In amber of evening light, James witnessed Annie in creation. Silent in chair, he observed as Annie composed that which appeared to her in silence and thought-openness to inspirations.
Her hand moved intermittent, and he watched through thought-pauses and after-bursts of pen over open page; observing details and the way she looked and gazed through further-forming thoughts. He wondered if she saw it all, story and vision complete in full design and end, or if it unfolded for her—new and strange to her—as it after would to one who read.
Framing her at seat, candles burned, adding further soft light to amber evening aura when in moment heart and mind are touched and one strains to catch the tail of imaginings and dreams that show at evanescent change from day to night, sun to stars, transition from near to distant dreams, immanent life to imaginings beyond.
James held quiet watching Annie as she wrote. It was not his world. It was not his dream.
Each were hers. It was Annie writing visions—story–medium to both dream and world’s becoming; and James observed, writing in mind a dream upon her own: deepening of her hair’s hue in amber ray’s strike, soft freckle bridge over nose and over face—a scatter of dream pattern like stars in nights and skies far from muting of man’s professed progress and modernity; a progression that diminishes wonder and awe and mysticism for all that is Universe, God, and Infinite. But away from the progress, allowing spirit see and sense still as man’s essence—eternal, natural, and old—one felt and sensed it all again; and man as creator no longer did so for diminishing, but for the glory of it all.
As she composed, he saw that in her face—in the amber sun through partial curtain draw, in the candle dance discerned in aura of not yet shadows, in the sound of her pen over page where out of nothing dream and imagined world and life became.
Her focus rose from page, eyes smiling warm to him and then on sun and, after, scanned over the room. She held on a quote that shone on wall—one of beauty, love, and enamor—and he wondered, from its sign, if such was story and life she sought to write; the one in amber hour she sought to catch and write and tell before moment and vision were departed.
After quote, eyes returned to page as she wrote further on.
What was the story? What was the dream?
He wondered, but it was not place or time to ask.
One does not intrude on inspiration, and one leaves creator to their task until the purpose is complete, or pause arrives and nothing more will write.
Sun fell behind a nearby home, skyline of the room. Light was changed, and so was she, dreamworld and inspiration no longer emanant from energy or eyes. She laid the pen in rest, and looked again to James in rest, still silent and observing her in moment and living way.
She looked at him in expression of asking, seeing contemplations in his mien.
“What?” she asked with only eyes.
“I wonder what it is you’re writing,” James spoke. “I knew it wasn’t time to ask, and so I kept it in, watching you create. I wonder, too, what further stories are within you—how, and if ever, they will raise to live and tell. You are a creator too, and I wonder what you’ll make, and to wonder leaves intrigue.”
White of smile shone through smile-curl of fine, thin lips; and Annie rose to turn and better see. Length and form of her body turned, and she returned to rest, sitting and body soft reclined on brace of hands behind on table’s top; light of the sun diminished in evening fall, and she illuminated then in the softer light of candle’s framing flames, shadow and light as contour and gentle shape expressed in depth and cast of candle’s light.
James was drawn, and Annie smiled holding in her wait: wonder, awe, and mystery in expression of a woman.
Arrived, Annie moved upright, hands moved from poise and rest to hold and wrap of neck, James’ own lifting her deeper into seat, legs risen from the floor, as they stayed in kissed embrace, warm and soft like flicker dance of candlelight upon: allure and awe, and mystery—creation of way, eternal—Wonder undiminished.