TITLE: Mapping the Landscape
AUTHOR: Tinka
EMAIL: mullane@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk (remove NOSPAM if replying)
CLASSIFICATION: MSR UST?, V
RATING: G
SPOILERS: Tiny one for 'Never Again'
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, nope siree.
SUMMARY: Unexplored territory leads to unsuspected roads.
NOTES: At the end of the story.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!!! I'd be a fool to decline.
-------------------
in the map of the world
go the twists of fate
- d. dobbyn
-------------------
The landscape in my dreams is like the body of a woman. I trace
the roads like I trace a woman's spine. Gently, I move down with a
feather light finger before I come to unexplored territory. This
is where my dreams break off, for this is no ordinary landscape
nor is it an ordinary woman.
In my dreams, she is a red-head. This corresponds with the forests
of golden leaves that my fingers run through. Sometimes, my hands
become entangled and I am lost. I am not frightened, because I am
lost in her. The dreamy landscape is friendly, yet dangerous. Its
seas have uncharted depths. I could drown or I could set sail.
Yet, when I'm with her, I do not care where I am falling.
My favourite site is a tiny grove, almost undetectable to the eye.
I know where it is. I have named it. It is right at the spot where
the neck meets the chest. Where the mountain becomes a field. I
linger in this tiny grove that I fool-heartedly have claimed as my
own, though I know others have been here before. I dream.
I want to claim everything as mine. I want to conquer and rule.
The landscape resists and leads me down unsuspected paths, and I
must acknowledge my defeat. She only has to look at me with her
bright blue eyes and I become the invaded territory. I am
colonized.
The landscape and the woman cannot be separated. They are one, and
yet they are different. The landscape is a dream landscape, while
she belongs to the realm of reality. I only know of the landscape
through the time of in-between when I'm neither asleep nor awake.
The woman belongs to my days.
I am sitting beside her wondering how to tell her of my dreams. I
want to reach out and trace the roads of her body. I want to dive
down into the pools of her soul. I wish I was less poetic. I feel
foolish and inadequate. She would laugh at me if I told her.
---------------------
It is a bright spring afternoon. One of those afternoons that
inscribes itself on your memory, as if your mind was made of
parchment and time a pen dripping with black ink. We are sitting
in comfortable silence outside a coffee shop in Buffalo, NY. It is
really too cold to be lounging outside, but she persuaded me. I
sit clutching my black coffee trying to stay warm. The wind is
blowing, the sun is shining and she is smiling. Her hair is all
messed up by the wind, her cheeks are flushed and as she turns
to look at me, her eyes are ever so bright blue. I am in love
with this woman.
She is sipping her latte as if she has no other care in the world.
In reality, we have to be at a crime scene in 30 minutes' time.
We have been called to Buffalo on short notice. Last night an
elderly woman discovered three bodies in her living room. They had
all committed suicide in what the police deemed a ritualistic
manner. One of the bodies had been identified as the woman's only
son. I suspect that the FBI's most notorious unit has been called
out here because of the so-called ritualistic aspect of the whole she-bang. We will soon know.
Soon Scully will be putting on her pale white rubber gloves and
start cutting up dead people. I will be looking at photos of
blood, death and decay. Right now, we are ordinary people sitting
in the sunlight of a cold, yet glorious, spring afternoon. She is
looking at the people passing us. I know she is playing her little
game of trying to guess what they do for a living. I wonder what
they think when they look at us in passing. Do we look like we
deal in death, destruction and conspiracies? I am supposed to be
the profiler, the psychologist - yet, I cannot look at us in an
objective way anymore. All I can see when I look at Scully is her
infinite warmth, and her stubborn strength. And when I look at
myself all I see is a man in love with her. I am two fools I
know.. for loving her and for not saying so to her.
A strange smile is playing on her lips as she finishes her latte.
We both rise and walk towards the police station. I am smoothing
her hair, she is trying to straighten my tie. I am too tall for
her and I gently bend my knees.
- You should have changed clothes, Mulder. Your suit is creased.
