A reworking of the first bit of Dair's Window.
_____________
On the last morning we were together, as snow drifted soft against our bedroom window, I sang Dair awake.
"Dair it's Adam. Dair it's Adam.
Dormez vous? Dormez vous?
If you were awake, now.
We could have some fun, now.
Foolin' 'round. Foolin' 'round."
His dark beautiful eyes squinted a bit tighter and my arms he wrapped closer to him. Sometimes we would kiss and caress and love each other when he woke; other times...well, this time he breathed in deep and content and murmured, “Just snuggle.”
Which I was happy to do. I loved the feel of his body curled next to mine. So strong and nicely formed. Not as hard as me or as carefully crafted but human and real. Someone to hold you and be held. I loved the soft dark hairs on his arms and chest, even the scruff around his chin. To feel it rub against me as we kissed was to know heaven. He was still two years short of becoming thirty but his face had creases brought about by years of smiles and laughter. I often told him they made him better-looking than I, and he would laugh and call me liar and draw me into his embrace, and I would know peace.
But on this occasion all I said was, “That will take all morning and I must be to the slopes by nine, or your mother will fire me.”
“She won’t. She loves you more than me.”
“I am not sure how to read that comment,” I said, walking my fingers down his hip.
He chuckled, low and soft. “Any way you want.”
I kissed his dark, lovely eyes and he finally opened them.
“Café ou thé?” I asked.
“Coffee -- s'il vous plaît.” Spoken in his hideous accent. But why should he know French? We lived 4600 kilometers...2700 miles from my place of birth, close enough to Seattle to be nice, not so close as to be a problem.
I swatted his ass and rose from the bed, singing like Earth Kitt.
"C'est si bon.
C'est un café au lait.
And I bring it today.
Maybe on a tray, okay?"
I slipped into his moccasins and pulled on a thick robe to scurry into the kitchen, still humming. I know he watched me go; I heard him chuckle and stretch. He would stay warm under the covers. Drifting. Dreaming. Thinking. I did not mind. He had been up late fighting with the design for a window commissioned by his grandfather for his church. Reverend Samuels. Who was always kind to me, and polite, but never warm...like Dair or his mother.
When I said he was strong, it is because he worked in a medium that required strength -- stained glass...and he was brilliant with it. Never quick. Never easy. He would often tell me he cannot set the artwork into its frame...no...into her frame until she was ready to reveal herself to him. After a few months together, I began to see how his eyes would look a thousand yards away as he slipped deep into thought. That was when his next project would begin to join with him. His next work of art. I quickly grew to know when that expression filled his face, he soon would need me more than anyone. For he would wander into his studio. Sort through the panes of glass leaning against a long wall. Brilliant colors, all of them. Some flat. Some rough. Some thick. Some as thin as paper. Each with its own amazing beauty, its own spark of life to add to his vision. After touching and caressing them for hours, one would be chosen to slide away from the others and let fall to the concrete floor and shatter. Then he would pick at the pieces, choosing shards from the ruins. That is when I would come up and slip gloves onto his hands, to keep him from adding more scars to his fingers. He would find just the right slivers of deep blue or crimson red or yellow bright enough to put the sun to shame, and his work would begin.
So would mine. I made my living teaching ski lessons at his mother’s resort, in the winter, and as handyman and carpenter and whatever was needed when the season was over. This let me arrange my schedule to support him as he created. He would forget to eat or drink, so I would bring him food and water and wine to see he did. He would push himself to exhaustion were I not around to gently guide him upstairs to a hot shower and long, slow massage, which would lull him into sleep so he could begin the next day refreshed.
At first he would resist when I interfered with his work, but soon he came to trust that I was there to support him, not cause him pain or difficulty, and on occasion he would even lean into me and let me hold him and see, if only for an instant, the vision he was building. Oh dear God, how he used those slivers of translucent and transparent colors to build a new and intoxicating world. No paint was allowed to touch them, only light to reveal their beauty. He never asked what I thought of what I saw; he seemed to sense my admiration, for then he would turn to let me embrace and cuddle him as you would a sleepy child. And I would weep from joy.
My reward for this? The pleasure of seeing him alive and filled with meaning was enough for me, but he would always, as a way of thanking me, let me watch him put the last little piece of glass in place, always black, always with my name cut into it, and he would say, “This is my signature...and yours. Without you, this would not be.” And I would wrap my arms around him from behind and watch as he set it in and fitted the lead and heated it and polished it and made it just right.
Oh, dear God how I loved him.
I did not exist until he and I joined together. He was my home. My world. My life. As was his mother. Marion. He was right about her; she would never have fired me. She and I both loved her son beyond measure. Were I still alive, nothing could have come between us.
So yes...I am dead. You may wonder how it is possible for one like me to speak in the physical world, but it is not so difficult to understand. I have attached myself to a conduit who lets me tell my story through him. It is nothing unusual; many writers speak of their works finding them rather than them finding their works. And so...here is one who has opened himself to me.
My name was Adam Ferrier, once of Terrebonne by Montreal, living in Fairview at the time of my death. I was just past the age of twenty-six when I was caught by an avalanche. I remember not feeling fear as it crashed in upon me, only irritation. I did not know what had happened until I was dead.
So please believe me when I tell you of how lovely his art was. I do not say this because I love him...loved him...for in my new existence there is only truth allowed, nothing else; I say it because of what happened after I was taken from him. Had I known, I would never have let him come near me.
