Brigit's Flame Week 2 - Quixotic
o/` "On the first part of the journey,
I was looking at all the life.
There were plants and birds. and rocks and things,
There was sand and hills and rings.
The first thing I met, was a fly with a buzz,
And the sky, with no clouds.
The heat was hot, and the ground was dry,
But the air was full of sound. " o/`
-- "A Horse With No Name" performed by America
Her roommate skipped an important criminology seminar in order to bring her the box and its engraved invitation.
“You'll be late for class,” Lauren, barefoot and chewing on the end of her pen, said from her sprawled position in the beanbag. Given the choice between sitting in furniture and lying on the floor, Lauren invariably chose the floor --- a fact which dismayed both her socialite mother and many of her schoolmates. Elfie didn't much care for the habit either, mostly because she always ended up stepping on Lauren's pens or tripping over piles of books, but she knew better by now than to attempt correcting the situation. Lauren simply became, by turns, intractable and stubborn or cheerfully insubordinate.
“You've missed yours again,” Elfie responded as she set the box on Lauren's bed. “You're going to fail the semester if you don't start attending classes. What will you do then?”
In a graceful blur of movement and swirling wheat blond hair, Lauren leaped up and pirouetted around the room. A tower of papers and textbooks slid across the hardwood in her wake. “I shall abandon this dreary academia and travel! I'll visit the Holy Land and ride across the desert on a camel. I'll dine on mansaf and drink tea with the sheikhs! Finally, I'm old and worn, blown by the desert sands into nothing, I'll return and write my memoires.” The blue, blue eyes twinkled almost fanatically. “People will gossip and speculate about my sanity and sexuality for decades to come.” She collapsed in a boneless heap on her bed, nearly crushing the package which Elfie had to duck in and rescue.
“Or,” said Elfie dryly, “you could see what someone sent you in the post. It came with some sort of invitation in that God awful Arabic script.”
“Let's have it, then.” With another grand gesture which nearly knocked her roommate over, Lauren wriggled her fingers imperatively. Elfie, too inured to Lauren's mannerisms to take offense, handed her the envelope.
A thrill of excitement accompanied by a sense of collision with destiny --- a kind of door opening to possibilities of which she had been only dimly aware --- as she examined the correspondence. Sealed with bright green wax bearing an imprint which read There is no god but God; Muhammad is Messenger of God, the paper had a coarse, fibrous texture beneath her questing fingertips. Papyrus, she surmised, or a high quality organic stationery. “The seal,” she informed Elfie in what her roommate had privately styled as her antiquarian aristocratic mode of address, “is associated with the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
“So you're a peasant turned princess?” Elfie joked but stopped upon seeing the expression on her friend's face. She had dropped the customary mask of fixed smile and determined good cheer. The pale face had gone slack and dreaming; her eyes held a pained loss and longing Elfie did not understand. It alarmed her. She fumbled the cupboard open in which she kept her private stash and poured a stiff shot of whiskey.
“I don't drink,” Lauren responded dully, shoving the glass away but the potent fumes seemed to have restored her wits somewhat. She reached for the bottle of water on her night stand and took a long swig. It had the salutary effect of restoring some color to her cheeks but didn't do much for her mood.
Elfie, who had never in their four years as roommates seen Lauren serious and moody, sat down beside her on the bed. Lauren didn't particularly like being touched, but Elfie placed her hand on the thin shoulders gone rigid with the effort of self control. “Want to talk about it?”
“It's an offer for an independent study in Saudi Arabia for a semester,” Lauren replied, smiling weakly. The lopsided smile grew broader, lighting her eyes. “I'd be staying with the royal family. It's signed by King Abudullah himself.”
“What?” Elfie stared at the invitation still in Lauren's hands but could not discern anything further, as she did not read Arabic. “Are you going to take it?”
“I don't know,” Lauren said and that same odd pain flashed back into her eyes. “I've always had a --- a longing, I suppose for Arabia and her cleansing deserts, for the simple and uncluttered lives of her people. And yet....”
“Don't be ridiculous! Of course you have to take this, it's the opportunity of a lifetime. Your graduating thesis would be given unparalleled authenticity. Why, I doubt they would even be able to find scholars qualified enough to judge it!”