Her voice is soft and lightly teasing. We both know I've worn more
creased suits, had worse haircuts and sported more tasteless ties
than I do today. I suspect she just wants me to know that she has
noticed the way I look. Because she loves me, just as I love her.
I shrug with a goofy grin on my lips.
- It will get more creased in the course of the day, Scully. Why
bother?
She shakes her head with what she thinks is a stern look on her
face. In reality, it is just a soft, tender glow from her eyes
coupled with a tiny frown. A ripple in the sea. A fold in the
landscape of her body. I pull myself together, straighten up and
place my hand on her back. I'm marking my territory. And as we
walk into the police station together, we are one body for a brief
second. We cannot be separated. I am her, she is me. We are a
unit.
---------------
In old days it was easy to be a cartographer. All you had to do
was board a ship, carry some paper or parchment and arm yourself
with pens and bottles of ink. Simply by sailing in a new
direction, you would enlarge the world. Every morning when you
opened your eyes, you would lay eyes on new shores, new
coastlines, new seas. You would take your pen and draw the land on
your piece of animal skin. You would name the mountains, the
rivers and the forests.
Today everything has been named, labelled and categorized.
Everything has been defined in terms of longitude and latitude.
All travel is circumnavigation. Everything has been found.
There is no use for cartographers anymore. But her body is
still a foreign country that I desperately want to visit.
I want to inscribe my name on her skin. Use my tongue as pen
and write my name. "This is Mulder's Land". "This belongs to
Mulder". I do not like myself when I think this way. It
becomes too much of a power game. She becomes an object for
my desire. An object I can possess and lock up in the treasury.
But I want her to conquer me too. I want her to draw on my
skin, to find mountains and seas on my body.
It is midnight. We are going back to Washington tomorrow morning.
There was no case for us here. It was a waste of time. The sky is
overcast and the moon is nearly impossible to discover. I am
standing at the open window and I am shivering. I rub my arm and
discover goosebumps. Tiny stones on the smooth surface of a field.
Rocks on a beach. I hear her footsteps behind me, but I do not
turn.
- What the hell are you doing, Mulder?
Her voice is amused. She traces my arm with her finger. My muscles
tense briefly.
- You are cold. You have goosebumps on your skin.
Her voice is no longer amused. It is quiet, pensive. A finger
turns into a hand rubbing my arm. I close the window.
- What do you see when you look at me, Scully?
I turn my head and look at the tiny woman standing next to me. She
is wearing a big tee-shirt and pyjama trousers. She looks
vulnerable. I want to protect her. She is silent. I worry she has
taken my question to be vain or silly. Yet, instead of
wise-cracking, she takes me seriously. She looks at me -
carefully, deliberately and painstakingly. She remains silent for
a long time, and I look out of the window again. When she finally
speaks, her voice sounds strangely loud.
- I see my friend. I see my partner. I see understanding. I see
trust. I see tenderness. Despair. Joy. Intelligence. Loneliness.
The heart of a warrior. The soul of a healer. A fool. A knight. A
poet. I see a boy. I see a man. I see a son. I see a father. I
see the man I'd marry if circumstances were any different.
Her voice becomes a whisper when she utters the final words. I
remain looking out of the window. I am looking at my own
reflection. Her hand has not moved from my arm. Her touch scalds
me.
- Do you know what I see, Scully? Do you know what I see when I
look at myself?
- No..
Her voice is so quiet. So quiet that its implied feelings threaten
to break me.
- I see a fool. A jester. A clown. A clumsy boy with a big nose
who tries to get the attention of the girl he loves. A geek with
braces who can quote a thousand poets and yet he cannot express
his emotions. A man who has destroyed people. A hothead who
constantly gets into problems. A boy who cries himself to
exhausted sleep.
Her hand moves towards my chest. I turn my head. Our eyes meet. I
can see myself in her eyes. I swim in her ocean. I could swim for
hours without tiring. She does not move. Her fingers just keep
circling on my chest. She is mapping me. I lean the slightest bit
towards her. Tonight I'm a cartographer too.
