They were all so...so...tall. Not only that, they were slender and the overall effect of their

slimness was only heightened by the hundreds of tiny purple florets completely covering them.

She felt so very...wide...there, alone, amongst their kind. She knew she should not have come.

Indeed, now she had quite forgotten why she had NOT stayed away. Some of them leaned together,

obviously discussing not only her heart-shaped flatness, but also her complete lack of purpleness.

The rest just ignored her. If only she could remember where the gate was, she would leave...now.

He came, looking to satisfy an inner longing. He had no preconception of what he was looking for,

only that his poet's soul yearned for...something. For an hour in the early evening he wandered

amongst the tall, purple spires. They were lovely and he let his fingers flow over them as he passed,

but he never stopped and chose one. They were so alike that none made his hand pause, none made

his heart lilt with that sense of knowing choice.

 

Then...there she was...so very, very out of place. The sun, now low in the sky, bathed her in a

warm, creamy goldness, serving to accent even more her uniqueness. He smiled, lifting his fingers

from a nearby spire of tall purple, resting them a moment on his lower lip as he studied her. His

fingertips still tingled from the rough brocadeness of the spires as he lowered them from his lip and

ran his thumb pad back and forth slowly over them. Then they began to ache...just softly...and the

ache of them ran up his arm and circled round about his heart. She would be...soft...he knew, like

creamed satin...and, oh, so smooth.

 

She turned, looking for the gate, and saw him standing there, his lips slightly parted, his hand held

halfway out, almost trembling. "Oh God," she thought, "he has seen my wideness and will pluck me as

a weed from out of this purpled splendor."

 

He saw her small shudder and thought the evening breeze had lifted her white wingedness. Leaning

close, he touched her...barely...with one fingertip...reverently... as though she were holy and he

had arrived, a dusty penitent, at his shrined journey's end. Again she shuddered, expecting only

composted endings. How foolish she had been to venture amongst all this slender, purple glory.

Gathering herself, she awaited pain. Instead, she felt a wetness sliding down, pooling cooly in her

center. In wonder, she looked up. He was crying as his fingertip moved along her curve. She gazed,

then, into his eyes and in their welling tears, saw her own reflection.

 

Jo Anzalone

 

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