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The Vernal Equinox of Death and Kisses
While the sun edged closer to the equator, waking the northern hemisphere,
while putting the southern half to sleep; and before the shadowy, blue-gray
coldness of winter had thawed off the land -the vernal equinox of death and kisses
lay crouched and waiting. It aimed to throw scented kisses through virgin grass wet with dew.
But nothing moves without first being moved.
And so it was that every occurrence, every detail of the upcoming year -from the largest
earth tremor, or blighted storm; the smallest-splattered union of raindrop-to-river, of
river-to-sea -had first been collected without first being created. It was a power spawned
from actions gone past -actions that once existed and yet never could.
True.
There is a philosophy which suggests that the awesome power of a hurricane is first
given birth by the most delicate flutters of a butterfly's wings.
No matter.
The vernal equinox of death and kisses would nevertheless arrive. Behind a shadowy
veil of un-patterned patterns, it waited. Behind what is presented to our hearts, eyes and ears,
and beneath the tingling of our skin, it slept, eternally patient, waiting for its time to come.
And when it should come -dropping clues to earth disguised as events without cause -it threaded
itself into reality like a grandmother's neatly stitched hem.
A teacher who had long lived the life of a spinster became giddy. It was fortunate that she
did not question the source for her good mood. Had she done so, surely she would have foregone
her evening sorties into a nearby magical park --where, every evening, she watched a drowsy sun
paint pictures on the horizon -and violet, pink, and red were used as purposefully as any artist's
pallet. The good mood was a nice change and was much preferable to the bothersome loneliness of loneliness.
People saw her smiling for no reason at all. The subtle confidence it gave her attracted members of the opposite sex.
A young writer reflected on the timely death of his grandmother. It was the December,
and she passed with the slightest hint of a smile into death's embrace. He had lived
long in fear of her death --due to a self-pitying belief that a life without her would forever taint his world.
The writer might have continued believing that her passing was such a simplistic thing -a hunger,
soaking up life as the bee soaks up nectar -but a wind, sent to him by the vernal equinox of death
and kisses, smoothed the sting away. This wind brought the smell of life to his nostrils. It whirled
under his arms, lifting him higher and higher -so high that he could see the birth of yet another new world.
In school yards across the country, tough-skinned boys kissed other boys. They cornered their prey and
let the screaming victims have a "big one" right on the lips. Teachers noted this, smiled vaguely,
and thought it a better alternative to games of war. For fun, little girls hiding in bathroom stalls
traded underwear. Their parents were befuddled when unrecognized pairs of Cinderella, or Pocahontas
panties showed up mysteriously in the wash.
Motorists, during their hellish commute were observed waving in fellow commuters who missed
the merging tail end of a freeway on-ramp.
The vernal equinox of death and kisses touched everyone in some fashion or another.
It rapped gently at the doors of their lives like a forgetful stranger who does not know
he is knocking at the door of his own home.
If caught mired in that analyzing little mood which wishes like the wind to knock down every sign,
every tree and every blessed flower that braves a new day, the people failed to hear its desperate
but quiet clues to be savored, cherished -and Yes! even worshiped. To them, testimony of its existence
would not be recognized until finally, it had gone -a ripened, sweet stench left in a star-crossed trail.
. . . and once again the world became gray and bleak.
Beneath their cooled world -perhaps while drinking tea, they might pout, saying: "I hardly
remember spring at all." And then, in a sudden moment of realization -a moment which reveals
the hauntingly slow departure of time and space, they might turn back to their musty windows
and wait -hoping to hear the footsteps of the stranger who had entered their lives in such a
stealth, and such a hush, that they could only be aware of his return when once again he is walking away.
Antonio Hopson is a Sunday school dropout whose prose often visits the existential.
His surreal and poignant stories have been widely published in both print (Quiet Shorts Magazine
and Old Growth Journal) and electronic journals (The Harrow Magazine, The Subterranean Quarterly,
OutCry Magazine, Lost Magazine, The Piker Press and also NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse).
He has received Farmhouse Magazine's Reader's Choice award and in 2006 I was invited to perform at
Seattle's Richard Hugo House where he was a featured writer and read from his list of published work.
Visit Web Site
Email: Antonio Hopson
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