----------------------------
We board the airplane. My hand is on the small of her back.
Resting on the circle of snakes that I saw for the first time last
night. It used to be another man's flag. A sign that he claimed
this place before me. It used to bother me. I am not bothered
anymore. I have replaced his flag with my own signs of ownership:
the small purple bruise on her thigh; the tiny indenture on her
left hip that matches my set of teeth so perfectly; the traces of my
tongue. Last night I wrote my name all over her. I got lost in the
golden forests of her hair. I found hidden, secret places. She is
mine. And I am hers. Underneath my creased suit, my imperfectly
starched shirt and ugly tie, I am marked by her. I am charted. Her
handwriting is all over me. I have been named by her. I am her
map, her book.
She told me last night that she did not pretend to know what I
wanted from her. She offered me love. It was all she could give
me. I took her hand, dipped her finger in the ink of her body
and asked her to write on me. It was all I wanted, all I could
ask. Her tears rained on my mountains and forests. Her tears
erased the old, old maps from my body and she began
re-inscribing, re-tracing landmarks.
We have window seats, but I care not for the landscape outside
the aircraft. I care not that we are heading for our apartments in
Washington. We have found our real landscapes, our real homes. We
are cartographers seeking no more.
---------------
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
"Mapping the Landscape" was inspired by a variety of sources that
I need acknowledge. The novels "The English Patient" by Michael
Ondaatje and "A Discovery of Strangers" by Rudy Wiebe - both
novels feature cartographers as main characters and cartography as
a main symbol. The wonderful poetry of New Zealand poet Allen
Curnow (I used a line from a poem of his) and the Caribbean Derek
Walcott - both poets are preoccupied with geography and
landscapes. The music and lyrics of Neil Finn. I have used a few
lines from his inspirational and sensual songs. He too is using
the landscape as a metaphor for the love between a man and a
woman. Finally, I need to thank the people who wrote and
encouraged me to keep posting my stories. Feedback *is* important.
And thank you, Niwhai, for being my trustworthy beta.
~ mullane@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk ~
AUTHOR: Tinka
EMAIL: mullane@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk (remove NOSPAM if replying)
CLASSIFICATION: MSR UST?, V
RATING: G
SPOILERS: Tiny one for 'Never Again'
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, nope siree.
SUMMARY: Unexplored territory leads to unsuspected roads.
NOTES: At the end of the story.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!!! I'd be a fool to decline.
-------------------
in the map of the world
go the twists of fate
- d. dobbyn
-------------------
The landscape in my dreams is like the body of a woman. I trace
the roads like I trace a woman's spine. Gently, I move down with a
feather light finger before I come to unexplored territory. This
is where my dreams break off, for this is no ordinary landscape
nor is it an ordinary woman.
In my dreams, she is a red-head. This corresponds with the forests
of golden leaves that my fingers run through. Sometimes, my hands
become entangled and I am lost. I am not frightened, because I am
lost in her. The dreamy landscape is friendly, yet dangerous. Its
seas have uncharted depths. I could drown or I could set sail.
Yet, when I'm with her, I do not care where I am falling.
My favourite site is a tiny grove, almost undetectable to the eye.
I know where it is. I have named it. It is right at the spot where
the neck meets the chest. Where the mountain becomes a field. I
linger in this tiny grove that I fool-heartedly have claimed as my
own, though I know others have been here before. I dream.
I want to claim everything as mine. I want to conquer and rule.
The landscape resists and leads me down unsuspected paths, and I
must acknowledge my defeat. She only has to look at me with her
bright blue eyes and I become the invaded territory. I am
colonized.
The landscape and the woman cannot be separated. They are one, and
yet they are different. The landscape is a dream landscape, while
she belongs to the realm of reality. I only know of the landscape
through the time of in-between when I'm neither asleep nor awake.
The woman belongs to my days.
I am sitting beside her wondering how to tell her of my dreams. I
want to reach out and trace the roads of her body. I want to dive
down into the pools of her soul. I wish I was less poetic. I feel
foolish and inadequate. She would laugh at me if I told her.
