The stone felt smooth against the fabric of his near white pants. The blousy material allowed for a comfortable cushion between his legs and the rock slab on which he sat motionless. His feet were bare and placed above his knees, folded, bottoms faced out, relaxing their arches. He felt it with his body; the sounds of the day felt naked and warm, he felt everything, everywhere, like it was a piece of him, his flesh. There was texture and substance to it. His mind was clearing as he took in the reality around him – knowing it. He exhaled naturally. A slow, sturdy inhale, the color began to bleed out of everything. The courtyard, the sky, the birds, the veining plants, the ground beneath him were melting inside him… all fell inside as though they were a liquid being swallowed. The man’s far eastern features were placid. His light, tan skin unwrinkled, almost child-like, youth stretched out hairless over his body. Breathing passed. His chest heaved in and out slowly, a tide waxing and waning. His heart patted silently against his frame, kissing sweetly. Then, there was nothing – nothing but the stone column standing in the center of what was the courtyard. The two sat in the black void. The lustrous, white and black marble pillar rose firmly up from the ground and reached at least twelve feet in the air, its robust circumference replete with countless carvings; every surface covered by etchings and details of the finest quality. Great dragons spiraling around each other, one flying up and the other flying down, creating a double helix of delicate scales, claws and fangs. Tigers stalking, herons standing in reeds, flowers great and small, all in exquisite replication, spilling over the breadth of it. The base of the column carved in such a way that it looked as though it were a tree rooting itself to the ground from which it sprang while the top held a large sphere roughly five feet in diameter. It held its place by water spraying with geyser like force but the weight held it rotating, spinning, a mockery world. In its center, on the side that faced him, there was a quarter sized flat square placed in perfect center of a circle that was slightly recessed from it though equally flat.
The light, radiant light that permeated the man, his whole, and the stone column drained and then suddenly, severely focused upon the man’s face as his features were a crystal and from them shone through a beacon. He was still. His bald, smooth head sat atop lean muscular shoulders. His strong arms rested as though they were floating in the air above his knees as he sat lotus. His fingers held together, forefinger to thumb on either hand as the backs of his wrist rested delicately against his abdomen. His chest inhaling and exhaling, lobbying the air in circular motion, heaving without moving the remainder of his body – his posture was perfection and grace like sails catching then losing the wind.
His body willed itself to rise. He was falling in reverse. His face remained perfectly calm, nearly sleeping and still, his hands not moving nor did his posture change while he rose. His movement proceeded now bending toward the pillar. His legs unfurled beneath him when he reached waste high until they touched the ground. They hit running. His speed increasing as his left hand lifted back and arched slightly above his head as though he were fencing without foil. His right arm stretched out with his hand flatly facing up toward the sky. He thrust across the distance, blurring, and his feet in a state of applause against the cool, unseen ground until he reached his target. His eyes opened as though they had never closed. His pupils covered his eyes almost completely. His right hand flipped and he tenderly pressed the flesh of his forefinger against the small square as his body halted perfectly. His skin touched only but barely against the frigid, moist stone. He firmly whispered, “Sand.”
His hand retracted from the object and matched the lowering opposite arm behind him to clasp tightly as he bowed at the column, keeping his placid eyes upon it. He backed up a distance equal roughly to the height of the object and watched as he stood upright and composed his hands in closed fists behind his back in a sturdy stance.
The column’s sheen faded, uniformly becoming course the way that flour settles upon the shining face of children helping to bake. The hourglass had been turned upside down, the marble dissolved. The sand poured out upon the stone blocks on which it stood – as though it suddenly realized that had been defying gravity, it careened in upon itself. In moments, the column in its entirety now lay like a small dune in the middle of the courtyard. The light from the sky shone through to it. In a dusty cloud where rested atop the mound laid a book. The man’s eyebrows rose and he blinked a single time, revealing some emotional reaction for the first time as his pupils regained their appropriate colors and proportions. The next moment, his surroundings to had returned as though they had fallen down upon him from the sky. He regained composure and walked over to the edge of courtyard where a linen cloth laid spread out. The crisp white fabric was piled three layers deep.
The man’s eyes closed again. His hand ascended as though he were holding something in the air just above his head - arm trembling slightly. Still facing the linen his other hand lifted and thus so did the material at his feet. The worn leathery book, still dusty from the sand glided out of the sand pile, sand falling from its cover as water would from glass, through the cloud and past his right shoulder, laying itself into the cloth. His left hand moved, his fingers pinching at the air and arching back and forth until the cloth perfectly covered the book. The other hand move as though to grab the hanging package. The left hand moved again and a burlap sack filled with long white, blue tipped feathers came into view, its mouth open and ready to receive the fabric envelope. He thought of the feathers, almost an afterthought, a nice touch. The feathers would give the bag girth and fill it out to look more like laundry than treasure. The man reached out for the back and pulled tight the draw string once he’d grasped it. He stretched down and picked up the delicately folded long black silk shirt and put it on and slid the bag onto his shoulder.
The man raised his hand again and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed off the walls but deadened as it bounced from the pile of sand. As he made his way through the arch that lead into the courtyard from the far end, a wind howled past him as he exited the area and blew the sand level around the courtyard.
