the taste of cinnamon...

i dont know if dreams come to you..or you lead to their creation...but there's one that's lingered in my mind for a year now...and i thought it just had to be told.

Running, searching through opulent passages of a stone palace which held as many secrets as her warm heart…through white curtains dancing in the breeze and an intense bridal atmosphere that lingered in the air like the taste of cinnamon. Browns, golds…scatterings of maroon silk and petals caressing an autumn walkway, she felt she had been here before…that he had been here too. That she was walking in his footsteps. Amid chocolate laughter of little children in slow motion, she treaded slowly through halls lined with memories, hoping to absorb every minute he must have lived in this place, beating with a life of its own. She found herself lost among doors which begged to be opened – weary with the souls that lived within this jewel…begging to be opened and unburdened. Still, something unsettled her…unable to remember what had happened to him, she opened a door to the left of a huge mirror, embossed in rich golden dust. Yet what she had been led to was a cold, forgotten, untouched piece of the jewel which somebody had left raw.

Peering down the stairs, she saw him now…remembered what he had looked like…envisaged him in this place, growing up with his grandfather. just as her had told her – simple, meaningful, his mother the servant of the jewel that crowned the city. Hearing someone stumble at the door and the momentary distant twittering of the guests, she realized she had to return to the wedding celebrations of a distant relative she barely knew, except by the bride’s nickname which referred to her resemblance to all things round. A hint of a smile fluttered across the corner of her mouth, revealing her thoughts as she remembered her Sundays here, realising she had better get back before anyone noticed her absence or mentioned her recent displaced state of mind. But not until she saw who was at the door. An old, weathered man, his bones as creaky as the door he had just opened, was not surprised to see her. ‘I knew you would come,’ he said, ‘but he has gone…one day, he just went away. And I did not go after him.’ She looked over a sleepy city from behind huge pillars that lined the balcony, a black, hollow spot in the mosaic of life, echoing that he must have thought she had forgotten him…if only he knew…if only she had found this place earlier…if only she remembered more. His grandfather was thin – almost transparent. A forgotten man in a forgotten place, yet he was about to leave. Even he had nothing here anymore.

Perfumed days and scented years passed as she crept back into the palace, behind its golden façade into its heart and left one perfect rose petal near the bottom of the stairs for every year she went back in his memory. Hoping against the reality, that his footsteps would grace this path once more. On the seventh year, the rose petals had disappeared…as she traced the bottom stair with a longing hope, she saw them appear before her, surrounded by hands she had ached to see. She closed her eyes and looked away, not wanting to believe something that wasn’t there…and suddenly the walls were lined with light, iridescent beads played with the moonlight, she dared to look…and there has was..reaching for her hand, ‘I knew you’d be here..’