The car continued moving along with the peaceful night. No sounds of crickets. The surroundings were in total benign rest. Jasmine didn’t move her gaze. She felt a little bit drowsy and the bile in her pancreas was moving upward to her throat seeing the motion of the surrounding area. Her head sickened. She eyed the road. The car changed direction to the orient entering a wide bridge. It was a fine architecture braced in strong marble metal pillars.
“WELCOME TO THE TOWN OF LAZURITE”
A poster beside the right shaft of the bridge was pinned.
Below were masses of waters driving its current towards the wide seas. She looked at the rearview mirror and saw the vanishing moonlight, still heading towards them. It loses a bit of its luminance. Every ray it stroke made it dimmer, fainter, and murkier.
The broad blanket of skies with floating myriad stars was slowly replaced by a lazy hazy dim troposphere. The evening breeze was relatively calm, but the skies had nothing on it, only the roaming mixtures of gases in the air.
“Mama! Mama!”
A young little girl dressed in a black nightgown went rushing towards her mother, sobbing and whimpering in apprehension.
“What happened?” She brushed the droplets of tears in her child’s cheeks.
“Dianna is gone! She is out to be found! Somebody killed her!” She exclaimed in mixed emotions— fear, grief, longing, and anger.
Her mother let out a minute laugh drying her tears. She stood frozen.
“Mama, you are a murderer! You killed Dianna! Aren’t you? Mama, you’re bad!”
She cried in confusion and dismay. And ran to the bed, sheathed herself under the blanket, and remained mourning.
“Shhh…Hush darling.” Her mother paced towards her bed cradling the little girl in her arms as she hides beneath the covers.
“You let go! You are not Mama! My mama is not a criminal!” Her soft tiny cat-like voice rouse out from below the blanket.
She shook her head while squeezing her body.
“I—” her words were cut.
“Dianna isn’t dead.”
She felt relieved hearing her Mama’s gentle mouthpiece— she laid silently.
“Dianna is only resting. She’ll come back again.”
She carefully rubbed the strands of her daughter’s hair which peeped from hiding on the covers. Those words calmed her, making her get out from hiding. She sat beside her Mama.
“Then where she is?”
Her eyes twinkled in curiosity and interest, meeting her mother’s eyes.
“Hidden beyond the kingdom of clouds. Just like you, her bed is the cotton of the sky.”
She used her forefinger to tap her little innocent darling on the nose.
“But why?” She asked bewildered.
Her eyes were sparkling with the desire to hear more about the moon goddess she believed to be realistic.
“She needs rest. She’ll come back soon, very soon. Now, have a rest that you and Dianna may the same— resting.”
She smiled and kissed the forehead of her portable baby.
“Goodnight.”
She stood off the bed starting to leave.
“Good night Mama.”
She smiled without turning back hearing her daughter’s greeting before it dunked to sleep.
That’s a photo of a long ago. Jasmine looked at the rearview mirror for the second time. A drop of moisture was spotted at its center which she anticipated that maybe later before, they came up and bumped some moist leaves. Millions of shining lanterns in the heavens forming structures together with the pale yellow crescent moon could be seen. She inhaled renewing the air in her lungs, although the air circling inside came out from the fresh cold air conditioner.
“We’re here.”
In the middle of the growling thunders in her chest, a baritone voice prevailed. It tickled on her ears like tiny droplets of water molecules. Her skin could still sense the irrigated cool frigid humid sweats— no longer only from the forehead, but the diminutive bits opening in her porcelain face opened its gate releasing those chilly saline moistures from her bare skin.
Thick inhalation; heavy breathing; chest pounding. Her eyes opened in an instant— widely opened as if she woke up in a possession of something. It was a dark nightmare—very dark.
The street light from the distance swayed as the evening glacial breeze went circling. She could feel gelid at the back of her neck. It was a sensation in a horror spooky scene. It flickered dull radiance letting some beam of dampening illuminance enter inside the car void of dimness.
She heard a sound of a thick sigh beside her. The engine crunched for a stop. They were in the interior of somewhere. She glanced at the clear window. Dark tall grasses welcomed her eyes. The moon was still there, glowing duller and duller.
No single noise was heard. The serenity of the surroundings added to her somnolence. Out of the thick gloaming grasses, her eyes snatched minute movements, enough to make the grasses dance beneath the blanket of stars. She glared at its trench, eyes were squinted but fully awoke without blinking. The pair of black contractile aperture in the iris of her squinty eyes stiffed as these recognized the source of the movement. The motions sheared electrifying the grasses.
A brown squirrel came out from the grasses. It ran across the front of the car towards the other side of the street. She sighed in comfort. A bump pitched from the back. She glanced beside her. The driver was of nowhere. He was not at his seat while the door of the car at the driver’s seat was halfway open. She concluded him to be pulling the things at the back of the car.
She opened the window and rested her head at its frame waiting for the stranger driver to finish heaving the luggage. The cold breeze kissed the center of her forehead formulating the tiny strands of black straight hair at the top of her forehead to gently waggle. Such a delicate night.
She was about to close her eyes again when the man spoke.
“Ms. Jasmine. Ms. Jasmine.”
The hollow baritone voice postponed her eyes from closing.
“You may now get down,” he uttered calmly.
He deliberately pulled the door. The soaring night wind enveloped her body. She felt chilly even more than the effect of the air conditioner.
She didn’t respond and tiredly unbuckled the seatbelt hugging her.
She gradually took feet on the cemented ground. He slammed the door to close and move towards the things. The rattling cold winds seemed to aid every footstep she propelled.
She sensed him waiting with the baggage. His tall lean slender shadow glowed in the darkness.
As Austin realized that she was closed to him, he twisted back his body and started walking forward quitting no words.
Meanwhile, Jasmine’s throat jerked, craving to say something but ended up in total profound silence. He crafted huge tall heavy footprints. He carried all three bags together giving no clue of uneasy feeling. One was the backpack geared at his back, a traveling bag hung on his left shoulder, and luggage on his right hand. All were blacks, even the person carrying those things was fitted in a black outfit—a black coat that scowls every time the street lights whacked, black shades which made him look like an agent or a cold-blooded serial killer, black Khaki pants, and a pair of black shoes with black woolen gloves on both hands.
It was a long walk, almost five minutes. She began wondering why he parked the car too far when we they were walking in a wide inactive street.
They moved to the west side of the street and entered the city.