My Short Story, "In the Vineyard."

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 9/4/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💜

 

I have decided to share my whimsical short story, "In the Vineyard," with you. Here it is below (As usual, God bless, and I'll be in touch soon):

 

In the Vineyard

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 9/4/2023

 

 

Wind Chalmer pulled out a word from deep inside her soul. It was the right word, of that she had no doubt, because she was, after all, the greatest writer in the county of her narcissistic imagination.

 

Sol Sertaine, the young man who was her lover, wrapped his fingers around her silver hair. He pulled her head back in a way that she found exciting because he always kissed her afterward. “Are you sure that’s the exact word—the one that you meant to use, the most apt descriptor?” He kissed her hard on the lips—smack! — and then pushed her back dramatically, as though she were a doll for his pleasure.

 

“I’m sure,” her inner tigress growled, amused by the seriousness in his dark eyes. Everyone called her the tigress because no matter how sad, lonely, or empty she felt, she had the instincts of a tiger or even a leopard with watchful yellow eyes in a darkly masked face. She seemed governed by spirit from another age or time, even from a far-away, exotic, more dangerous land. She was the greatest writer on earth, she fantasized privately, while knowing that such a thing would be impossible for anyone. How would you even be able to measure it, for example? But still, her mind pulled her to this very thought like the sea breeze in its seduction. The wind was blowing this way in her wild vision. Her words meant something in dozens of imaginary languages in her own mind. “I will start a war if I say too much of what I am thinking,” she said, and looked away into a bloody sun that only she could see.

 

“It’s not pleasant, but I believe the others when they say you are the best writer in the land of your own mind,” Sol said, and stroked her index finger lightly with his own, wishing that he were the best writer. But even he could sense and might, if pressed, acknowledge that such fame was fickle and pickled from one day to another. His touch in just such a way made Wind desire Sol, even though now he was ambivalent for no reason that she could intuit.

 

“I am very limited in how I can love you,” she wrote at length when later he shipped out to sea. “Now that you have gone, it seems that the whole world wants something from me that I no longer possess.”

 

He wrote back romantically, “You will always possess the written word because you are the writer on the wind.”

 

“Indeed, I am the wind,” she replied. “But remember when we wrote together, and our prose was as succulent as grapes?”

 

“I want you to write your stories for today’s world,” Sol wrote. “Don’t turn your head back, looking at yesterday’s anguish.”

 

His words had alarmed Wind for it seemed that he had lost interest. He was now in possession of open water. Who could compete with that? She imagined him on the deck of some great vessel, staring into a platinum sky, while she toed his name in the rich soil of their vineyard. “It becomes a matter of some urgency then,” she rushed to write back. She was worried. It grew more difficult and at once more significant that she had less and less to say in the new days. “I am writing what I hope will be a great story, but it’s as hard and cutting as a cruel remark,” she told Sol one day when he visited—back at last from his voyage in service of the government.

 

Sol hastened to make the point: “You owe the world your finery, nothing less.”

 

“Does the world want the musings of a dying old woman?”

 

“There is always time for dying. Indeed, the throes of death make their own clock ware and set by the sun. In a time of living, a great writer must impart wisdom,” Sol stated sagely.

 

“The longer I live, it seems the less I am sure of,” Wind said, the shadow of sadness crossing her face.

 

“Fire and ice now burn for your stage,” Sol said. “Just tell a clear, good story, and your readers won’t desert you.”

 

“They don’t care what I have to say.” She contemplated her fingernails, as women do.

 

“Are you kidding? They hunger to learn what you can teach. They watch your paint strokes in search of one dot of color in the meaning.”

 

“You are so kind to me, Sol. But really, where am I to find meaning, now that I am old and bitter?”

 

“Is this your truth?” he asked, dark disappointment in his voice.

 

“You are my lover-- you tell me.”

 

“I don’t see you as bitter,” he said. “But you are a wind that watches with leopard eyes and bangs loudly at times.”

 

“I have nothing to say any longer,” she managed, choking back resignation. “My pen stops on the page.”

 

“Never!” he exclaimed. So long as we care, we will write together and make our own stories with our very lives, with shouting and with the soft whispers of love.”

 

Tears lit her eyes. “Dance with me.”  She started the disc, and the music rang out, hanging in the air like a carousel of sound. Wind snapped her fingers: Click. Click. Chick. Chick. She swayed her thin hips and unbuttoned her blouse against the hot night. Her full breasts plunged forward. Sol slid his hand between them and around one breast. He pinched her nipple.

 

“Now write something sexy for me,” he cajoled.

 

She held his body and followed it down until she lay at his feet, spent from her own flame. “I write with my body,” she said, “brush strokes painting waves of wild. I remember every sound, shouting fields, undulating wheat of words. But I can’t find the common thread of truth.” She wrapped herself around him and stroked his legs.

 

“Don’t whine! Get your pen and write.”

 

“I use a computer,” she said.

 

“So use one, damn it!”  He wrapped his fingers within hers and studied her slender hands. “Let me tell you something,” he said, gazing down on her, “Writers write.”

 

He was making her so angry. Of course, she knew that. Any writer knows that. She of all knew it. Then he reached his hand down for her, and the clear simple beauty of his youth touched her. She saw in his face the effort to understand, and it meant something to her, though by now, with her being several decades older than he was, she was callous. Every wound had left another scar in her heart until she felt that all she had to say was, “Protect your heart.”

 

They began to drink a dark wine—a pinot that he had suddenly poured for them into galloping glasses made from the eyes of dead zebras. “Write with clarity not lacking in these fast animals that they won’t have run themselves into the ground for naught,” he said.

 

“But where is the story?”

 

“Indeed. For you to tell us, dearest.” He stared into the luminosity of his drink, looking as innocent as a child.

 

“Oh, you are no help!” She felt so frustrated. “Make love to me,” she said suddenly as a light rain began to fall.

 

He kissed her as though they were both young and then held the bottle high. “More?”

 

“You are my more.”  She kissed him richly on the lips. He smelled of wine and fragrant night.

 

They stumbled around in the garden that was nearby and then out into the vineyard that belonged to both of them. Giggling like a girl, Wind sang out, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”

 

He held her arms and then the reed of her waist so she wouldn’t lose her balance, as she appeared to do. He blurted, “We construct many words that together mean so little, but then we toss jewels on black velvet, failing to say enough.”  He seemed so disappointed by this conclusion.

 

“But this is it, I think,” she insisted.

 

“What?”

 

“We’re swimming in the sky because we have something to say. Our canvas stretches around the world. We write with every stroke— our lives write the words. Our actions create the plot, the themes.”

 

“Oh, open your heart and give me more!” he exclaimed, ever her muse. He spun her in circles in the soft earth, and they dug in their bare toes until their feet were as dirty as a grape crusher’s.

 

“I’ll give you something,” she said, stung by love equal to all the words. Soundlessly, she placed her hand against his chest, over his heart.

 

The End