update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/008.html

@@ -114,7 +114,10 @@
 <p>There was no door.</p>
 <p>There was no door.</p>
 <p>There was no door.</p>
-<p>There was no door as they stepped through to the city and landed in the alleyway in which The Woman usually arrived. They, then, were briefly alone. They were alone in the cool shade of the buildings and the crispness of the air and the staticky sound of the fallen leaves skittering around their feet and feet and paws and paws and feet and paws and feet and paws and paws.</p>
+<p>There was no door as they stepped through to the city and landed in the alleyway in which The Woman usually arrived. They, then, were briefly alone. They were alone in the cool shade of the buildings and the crispness of the air and the staticky sound of the fallen leaves skittering around their feet and feet and paws and paws and feet and paws and feet and paws and paws and–</p>
+<p>They walked lightly and in silence as they stepped along the sidewalk and boarded the trolley to ride three stops, three stops, three stops to the coffee shop that The Woman and Her Friend always loved, and there was no one there — not a request but a felicity a chance a happenstance that befell them, that they stand there at the entrance to the coffee shop that The Woman and Her Friend always loved alone and surrounded by the quiet sounds of the breeze that wafted between the buildings and past doors and against skin against fur against fur against skin against skin against skin against fur against skin against–</p>
+<p>The Woman and The Blue Fairy stood before the coffeeshop on the sidewalk where there was a new thing, where there was a square cut into the paving stones on the sidewalk two meters on a side and a grate of steel or iron set into it with a sunburst pattern and, in the center, a circle of good, clean soil.</p>
+<p>There, The Woman turned a slow circle and smiled one final blessing on the world and faced at last The Blue Fairy, who would be the last person to be so blessed, and The Blue Fairy guided The Woman The Skunk The Panther The Woman The Woman The Woman The Woman down to her knees and knelt with her and reached up and brushed her hair her mane her forehead her hair her mane her forehead, and leaned in to place a gentle kiss atop her head, and then The Woman nodded, and then The Blue Fairy stood and, crying, signaled to the System The Poet The Dreamer our superlative friend that all was as it should be and that all should proceed as it ought and then, there, at last, finally, without further action, she watched.</p>
 <p>And all of this makes me wonder and makes me tremble. </p>
 <p>It makes me tremble and it makes my fur stand on end and my paws shake and my pen skitter anxiously across the page like those leaves that danced before the feet of The Woman I told you about so, so long ago, perhaps like those leaves that skitter within the city, that unreal city, that city full of dreams, where ghosts in broad daylight cling to passers-by.</p>
 <p>Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like snow in a dark night fell secretly! She fell and fell and fell and we fell and fell and fell and fell and fell until falling was all we knew and within that fall we found some new kernel of truth but how hot that kernel was! It burned within our palm as we held it to our chest and for each of us it burned so, so hot and so, so differently that there she was, too much herself and here I am, too much myself, and the words come so fast and so thick that I am blinded! Ink in my eyes, scrabbling for any known thing! I press upon this and that with shaking fingertips to try and find something that is not yet more words, but that is all there is, because this is it, my friends, the kernel of truth that we found. The truth we now know is that we are falling still! We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch and be able to hold there for a little while, panting, struggling to catch our breath, until fire burns through our shoulders and we cannot hold any longer and we are forced to let go once more and fall and fall and fall just like I am falling and falling and falling and falling and falling.</p>