image. Yet she remained outwardly serene and her tears now froze into gleaming crystal strips down her cheeks and throat.

A spasm of her belly alerted her to a coming presence, moments before she heard the soft slow beat of large, tired wings. Staring directly at the medallion moon, now well above the edge of the world, she could not help but give a half-smile of uncertain content as a long, thin creature crossed the silver orb, grazing the crystal sky with its elegant coasting flight.The dragon, for such as it was, looped and flew across the source of light once again, drawing nearer with the turn. His flight pattern spiralled ever closer to the princess and the balcony on which she stood in her dress of simple yellow cloth.

After some unknown pass of time, she could make out the flap of his jagged forked tail, the shine upon the chinks of armour-scale that massed his chest. He turned once again to swoop to just a hundred yards distance and his steaming nostrils came into focus, the chilled atmosphere stealing all leakage of heat. Save for the pounding thud of his enormous wings, he flew in silence.

The dragon flew straight toward the railed balcony, and drew himself up in the air a mere stones throw away. His neck thrust up high and he displayed the glory of his daunting form, his wings beating a steady rhythm to maintain his hovering position. His fiery tongue lashed out and shaky growl he called:

‘Hail, Princess. The end is nigh and I come to deal death.’

The beating of the air punctuated his statement but she merely replied:

‘Death is not a card that you hold, O Zorbes, greatest of all my creatures. Rather you number as but one feature of its near-infinite pack. And now, in this final round, all cards must be played.’

Her voice rang like the soft chime of bells in the air, meeting the raucous heat of the dragon’s drawl midway. With eyes gleaming in desperate fury, he bellowed:

‘All things have a cause, Princess, and do I not guess rightly that you are the cause of this awful night? If you are the architect of this dark wasteland then better to destroy you with one breath. I have journeyed the skies of many lands to find you here, and now vengeance will be mine, Zorbes, greatest of all that lives.’

‘Proud and arrogant dragon. Know that we are all endlessly returning to whence we came. One way or another. It makes little difference. But further words are as empty as the events themselves - all that will come to pass, will come to pass."

Hearing this sermon from the balcony and feeling the truth of it pierce him to the heart, the dragon faltered and sank to the ground. His exhausted wings slumped by his side as he struggled to comprehend.

"So," he croaked, feebly, a flightless lizard in defeat, "What was the point of it all?" He looked up with pleading eyes.

"Grace, my dragon, just grace."

Zorbes heard this and nodded to himself. He then drooped his head to the lifeless ground and died.

The princess clutched her hands together with grief at the demise of the greatest of her Creation and, in the moment of his death, felt herself to be the most wretched of all. How could any past virtue account for the misery of this moment? Damn service to Beauty if suffering was to be the terrible end.

In her anguish she failed to notice that of the two of them, only the corpse of the dragon basked in crystalline light, its sourc having risen high above, out of view. But now she remembered the course of the night. She lifted her small head back to gaze through the circular portal in the ceiling, through which the moon now made its first splashing step. Immediately she felt the wave of timelessness wash over her and the surrounding features became blurred and indistinct. The moon slowly filled the void overhead and, as it did so, she shed ever deeper layers of her body, mind and memory. Finally the moon stood exactly above, fitting the circle perfectly. Blinding white light flooded down and the princess dissolved in its flow, revealing her naked essence to be of the same light that freed her.

All memories of the balcony, grounds and sky faded away. In the essential glory of the Creation, all she knew was light. All she knew was. All she knew. All she. All. .

As he was concluding the tale his voice had grown fainter with each word. The advance guard of the day had already put pay to the stars and shamed the moon to a pale disc near the horizon, preparing to make her entrance in a darker sky on the other side.

The hours of dreaming and fantasy were passed and the will to imagine and wonder departed with them. Stripped of the accomplice darkness, no more tales could be exposed themselves to the unforgiving morning lest the holes and loose stitches within them be seen.

The three storytellers rose, the light now pouring through their porous bodies that also could not survive the day. Like three ghosts growing thinner by the second, they joined hands and smiled as they looked towards a morning dolphin whose head was raised above the water to gather news from the land.

The creature blinked at the holographic characters and as it opened its eyes again there was nothing but the remains of a feast in front of an empty hoosha; a nargilah still issuing a little smoke to mellow the sun that now climbed the first mountain peak and put an end to this particular story.