---------------------
It is a bright spring afternoon. One of those afternoons that
inscribes itself on your memory, as if your mind was made of
parchment and time a pen dripping with black ink. We are sitting
in comfortable silence outside a coffee shop in Buffalo, NY. It is
really too cold to be lounging outside, but she persuaded me. I
sit clutching my black coffee trying to stay warm. The wind is
blowing, the sun is shining and she is smiling. Her hair is all
messed up by the wind, her cheeks are flushed and as she turns
to look at me, her eyes are ever so bright blue. I am in love
with this woman.
She is sipping her latte as if she has no other care in the world.
In reality, we have to be at a crime scene in 30 minutes' time.
We have been called to Buffalo on short notice. Last night an
elderly woman discovered three bodies in her living room. They had
all committed suicide in what the police deemed a ritualistic
manner. One of the bodies had been identified as the woman's only
son. I suspect that the FBI's most notorious unit has been called
out here because of the so-called ritualistic aspect of the whole she-bang. We will soon know.
Soon Scully will be putting on her pale white rubber gloves and
start cutting up dead people. I will be looking at photos of
blood, death and decay. Right now, we are ordinary people sitting
in the sunlight of a cold, yet glorious, spring afternoon. She is
looking at the people passing us. I know she is playing her little
game of trying to guess what they do for a living. I wonder what
they think when they look at us in passing. Do we look like we
deal in death, destruction and conspiracies? I am supposed to be
the profiler, the psychologist - yet, I cannot look at us in an
objective way anymore. All I can see when I look at Scully is her
infinite warmth, and her stubborn strength. And when I look at
myself all I see is a man in love with her. I am two fools I
know.. for loving her and for not saying so to her.
A strange smile is playing on her lips as she finishes her latte.
We both rise and walk towards the police station. I am smoothing
her hair, she is trying to straighten my tie. I am too tall for
her and I gently bend my knees.
- You should have changed clothes, Mulder. Your suit is creased.
Her voice is soft and lightly teasing. We both know I've worn more
creased suits, had worse haircuts and sported more tasteless ties
than I do today. I suspect she just wants me to know that she has
noticed the way I look. Because she loves me, just as I love her.
I shrug with a goofy grin on my lips.
- It will get more creased in the course of the day, Scully. Why
bother?
She shakes her head with what she thinks is a stern look on her
face. In reality, it is just a soft, tender glow from her eyes
coupled with a tiny frown. A ripple in the sea. A fold in the
landscape of her body. I pull myself together, straighten up and
place my hand on her back. I'm marking my territory. And as we
walk into the police station together, we are one body for a brief
second. We cannot be separated. I am her, she is me. We are a
unit.
---------------
In old days it was easy to be a cartographer. All you had to do
was board a ship, carry some paper or parchment and arm yourself
with pens and bottles of ink. Simply by sailing in a new
direction, you would enlarge the world. Every morning when you
opened your eyes, you would lay eyes on new shores, new
coastlines, new seas. You would take your pen and draw the land on
your piece of animal skin. You would name the mountains, the
rivers and the forests.
Today everything has been named, labelled and categorized.
Everything has been defined in terms of longitude and latitude.
All travel is circumnavigation. Everything has been found.
There is no use for cartographers anymore. But her body is
still a foreign country that I desperately want to visit.
I want to inscribe my name on her skin. Use my tongue as pen
and write my name. "This is Mulder's Land". "This belongs to
Mulder". I do not like myself when I think this way. It
becomes too much of a power game. She becomes an object for
my desire. An object I can possess and lock up in the treasury.
But I want her to conquer me too. I want her to draw on my
skin, to find mountains and seas on my body.
It is midnight. We are going back to Washington tomorrow morning.
There was no case for us here. It was a waste of time. The sky is
overcast and the moon is nearly impossible to discover. I am
standing at the open window and I am shivering. I rub my arm and
discover goosebumps. Tiny stones on the smooth surface of a field.
Rocks on a beach. I hear her footsteps behind me, but I do not
turn.
