(no subject)

[ladyfirestarter]

March 7, 2007
11:42am

Almost everyone thought the woman and the girl were mother and daughter.

For the second time in a week, Charlie stands looking at the little sculpture of the turtle at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. This time she has company.

The note is gone, Charlie notices absently, but some wag has pasted a series of stickers along the length of the nearby walk, in the style of the old Burma Shave ads: SEE THE TURTLE / OF ENORMOUS GIRTH / ON HIS SHELL / HE HOLDS THE EARTH.

"It's from a book," is all she says to Bev's quizzical glance at her when she smiles at the rhyme.

Comments

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

"I don't think I've ever heard it before," Bev says. "But...my friend Bill saw a giant turtle while he was fighting It. And--" her brow furrows; the memory's unexpectedly fuzzy for a part of her life that was so vivid. "--And he said the turtle couldn't help him them, either--but he still felt like it was good."

[ladyfirestarter]

They're across the street, and nearly to the building.

"That does sound a lot like the turtle in the rhyme, doesn't it? Things echo, sometimes."

Charlie reaches to open the door, and holds it open.

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

"I guess. Maybe whoever wrote the rhyme knew about the same turtle, somehow."

Bev steps inside, and--

Oh.

She's been inside places that felt wrong before. Fundamentally wrong in ways she couldn't explain, but couldn't help feeling.

She's never been in any place that had an equally deep, unexplainable sense of rightness.

Until now.

[walk_ins]

It sings. Can you hear it?

Sun pours through the high windows, filling the lobby with delicately slanting light. The floor is tiled in pink marble, everywhere except at the very center.

A square of plain earth, surrounded by velvet ropes strung between chrome stands. A few dwarf palm trees, and some ferns ...

And in the middle, by itself, the rose.

[ladyfirestarter]

"This is the rose," says Charlie, very softly, as they approach the Garden.

And for a moment, that's all.

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

Beverly approaches the little garden slowly, sneakered feet making hardly any noise on the tile. Her expression is a mix of solemnity and joy in her face, eyes bright, lips parted and turned up just a bit at the corners.

She doesn't speak for a long moment, and when she does, her voice is hushed.

"This is--"

(everything)

"--a lot more than just a rose, isn't it?"

[ladyfirestarter]

Quick now, here, now, always—
Charlie stands as she did the day before yesterday, one hand lightly closed on the velvet rope, the other still holding Bev's.
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
"Everything," she says, her voice as hushed as the girl's.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
The singing rises around them, welcoming, comforting, affirming, exulting; it is the song of the world, of all worlds, the song of life aware of itself and rejoicing in the awareness.
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
I exist, it says. I am what I am.
And the fire and the rose are one.
"It's everything."

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

Bev looks at it, her slight smile growing, and then at the plaque nearby.

GIVEN BY THE TET CORPORATION, IN HONOR OF EDWARD CANTOR DEAN AND JOHN 'JAKE CHAMBERS. GOOD OVER EVIL, THIS IS EVER THE WILL OF GOD.

One of the names catches at her memory, but she can't place it--and in the presence of the Rose, she's not inclined to puzzle over it, not inclined to do much besides stand here and drink in the sound of the song.

Her vision is blurry with tears again, but tears of a very different kind--and then she shuts her eyes, and it doesn't matter.

"Thank you," she whispers, and isn't sure if it's to Charlie or the Rose itself, or both.