The idea seemed to appeal to Lauren. She leaped off the bed with renewed vigor and gesticulated wildly as she paced the length of their small dormitory room. “You're right, of course! I shall and perhaps my observations may yet make a difference. I may succeed where others before me have failed.”
“Let's see what's in the package.” The unification of and rebuilding of the Middle East into an independent Arab world power was a passion which had captivated Lauren ever since she'd read her namesake's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Elfie, who had listened to these lectures before, did not wish to hear another. She hoped that the prospect of the gift within the package would sufficiently divert Lauren's attention.
They opened it carefully, making certain to preserve the customs seals which Lauren was so fond of collecting. Within, lying in pristine white folds like the sands of the desert itself, lay an abaya with gold embroidery. The small flowerlets glittered with tastefully applied beading and jewels.
“That looks like---”
“Robes intended for a wedding,” Lauren finished, once more using the superior scholarly tone which so irritated schoolmates and professors alike. “He means for me to be accepted as one of the family while there. I shall go,” she continued, her jaw jutting stubbornly. “This is a chance for me to do some real good.” Reverently she lifted the robe from their wrappings and put them on. When she had finished, she hunted beneath her bed for the ubiquitous pair of leather sandals she always wore. Gazing at her reflection in the mirror, she smiled...a real smile, not the sarcastic smirk she wore for the rest of the world.
“I do believe you will, Lauren of Arabia,” her roommate said.
“I despise that nickname,” Lauren said without any real rancor. It was a thing she'd lived with from childhood, when she first discovered her love of Middle Eastern culture and lore and been told that her very name had been bestowed to honor the achievements of T. E. Lawrence.
Elfie did not dare voice her real thoughts as she did not wish to cause one of Lauren's infamous temper tantrums. Tilting at windmills, Elfie thought with some regret. Such idealists rarely escaped unscathed from their ordeals --- T. E. Lawrence had returned from the Middle East a broken and beaten man --- but Elfie could hope that somehow, some way things would be different for her friend. An impossible dream, but if anyone can make it happen it just might be her.
I was looking at all the life.
There were plants and birds. and rocks and things,
There was sand and hills and rings.
The first thing I met, was a fly with a buzz,
And the sky, with no clouds.
The heat was hot, and the ground was dry,
But the air was full of sound. " o/`
-- "A Horse With No Name" performed by America
Her roommate skipped an important criminology seminar in order to bring her the box and its engraved invitation.
“You'll be late for class,” Lauren, barefoot and chewing on the end of her pen, said from her sprawled position in the beanbag. Given the choice between sitting in furniture and lying on the floor, Lauren invariably chose the floor --- a fact which dismayed both her socialite mother and many of her schoolmates. Elfie didn't much care for the habit either, mostly because she always ended up stepping on Lauren's pens or tripping over piles of books, but she knew better by now than to attempt correcting the situation. Lauren simply became, by turns, intractable and stubborn or cheerfully insubordinate.
“You've missed yours again,” Elfie responded as she set the box on Lauren's bed. “You're going to fail the semester if you don't start attending classes. What will you do then?”
In a graceful blur of movement and swirling wheat blond hair, Lauren leaped up and pirouetted around the room. A tower of papers and textbooks slid across the hardwood in her wake. “I shall abandon this dreary academia and travel! I'll visit the Holy Land and ride across the desert on a camel. I'll dine on mansaf and drink tea with the sheikhs! Finally, I'm old and worn, blown by the desert sands into nothing, I'll return and write my memoires.” The blue, blue eyes twinkled almost fanatically. “People will gossip and speculate about my sanity and sexuality for decades to come.” She collapsed in a boneless heap on her bed, nearly crushing the package which Elfie had to duck in and rescue.
“Or,” said Elfie dryly, “you could see what someone sent you in the post. It came with some sort of invitation in that God awful Arabic script.”
“Let's have it, then.” With another grand gesture which nearly knocked her roommate over, Lauren wriggled her fingers imperatively. Elfie, too inured to Lauren's mannerisms to take offense, handed her the envelope.