_____________
On the last morning we were together, as snow drifted soft against our bedroom window, I sang Dair awake.
"Dair it's Adam. Dair it's Adam.
Dormez vous? Dormez vous?
If you were awake, now.
We could have some fun, now.
Foolin' 'round. Foolin' 'round."
His dark beautiful eyes squinted a bit tighter and my arms he wrapped closer to him. Sometimes we would kiss and caress and love each other when he woke; other times...well, this time he breathed in deep and content and murmured, “Just snuggle.”
Which I was happy to do. I loved the feel of his body curled next to mine. So strong and nicely formed. Not as hard as me or as carefully crafted but human and real. Someone to hold you and be held. I loved the soft dark hairs on his arms and chest, even the scruff around his chin. To feel it rub against me as we kissed was to know heaven. He was still two years short of becoming thirty but his face had creases brought about by years of smiles and laughter. I often told him they made him better-looking than I, and he would laugh and call me liar and draw me into his embrace, and I would know peace.
But on this occasion all I said was, “That will take all morning and I must be to the slopes by nine, or your mother will fire me.”
“She won’t. She loves you more than me.”
“I am not sure how to read that comment,” I said, walking my fingers down his hip.
He chuckled, low and soft. “Any way you want.”
I kissed his dark, lovely eyes and he finally opened them.
“Café ou thé?” I asked.
“Coffee -- s'il vous plaît.” Spoken in his hideous accent. But why should he know French? We lived 4600 kilometers...2700 miles from my place of birth, close enough to Seattle to be nice, not so close as to be a problem.
I swatted his ass and rose from the bed, singing like Earth Kitt.
"C'est si bon.
C'est un café au lait.
And I bring it today.
Maybe on a tray, okay?"
I slipped into his moccasins and pulled on a thick robe to scurry into the kitchen, still humming. I know he watched me go; I heard him chuckle and stretch. He would stay warm under the covers. Drifting. Dreaming. Thinking. I did not mind. He had been up late fighting with the design for a window commissioned by his grandfather for his church. Reverend Samuels. Who was always kind to me, and polite, but never warm...like Dair or his mother.
When I said he was strong, it is because he worked in a medium that required strength -- stained glass...and he was brilliant with it. Never quick. Never easy. He would often tell me he cannot set the artwork into its frame...no...into her frame until she was ready to reveal herself to him. After a few months together, I began to see how his eyes would look a thousand yards away as he slipped deep into thought. That was when his next project would begin to join with him. His next work of art. I quickly grew to know when that expression filled his face, he soon would need me more than anyone. For he would wander into his studio. Sort through the panes of glass leaning against a long wall. Brilliant colors, all of them. Some flat. Some rough. Some thick. Some as thin as paper. Each with its own amazing beauty, its own spark of life to add to his vision. After touching and caressing them for hours, one would be chosen to slide away from the others and let fall to the concrete floor and shatter. Then he would pick at the pieces, choosing shards from the ruins. That is when I would come up and slip gloves onto his hands, to keep him from adding more scars to his fingers. He would find just the right slivers of deep blue or crimson red or yellow bright enough to put the sun to shame, and his work would begin.
So would mine. I made my living teaching ski lessons at his mother’s resort, in the winter, and as handyman and carpenter and whatever was needed when the season was over. This let me arrange my schedule to support him as he created. He would forget to eat or drink, so I would bring him food and water and wine to see he did. He would push himself to exhaustion were I not around to gently guide him upstairs to a hot shower and long, slow massage, which would lull him into sleep so he could begin the next day refreshed.
At first he would resist when I interfered with his work, but soon he came to trust that I was there to support him, not cause him pain or difficulty, and on occasion he would even lean into me and let me hold him and see, if only for an instant, the vision he was building. Oh dear God, how he used those slivers of translucent and transparent colors to build a new and intoxicating world. No paint was allowed to touch them, only light to reveal their beauty. He never asked what I thought of what I saw; he seemed to sense my admiration, for then he would turn to let me embrace and cuddle him as you would a sleepy child. And I would weep from joy.
My reward for this? The pleasure of seeing him alive and filled with meaning was enough for me, but he would always, as a way of thanking me, let me watch him put the last little piece of glass in place, always black, always with my name cut into it, and he would say, “This is my signature...and yours. Without you, this would not be.” And I would wrap my arms around him from behind and watch as he set it in and fitted the lead and heated it and polished it and made it just right.
Oh, dear God how I loved him.
I did not exist until he and I joined together. He was my home. My world. My life. As was his mother. Marion. He was right about her; she would never have fired me. She and I both loved her son beyond measure. Were I still alive, nothing could have come between us.
So yes...I am dead. You may wonder how it is possible for one like me to speak in the physical world, but it is not so difficult to understand. I have attached myself to a conduit who lets me tell my story through him. It is nothing unusual; many writers speak of their works finding them rather than them finding their works. And so...here is one who has opened himself to me.
My name was Adam Ferrier, once of Terrebonne by Montreal, living in Fairview at the time of my death. I was just past the age of twenty-six when I was caught by an avalanche. I remember not feeling fear as it crashed in upon me, only irritation. I did not know what had happened until I was dead.
So please believe me when I tell you of how lovely his art was. I do not say this because I love him...loved him...for in my new existence there is only truth allowed, nothing else; I say it because of what happened after I was taken from him. Had I known, I would never have let him come near me.
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