Hainan Dao

Book I Chapter 11

HAINAN DAO BOOK I

CHAPTER 11

“Biai?” Craning my neck out and searching to my left and right, I huffed and puffed as I struggled my way up the slope. I made it to the tree line. I began swimming my way into it. It took me two minutes to wade through to the other side and finally arrive at the summit of the mount.

My jaw dropped.

The Earth itself had fallen away before me.

I was standing at the top of the world, and everywhere I looked was the sea. Perched atop a puny drop of land, I stood lost amid the crashing ocean coming at me from every side. It roared and shook its mighty head, drowning out my voice, my cries, my every thought. My heart danced with the water, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt I could lift the universe with one hand. The stars were just coming out for me, and I knew if I had really wished it then at that moment, I could fly.

I happened to look down and saw something at my feet. Something familiar. Something that I had seen before.

A flower. A yellow one of four petals. Allemanda. Allemanda Cathartica.

I reached out with my good arm and plucked it. I rose to my feet again.

“Deng yi xia!” a voice cried.

I turned around.

It was her.

The one that I had dreamed of every single night this week. The one that I had thought I would never find. The one that I had thought could never even exist. Here was the moment that I had been dreaming of, the moment that I most feared. I yearned for it every night, I dreaded it every day. I wanted it, I loathed it. And now it had come upon me, naked, unprepared.

She strolled over to me where I was standing and stopped about ten feet away. She was in a long sundress this time. Her hair was loose and wallowed in the sun and wind like unruly children. She kept reaching back to comb it away with her fingers. In the light of the early evening, fire seemed to leap forth from her tresses and they became even more brilliant like dawn, like lava, like gold from a phoenix rising. She squinted against the wind. And it swept across her body and tugging away at her dress, massaged and outlined her figure where it drew close to hold her tight. My eyes were taken captive, drawn to every curve, enslaved to follow every shape that it dutifully traced out like a fine seamstress.

The sun hung off to my left side, somewhere just beyond my field of vision. Clouds painted the sky over in swathes of pastel and watercolour. Birds soared by without a sound, skirting over the edge of the water, as waves crashed over the rocks, hundreds of feet below us. I stood trembling before the combined might of Heaven, Earth, the planets, awaiting their judgement, unbelieving of their gift. For here she was, presented before me, more than I had ever thought conceivable, surely a design prepared long before Creation itself, surely a goddess come to rule.

She smiled at me. “Is it you?”

I blinked.

A gush of wind brushed across my face. The ocean became intolerably loud.

“I…I…” I couldn’t feel my legs.

Her smile brightened. Tilting her head to one side, she reached up and brushed her hair back. “It is, isn’t it?”

My arms were gone too. “I…I am…I think I am.” I was going to fall.

“Good.” She nodded. “I thought so.” She frowned just a touch.

A million things went through my head in that instant and came flying out of my left ear and were gone. What am I supposed to do? Should I say something? Do I ask for her number? Wait. Scratch that. Is my fly open? Say, do you come here often?