Remembrance

Currently in Earphones: Memories of "Corazon Gitano" by Pimpinela


At the top of my bookshelf, now way up near the ceiling of my old room, there lies a book. It's an interesting book, as the majority of the pages are nearly pristine. Hardly grounds for individuality, given the number of books I own, but the odd thing is that the cover bulges out, like it's been well thumbed numerous times. Despite this there are no creases along the spine. I remember looking for it by name, years and years ago, hundreds of miles from home, and buying it without question, for I had been told there were answers in it. No, it wasn't a philosophy book, I got it from the sci-fi/fantasy section. The person who recommended it was in to codes and ciphers, and liked to be roundabout in explanations.

At the moment it's propping up a number of trade paperbacks. You see L. Sprague de Camp, Michael Crichton, Charlie Stross, Neil Gaiman, and probably get an idea of the theme of this shelf. Pulling it from it's horizontal position, you probably prop up "Rivers of Time" as it begins to teeter, no longer supported. Taking this odd book, bulging on either end with the cover curled but the pages white with un-use, you clamber down the ladder you used to get to the eyrie of books and sit down, the book on your lap. The cover shows an illustrated woman in a dark dress hovering over muted text and a brown, featureless landscape. The title is a rather obvious nod to Yeats and the author currently has a monopoly in the "D-E" section of every sci-fi/fantasy bookstore shelf. As you can see, I shared the indirect habit of the person who pointed me in the direction of the book.

The curved cover lifts to show two two sheaves of paper, folded in two. The first is actually two pages folded together, white printer paper with the tell-tale alternating red-and-blue text that can only be an IM conversation. It's a muted argument, that seems to end well but on uncertainty. The young boy (clearly the name in red) must have had an inkling as to it's importance: He took the trouble to print it out. The second sheaf of paper confirms your suspicions as to the person who owns the book. It's a piece of lined notebook paper, the kind you can tear out of a spiral-bound, and the edge is all raggety. They never do come out clean, despite the perforations. On it, scrawled and crossed out, is some of the most pretentious romantic doggerel you've ever seen. There's some good rhymes and maybe a few lines scan properly, but good thing it looks like a preliminary. It also is all over the place, some lines break and meters change. There's feeling in it, as most poetry has, but make no mistake, it is sophomoric.

Having seen everything that the front cover has to offer, you stuff the hastily folded sheets back in and open to the next gap, about halfway through and past scores of pristine, untouched pages. Another folded sheet of paper, some more doggerel scrawled on it, and a pin holding the folds together. You see part of a darkened rectangle and text in the corners, clearly a printed out picture from long ago. You remove the pin and unfold the paper, and on it is a picture of a girl. Her black, curly hair reaches down past her shoulders, her skin a light brown and dark brown eyes that have managed to catch the light of the flash such that they look a deep, soft reddish color. The most ghostly of Mona Lisa smiles graces the edge of her lips. You can see bookshelves stuffed to brimming behind her. You think what you will of her before re-folding and pinning the paper, then placing it back where it was. You notice, as you move on, a light dog ear on the page the picture was marking. There is nothing else to indicate why this page, but you've only just opened the book, haven't you?

Near the end there are two marked pages. The first has a small piece of red-folded paper, a drawing done in silver ink: a tree with a swing on it, on a hill during a starry night. There's a name on the bottom right hand corner, but it's been worn partially away. On the inside are a quote, an expanded "Love like you've never been hurt" excerpt, and a message about meeting somewhere at this time and this place. The writing is small and elegant, a girls hand. On the back, you notice with a smile, is "P.M. Publishing," handwritten in the same silver ink with a crescent moon and starts. Very carefully done, as the simple line borders on the front and back attest. Tucked within this note, maybe or maybe not having anything to do with it, are a ticket stub for a 3:35 pm showing of "The Last Samurai," and a pink copy of a receipt. The only interesting thing on the receipt are the printed words "SR BALL." You replace them in the red note and stick it back between the pages from where it came.

You come to the last gap, only a few pages later. This page is interesting in that it marks the beginning of a story, as you find that the book is not one tale but a collection of shorts. The one thing that springs out at you is the title, "TALLULAH." There are some light print marks, indicating that this was the only thing read in full, and you see that the paper marking the pages looks similar to the picture from earlier. It's folded the same way, another pin (long with a spherical black head, like the other) holds it together and contributes to the strange bulges in the book. You can see that it's another picture, and un-pin and un-fold it to get a good look.

It's a picture of a boy and a girl. You recognize the girl from the previous picture, but her hair has been coiffed and runs in ringlets down her back. A delicate white necklace is draped around her neck, accentuated by the dark satin strapless gown she's wearing. Next to her, the boy is just visible, his upper body blocked by the head of another young man in the foreground of the picture. Both the boy and the girl are sitting down and leaning forward, only the girls arms, crossed and resting on her knees, are visible. A corsage with white flowers is around the girls far wrist, and if the young man in the foreground was gone, you'd see a similar boutineer on the boy's shirt, held in place by two long, black-headed pins.

Both of their faces are shiny with perspiration. The girl is smiling, and it's part camera smile and part real smile: stiffness of the corners of the mouth look forced, but the faint lines from the corners of her nose to the corners of her mouth denote some real happiness. The boy looks unused to smiling, at least for a camera, and only the small curve at the one visible corner of his mouth hints at the smile to come. The last thing that catches your eye are their two visible hands: her un-corsaged left hand crossed over her lap to his left hand draped across his kneecap. They're not holding hands, but you can see that they're touching. You concede it might be a trick of perspective, but all you've seen up to this point might lead you to believe otherwise.

You look to the print on the marked pages, and find snippits about lost love, about change and about about remembering the good. You find an emphasis on female characters asking the male ones to remember how things were, not how things became. All told it's not any more than a couple of hundred words, but the theme is clear. Perhaps you can understand why the rest of the book is pristine.

Having taken what you can, you close the book and climb back up the ladder to replace it on my high bookshelf. You pick up the de Camp and the Crichton and the Stross that have inevitably fallen over and stand them up straight, lying the strange, bulging, pristine-worn book on its back. It does a good job of holding up the others.

Perhaps you have enough pieces of this little puzzle, perhaps you want more. You might be driven to ask me about it, but I would only smile and say "She would probably like it that way."


Enough, More Later.
- James