- What the hell are you doing, Mulder?
Her voice is amused. She traces my arm with her finger. My muscles
tense briefly.
- You are cold. You have goosebumps on your skin.
Her voice is no longer amused. It is quiet, pensive. A finger
turns into a hand rubbing my arm. I close the window.
- What do you see when you look at me, Scully?
I turn my head and look at the tiny woman standing next to me. She
is wearing a big tee-shirt and pyjama trousers. She looks
vulnerable. I want to protect her. She is silent. I worry she has
taken my question to be vain or silly. Yet, instead of
wise-cracking, she takes me seriously. She looks at me -
carefully, deliberately and painstakingly. She remains silent for
a long time, and I look out of the window again. When she finally
speaks, her voice sounds strangely loud.
- I see my friend. I see my partner. I see understanding. I see
trust. I see tenderness. Despair. Joy. Intelligence. Loneliness.
The heart of a warrior. The soul of a healer. A fool. A knight. A
poet. I see a boy. I see a man. I see a son. I see a father. I
see the man I'd marry if circumstances were any different.
Her voice becomes a whisper when she utters the final words. I
remain looking out of the window. I am looking at my own
reflection. Her hand has not moved from my arm. Her touch scalds
me.
- Do you know what I see, Scully? Do you know what I see when I
look at myself?
- No..
Her voice is so quiet. So quiet that its implied feelings threaten
to break me.
- I see a fool. A jester. A clown. A clumsy boy with a big nose
who tries to get the attention of the girl he loves. A geek with
braces who can quote a thousand poets and yet he cannot express
his emotions. A man who has destroyed people. A hothead who
constantly gets into problems. A boy who cries himself to
exhausted sleep.
Her hand moves towards my chest. I turn my head. Our eyes meet. I
can see myself in her eyes. I swim in her ocean. I could swim for
hours without tiring. She does not move. Her fingers just keep
circling on my chest. She is mapping me. I lean the slightest bit
towards her. Tonight I'm a cartographer too.
----------------------------
We board the airplane. My hand is on the small of her back.
Resting on the circle of snakes that I saw for the first time last
night. It used to be another man's flag. A sign that he claimed
this place before me. It used to bother me. I am not bothered
anymore. I have replaced his flag with my own signs of ownership:
the small purple bruise on her thigh; the tiny indenture on her
left hip that matches my set of teeth so perfectly; the traces of my
tongue. Last night I wrote my name all over her. I got lost in the
golden forests of her hair. I found hidden, secret places. She is
mine. And I am hers. Underneath my creased suit, my imperfectly
starched shirt and ugly tie, I am marked by her. I am charted. Her
handwriting is all over me. I have been named by her. I am her
map, her book.
She told me last night that she did not pretend to know what I
wanted from her. She offered me love. It was all she could give
me. I took her hand, dipped her finger in the ink of her body
and asked her to write on me. It was all I wanted, all I could
ask. Her tears rained on my mountains and forests. Her tears
erased the old, old maps from my body and she began
re-inscribing, re-tracing landmarks.
We have window seats, but I care not for the landscape outside
the aircraft. I care not that we are heading for our apartments in
Washington. We have found our real landscapes, our real homes. We
are cartographers seeking no more.
---------------
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
"Mapping the Landscape" was inspired by a variety of sources that
I need acknowledge. The novels "The English Patient" by Michael
Ondaatje and "A Discovery of Strangers" by Rudy Wiebe - both
novels feature cartographers as main characters and cartography as
a main symbol. The wonderful poetry of New Zealand poet Allen
Curnow (I used a line from a poem of his) and the Caribbean Derek
Walcott - both poets are preoccupied with geography and
landscapes. The music and lyrics of Neil Finn. I have used a few
lines from his inspirational and sensual songs. He too is using
the landscape as a metaphor for the love between a man and a
woman. Finally, I need to thank the people who wrote and
encouraged me to keep posting my stories. Feedback *is* important.
And thank you, Niwhai, for being my trustworthy beta.
~ mullane@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk ~