Pendras_c1 Birthday Present
Calamity
He had been watching her again. Sitting in the stall amidst the hay and manure he found solace in her hair. He would often wonder at it her hair. Somewhere in the less addled parts of his brain, the scientist troubled over an equation, the right one that would define her hair. Some physics equation involving far too many variables, sines, confidents…It was pure chaos theory the unknown variation of circles, ovals, ellipses, arcs.
Even Einstein would not be able to puzzle it.
“Walter?” her voice breaks his reverie. He hurriedly looks around to find something to grasp so she does not report him as a dirty old man. Ignoring her first request is expected so he turns back to the bovine occupant and continues to brush her.
Her tiny form emerges into his view. Arms folded she stares at him over the backside of his attentions. “Walter I have been calling you. What do you want for lunch?”
He knows she is referring to the dumbstruck look on his face. The large grin has taken up permanent residence across his lined features. This was so much easier thirty five years ago. He just did whatever Elizabeth suggested. He was the genius but she was really the smart one. She always knew what he wanted, even before he voiced it.
An odd quirk attacked her usually serene face. Walter glanced again at her face and noted the definable smirk resting there. He continued his ministrations to the cow as he spouted “What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? “
She stared at him, not sure of what he had said but knowing it was something, familiar. “Walter?” she asked tentatively, arms still folded, still perched upon the bust of curiosity.
The man in the lab coat never once moved his line of sight, he continued to smile as he spoke, the sparkle reaching his dancing blue eyes. “Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend.:”
Astrid could usually tell when Walter had been nipping at the home made brew; she knew he kept the good stuff hidden in gene’s stall, where he now resided. The man continued to wield the brush upon the cow, taking such gently sloping strokes that for a moment, Astrid began to ponder the idea of consciousness swapping with an animal.
“Walter, are you high?”
He knew he had her attention now, and he returned the favor, turning his steel blue eyes to hers as he continued the slow brushing of Gene. “Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you;” He nodded gently toward her as he finished the line “On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:”
Shakespeare. The man was spouting Shakespeare to a cow. But when his eyes locked upon hers it was undeniable where his words were intended to fall. Her mouth opened to speak, but then shut again as she processed the idea of being serenaded with Sonnet number fifty three.
“Speak of the spring, and foison of the year , The one doth shadow of your beauty show,” Walter’s voice had risen to a fearful crescendo. He metered his words with the precision of a trained Shakespearean actor.
Astrid moved closer to where he stood, never breaking eye contact. The smile on her face erupted onto her eyes, and she found herself leaning into Walter’s space. It was cheap to be so easily wooed with a few well spoken words formulated together over four hundred years ago.
But the meaning in them was so contemporary.
He could have gone with the stock Number eighteen, and it would have been cheap and hackneyed. He could have attempted to pretty up A Lover’s Complaint, but it would have seemed so dull and disingenuous. She tipped her head forward and looked at the older man through darkly hooded lenses.
This was kinda hot.
He leaned forward, his face nearly touching her cheek. He wanted to make sure she understood what he was saying His voice puffed against her cheek in fragile wisps of smoke, “The other as your bounty doth appear; And you in every blessed shape we know “ He smiled again after these words, a smile that offered so much to just be taken. His finger ran along the line of her delicate bone, the encroaching redness gave reply to his words.
Astrid placed her hand over the one attending to the cow. His and stopped its gentle movements as her fingers played over his.
Finally claiming his sought after prize, Walter touched her hair with his other hand, soft movements against the softest of clouds. He wanted to be sure she understood him, knew the words he spoke, though not his own, were written=en just for this moment. “In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart.”
While she missed his touch on her cheek, Astrid found herself leaning into his hand upon her hair. She angled until she felt his hand meet her scalp. Her arm made its way around his waist, inhaling his scent. Walter always smelled of leather, chemicals and some sweet cooling on a spring window sill, some mysterious pie warning of overindulgence.
Standing upon her most tippy of toes, she brought her lips to his, in a gentle embarkation of her understandings. “Thank you Walter.” She intoned. “I think you are one of a kind too.