The Lovers of Life

CHAPTER III - DALILA'S BROTHER (pt 1)

"When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fucking special"

Creep – Pablo Honey  – Radiohead

She was sitting on the marble windowsill. One of her legs was dangling down outside and she had an arm lying lazily on her bent knee. I don't know if you can picture the scene. Someone sitting on a windowsill, a leg dangling outside, the other bent, an arm on the knee of the bent leg and the head leaning back on the side of the window frame. No picture could do justice to the beauty of the scene. Allow me to specify that there was no glass in the window: it was just a glossily polished marble window frame. The whole room was made of white marble. There was no ceiling: the blue canopy of the sky stretched over us. We were at the top of a circular tower. The high wall surrounding us was mainly constituted of wide windows.

From the windowsill on which she sat, she gazed down into the world to which she was something of a myth. Her hair was short – she had always liked it short – and it was rainbow coloured. Every lock of hair had a different colour: red, blue, yellow, orange, purple, black, white, pink, gold, green, turquoise, silver, beige, violet... It fell untidily all around her head and in her face. She raised an arm to scratch her nape where a black tattoo shone, sign of the mission she had been assigned. Her skin was of a pleasant milky beige and I couldn't help wanting to touch her, to feel her softness – just this once! She was so beautiful. But she is like a statue in a museum; to be admired, but touching is forbidden. She is my sister, Dalila.

She turned her head around to look at me and I was, once more, momentarily stunned by the stunning colour of her eyes. They were blue, but not like the banal blue of the skies; they looked like pure water always spinning around her pupils. I knew she was the belle of Heaven and I couldn't help myself from thinking it again.

"Anew you think this of me, Brother?"

"You know I seldom stand in daylight, Lila."

"Ah..."

She chuckled softly. I considered looking around over my shoulder to make sure she was not smiling at someone else, but I knew we were alone. I never got used to the fact that she smile with such tenderness while looking at me.

"Won't you kiss me hello?" she asked in a mocking girlish way, smiling.

"But of course," I mumbled. Or at least I meant to, but my limbs felt like lead, I was incapable of anything but look.

"Come now brother!" she laughed. "It has been so long since last you have given me the pleasure of a visit! You do not have the right to deny me a single kiss!" she said brightly stretching out her arm towards me – but I stood out of reach.

She whispered a few words under her breath before pulling her arm back to her chest. Her spell pulled me towards her. I bent down over her, wondered for a moment if I had the right to touch such a pure thing before forgetting all consideration and kissing her forehead lightly. I pulled back slowly and rather reluctantly. She smiled.

"Mika says you have not gone to him in a hundred years," she said reproachfully with an unconvincing moue, "why are you coldshouldering my twin?"

"I thought we had already gone through this."

"I feared you would not come to see me in another hundred years!" she exclaimed her brow furrowing. "I missed you! You know I did. And so does Mikayil! You have no right to sulk him like that, he's your brother for goodness' sake!"