Underfoot, the hall’s floor is a puzzle work of slate – gray-blue, charcoal, sand-flecked. To the left, a rough plaster wall rises; opposite, a series of ornate, heavily carved and curved wood frames define bevel-glass windows and doors. At the hall’s far end, a single, narrow, French door emits dusty bands of light.

Walk the hall’s length, pale cat in tow – calm, despite its slack leash; small, excited dog free to leap and prance at heel. Count each stride. Turn. Double back. Half-light swims and glitters; reflects off glass; pools upon polished wood and slate.

The words surface, unbidden:

One-hundred-

six steps

along

the gray stone,

sand-strewn

river…

Complete the lap — down the hall and back. Turn into the open doorway, incised in the plaster wall. Enter a large dining room. Its ceiling soars overhead; its furnishings baroque in detail. A long trestle table, lavishly set, bisects the room’s middle. And there, at the end nearest, with one leg flung over the arm of a carved wooden chair, a man lounges in neat, formal attire. See, also, the spiral-bound writing pad. Understand that the words — as they formed mere moments ago — have found their way onto those pages. He has read them. Scoffed at them. Advises, now, in arrogant tone: “Stick to ‘womanly pursuits’ ”.

Remember. Him. Earlier this day when, parked downtown, he had leapt – uninvited – into the back seat of the bright and gleaming orange convertible. A black-suit-clad intruder sprawled against white leather seats. There, then, he had critiqued – with undisguised scorn – a young man’s physics dissertation. Each word a poison dart. Remember how the young man had sagged, diminished.

Here, now. Stand. Rooted to slate. Head bent, chin to chest, like a whipped child in this grand, antique and dated room. Before this viper-tongued braggart. Feel the roar inside growing.

All is dark. Claustrophobic. All but the unicorn.

Though caught in stone, the unicorn positively radiates — light and motion pulse through and over its rearing form. Its front legs churn the darkness, and its forelock, mane, and tail are caught and curled and tumbled by unseen currents. The tip of its scrolled horn reaches 10 feet high, and its dark eyes shine. Here and there, its paint is worn, burnished by the touch of admirers long forgotten. It is a magnificent creation, so extraordinarily lifelike, it must surely spring from the massive plinth on which it is mounted.

Few remember the unicorn. Fewer still see it — down here, so far below — and those lost souls that do, no longer bear witness. They have forgotten the unicorn’s splendor, have become immune to its beauty and magic. Clothed in their own tattered shadows, they shuffle past with the brims of their hats pulled down to shield against the unicorn’s light.

Work quickly. Wedge the pry bar beneath the broken stone floor and the plinth’s heavy base. Curl, bodily, over and grip the metal lever. Tight-fisted, teeth grit, sweating — lean fully against the bar’s length. Hear the gritty scrape and separation of stone and metal. Feel the dull-eyed gazes of shuffling passersby slew ‘round.

The statue shifts.

Heave again.

And again.

In full-bodied, sweat-inducing, gut-wrenching, necessary effort — heave.

Break the statue free.

Restore the magic.

Release the unicorn.

— C.Birde, 6/18

Featureless room. Monochrome gray. A 10-foot square cell. No door. Lacking windows. A chamber deprived, depriving. Soundless. Scentless. Without texture. But for the rectangular hole — a 3-foot wide horizontal slot, 9 inches high, 8 feet up. Light drifts and gently slips past the rectangle’s hard edges. Shadows pass. Hint of movement beyond. The rift darkens, fills. Squares of fabric choke the slot, tumble — edge over edge — into the cell. One after another.  Rough weave of fabric; rust orange. Another and another. The pace of their entry increases. Rapidly, the chamber fills, becomes a landscape of heavy, rumpled rust. Ankle deep. Calf deep. Knee deep. Still, the slot coughs up more. Waist deep. Ribs deep. Shoulders burdened. Lungs restricted. The once-gray cell, transformed. Sunset hues consume, bury.

— C.Birde, 5/18

How long has it been  since I’ve seen her? Twenty years? Thirty? Forty? Yet there she stands — Irma. In her lilac house dress, patterned all over with small sprigs of flowers. In her flat, sensible, Mary-jane style shoes — scuffed and comfortable. In her nude compression stockings — rolled beneath her knees and creased in folds about her ankles. She is small and compact – moreso than I recall – and stands with her small hands neatly folded over the curve of her belly.  Coiffed and snowy ringlets peep from the band of her netted, pillbox hat. Oyster-colored cat-framed glasses perch on the bridge of her nose, connected — one temple to the other — by a strand of silver beads that drapes loosely down the back of her neck.

Most of all, though — most of all — Irma smiles. A pure, honest, dimpling smile that lifts her cheeks against the lower rims of her glasses and transforms her eyes into twin, up-side-down smiles.

She stands;,a solitary figure amidst a great stretch of rolling lawn – a graveyard that has not yet received internments. Surrounding her – uniformly and purposely spaced – ancient, solitary trees lift their age-roughened branches skyward. Pale spring light glides like youth through the trees’ slow-budding limbs.

And Irma – hands clasped; standing in her own shadow; light glancing off her glasses’ lenses – Irma smiles.

— C.Birde, 4/18