Gates to Another World

The story was like nothing anyone else could tell her. It was not so much a story, but a panoramic view of another world. He described the earth and the grass and the sky as if they were the Grecian gods, always at odds and bickering but maintaining a perfect world somehow. He spoke of the weather like animals and animals as if they were rainstorms or waves on the ocean, to where they became forces of nature rather than mere beasts. His words, smoothly sliding from between his full lips like a warm river of a painter's brushstrokes, melted away the dingy grays of London and bathed everything around their two figures in rays of imagined sunlight. His words were so rich, and so fantastic but at once so tangible, that their mere presence could almost distract the mind from pain or even from thought. And the curious thing was, there was nothing magical about them. It was merely in the way he spoke, the way he crafted words together, and perhaps in the exotic accent he could not rid his voice of.

 He was so awash in the memories he related to the frail girl in his arms, he hadn't even noticed that they had passed from the cramped back alleys of London out onto the wider dirt roads on the edge of town. The enchanting stream of words was interrupted as he sighed happily.

"We're very close now, Dahlia," he said with obvious relief. "Just stay with me a bit longer." He looked at her with concern, as he suddenly recalled how long it had been since he had last really checked on her.