Visions

One, two, three… jump! Hand in hand we jumped from the cliff to the stirring waters below. Me and Chloe met the summer of 86, 1886. It was remarkably wonderful to hear her laugh as she delighted in all things unacceptable. Father had once scorned me for keeping such company but he himself could not shield the blood bursting in his cheeks at the site of her. I loved her, in a way one lady should not love another… but the knowledge of this only thrilled her more. I knew I was simply a piece on her chess board but like all the other pieces I was happy simply to be there.

We happened upon the house running from Christopher Lark and Henry Trotter. Mr. Lark (a very strapping and brooding lad) claimed to love Chloe the way a young man should love a young lady and I did my best not to hate him because of it. It wasn't easy. It never was and Chloe was “loved” by many. Mr. Trotter on the other hand was a very meek and lanky fellow. If I could assign a profession from a glance I'd say he was a writer. He had not the willful ignorance nor the physique for much else. Mr. Trotter had a fondness for myself despite my uncanny ability to stare off into the clouds every escaping moment allotted. I could never place myself in these moments of the “here and now.” But here and now I found myself in this dilapidated house in front of a walkway enclosed by a grand set of stairs intertwining and finally ending at a corridor with one single plate glass window. The front door was heavy and required the strength of both me and Chloe to close. “How could a person live behind such a door?” The effort exerted to merely leave the house would keep me in more times than not.

Spinning towards the stairs Chloe gathered her skirts ascending them at a pace I found to be unbelievable. Slight in stature and frame, one would assign her the frailness of a porcelain doll. If you made the mistake of handling her in that manner however you would invoke the entirety of her wrath. I was never short of amazement where she was concerned. I took the second set of stairs fully intending to meet at their end. When I arrived at the top however, she was nowhere to be found. “Chloe, my dear where have you gone?” but there was no response. The corridor seemed larger and more far reaching than it had seemed from below and the small stained glass window, more the size of a door. I called for Chloe again and as I turned I caught a glimpse of something in the window. There she stood, and there I stood, or what appeared to be me but couldn't be because... me, I was standing here in this empty corridor. Chloe walked to the doppelganger and kissed her. My spirit shrank, I yearned for the moment her lips met mine. Saddened and confused I had begun to walk away but the girl with my face stared at me intently. I swayed to gauge whether or not it was me she saw but her gaze never broke. Placing my hand on the glass, something pulled me and just like that, Chloe was in my arms. She leaned in to kiss me and I took in the warmness of her mouth with mine. “Apples” her brow furrowed slightly, “apples?”, “That's what you taste like, apples” she tilted her head back and laughed the way she did when things “tickled” her.

Grateful for the effect this place had on her, I was tempted to leave the question of what exactly happened or where exactly we were up in the air but I could not. “I don't mean to dampen the moment with complexities, but do you know of how it is we came to be here?” Chloe looked confused. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked. “How did we come to be here?”, “When you reached the top of the stairs what happened?” I asked. I could see the confusion hadn’t eased with this specification. In fact she pulled away from me. In an almost ear popping pitch Chloe began to scream……..