A thrill of excitement accompanied by a sense of collision with destiny --- a kind of door opening to possibilities of which she had been only dimly aware --- as she examined the correspondence. Sealed with bright green wax bearing an imprint which read There is no god but God; Muhammad is Messenger of God, the paper had a coarse, fibrous texture beneath her questing fingertips. Papyrus, she surmised, or a high quality organic stationery. “The seal,” she informed Elfie in what her roommate had privately styled as her antiquarian aristocratic mode of address, “is associated with the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
“So you're a peasant turned princess?” Elfie joked but stopped upon seeing the expression on her friend's face. She had dropped the customary mask of fixed smile and determined good cheer. The pale face had gone slack and dreaming; her eyes held a pained loss and longing Elfie did not understand. It alarmed her. She fumbled the cupboard open in which she kept her private stash and poured a stiff shot of whiskey.
“I don't drink,” Lauren responded dully, shoving the glass away but the potent fumes seemed to have restored her wits somewhat. She reached for the bottle of water on her night stand and took a long swig. It had the salutary effect of restoring some color to her cheeks but didn't do much for her mood.
Elfie, who had never in their four years as roommates seen Lauren serious and moody, sat down beside her on the bed. Lauren didn't particularly like being touched, but Elfie placed her hand on the thin shoulders gone rigid with the effort of self control. “Want to talk about it?”
“It's an offer for an independent study in Saudi Arabia for a semester,” Lauren replied, smiling weakly. The lopsided smile grew broader, lighting her eyes. “I'd be staying with the royal family. It's signed by King Abudullah himself.”
“What?” Elfie stared at the invitation still in Lauren's hands but could not discern anything further, as she did not read Arabic. “Are you going to take it?”
“I don't know,” Lauren said and that same odd pain flashed back into her eyes. “I've always had a --- a longing, I suppose for Arabia and her cleansing deserts, for the simple and uncluttered lives of her people. And yet....”
“Don't be ridiculous! Of course you have to take this, it's the opportunity of a lifetime. Your graduating thesis would be given unparalleled authenticity. Why, I doubt they would even be able to find scholars qualified enough to judge it!”
The idea seemed to appeal to Lauren. She leaped off the bed with renewed vigor and gesticulated wildly as she paced the length of their small dormitory room. “You're right, of course! I shall and perhaps my observations may yet make a difference. I may succeed where others before me have failed.”
“Let's see what's in the package.” The unification of and rebuilding of the Middle East into an independent Arab world power was a passion which had captivated Lauren ever since she'd read her namesake's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Elfie, who had listened to these lectures before, did not wish to hear another. She hoped that the prospect of the gift within the package would sufficiently divert Lauren's attention.
They opened it carefully, making certain to preserve the customs seals which Lauren was so fond of collecting. Within, lying in pristine white folds like the sands of the desert itself, lay an abaya with gold embroidery. The small flowerlets glittered with tastefully applied beading and jewels.
“That looks like---”
“Robes intended for a wedding,” Lauren finished, once more using the superior scholarly tone which so irritated schoolmates and professors alike. “He means for me to be accepted as one of the family while there. I shall go,” she continued, her jaw jutting stubbornly. “This is a chance for me to do some real good.” Reverently she lifted the robe from their wrappings and put them on. When she had finished, she hunted beneath her bed for the ubiquitous pair of leather sandals she always wore. Gazing at her reflection in the mirror, she smiled...a real smile, not the sarcastic smirk she wore for the rest of the world.
“I do believe you will, Lauren of Arabia,” her roommate said.
“I despise that nickname,” Lauren said without any real rancor. It was a thing she'd lived with from childhood, when she first discovered her love of Middle Eastern culture and lore and been told that her very name had been bestowed to honor the achievements of T. E. Lawrence.
Elfie did not dare voice her real thoughts as she did not wish to cause one of Lauren's infamous temper tantrums. Tilting at windmills, Elfie thought with some regret. Such idealists rarely escaped unscathed from their ordeals --- T. E. Lawrence had returned from the Middle East a broken and beaten man --- but Elfie could hope that somehow, some way things would be different for her friend. An impossible dream, but if anyone can make it happen it just might be her.