Hell and Paradise

II: Rosy Innocence

The next few days were peacefull, Madeline was no where to be found in school and when she was her indiference and ignorance towards Evette only grew, ignoring and denying her very existence. It was Friday. Winter. A thick morning dew covered the city landscape. It glistened brightly in the newly rising sun. Now as the city began to awake to the new day. A gust of snow winds through the maze of ancient houses in the Ol' Town where windows almost shattered in the weakness of their structures and rotting boards, some broken, others hanging try to cover the empty eyes of every home. Weeds socialize across the cracking asphalt of every road, gathering and laughing at the lone girl as they try to weave around the catching leg with every step. After weaving through the labyrinth of old roads, the paths eventually converged and unveiled the central piazza¹.

Flocks of crows were gathered everywhere; their numbers delighted the children as they huddled around the birds, and either fed them crumbs of bread, or took photographs. The children  inclination towards the crows differed from the locals; the birds were considered nuisances, and treated as such. A sea of people, of all ages and ethnicities, filled the square and it's many stores. But what attracted the petite damsel attention was the Cafe Séance, run down South Street, two doors down from fabulous Palmeo restaurant, near the Rastafarian's car garage, opposite mid rise low cost flats.

They served the tea in real white china pots at round tables that mostly just seated two people. At the glass-fronted counter was an array of cream cakes and pastries, all with French sounding names, and of course there were the obligatory scones. A unknown place, a place she never dared to cross, and unconscious she found herself staring through the window with her vivid lustrous lenses, fringed in thick, long lashes of obsidian veil, sparkling in the morning sun with tints of orange and blue.

— „ Hei, you. ‟

A man voice. Pleasant and cheerful. Was it calling her? Impossible. She knew no man other than her father, who was hardly ever home. The voice boomed across the sky. She could listen to it all day. It was a voice to sink in as it wraps you up. Yet, vibrating with power and command. It was a voice with authority as a kindly laugh shook the ground like a storm.

— „ Hei, you! In front of the window! ‟

 The voice was unexpected. It was high, with an agreeable trace of huskiness and with a hint of more power than her frail body would possess. Her dreams were shattered by it and with a slow motion her crown would turn towards the source of it; A man, in his early twenties, wearing a fitting high sleeved white shirt and made-to-measure black pants. His charcoal tie touched the silk-like sourface of the silver tray he was carrying as he reached after her from the Cafe's door.

— „ I-I apologize,sir. ‟

It is startling, the first time she speaks. The intellect that graces every specifically-chosen word is not expected from her painted porcelain visage; one simple argument can be supported with a shy smile and calculated glance. Turning on her heel, she was startled to face him. As if an artist had mixed a bucket of grey and black and splashed it onto him, giving the man a rich tapestry woven in a dark like coloration; running from his cranium, to his eyes. Cascades of charcoal oil would fall from the man head touching his neck with his rich and messy hair. A towering creature, acutely beautiful, his features smooth and precise, as though they had been carved from fine marble. His head high, sloping into a wide back and lowered hips, the stance of a general overlooking his troops. His eyes,silver pale, filled with a raging fire of passion and tenderness, he seems as though a finely crafted piece of art rather than a living, breathing man. Muscles keenly defined under his fitting high buttones shirt, heavy-set but still lean enough to be attractive for most women.