conclusion
And so I sit next to her under the tree. She snuggles close to me. She puts her arm around my waist and my arm around her shoulder. The sun is a great ruby red circle that slowly sinks. For only a moment…less than an eye blink…I think of the Great Red Eye of the Fallen One. Already I can no longer recall His foul Name.
Then Violet sighs. She loves me, she whispers, and she loves being with me.
I love her, I tell her. I smell her cherry blossom fragrance, and the awful memory of the Dark Lord and His One Ring is gone.
My Precious…my Love…my Darling…my Sweet One…all the names I called that false trinket and my false self…they all belong to her. They always have, and they always will.
The sun slips behind the roiling hills at the horizon. The sky turns from fiery scarlet, to pale yellow, to clear blue, to deep indigo, to soft and dark violet. And, I think to myself, the color was named for the girl next to me, not the other way around.
The stars begin to appear. Twinkling faintly at first, they glisten brightly, with a pure white light.
My dear one points out the bright Evening Star as it appears on the other side of the sky, at the edge of the horizon. It is Eärendil the Mariner, she tells me, in her soft musical voice. On his brow, like a circlet, he wears the Silmaril, set within the Nauglamír. His garments gleam with the jeweled dust of Valinor. He sails the sky in his ship Vingilótë. His wife Elwing flies to him in the shape of a great white bird.
Frodo and Sam knew all these things. I should've paid better attention when they told each other these stories. From now on, I will listen very carefully to what I am told.
I peer, and seem to see a tiny sliver of light, like a crescent.
That is Elwing, Violet tells me. Her husband eternally sails the heavens, and his wife eternally flies to him.
Do they never get to meet, I ask, surprised?
Violet giggles. Of course they do, she says. The bird flies to Eärendil's arms. He clasps it to his breast and it takes the form of Elwing. She sleeps in his embrace, with her hair wafting on his face…the way Violet flies to her Sméagol, my darling adds, in a whisper.
With my arm around her shoulder, I find myself hugging Violet closer. I will never let her fly away, I tell myself. She takes my other hand and gently clasps it to her bosom.
I lean my head back to look at it all. The stars have flung themselves all over the sky. I can't remember ever seeing anything this beautiful in all the time of my old life. I blink away some tears from my eyes and swallow a lump in my throat. How vast it all is.
My love lays her head on my shoulder and yawns. Good night, Sméagol, she murmurs tenderly. With her fingertips on my chin, she turns my head and kisses my lips. Will I mind if she sleeps just a little?
Of course not, I tell her. It must have been very tiring waiting for Sméagol the Snail.
She giggles and calls me silly with her soft musical voice. Then she is suddenly asleep. "Good night, Violet, my love," I whisper.
…the Beginning…the true Beginning that will never end…
(I began this before Christmas, 2011. Easter, 2012 has now come and gone. But whatever the holiday, I wish a Blessed and Joyous Celebration to my brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ and the Family of Man.)
