The Long Dreamed is a story vignette that is inspired by a Muse session I photographed in the bluffs of Iowa near the Mississippi River. My model did a wonderful job of conveying my vision and continued to inspire me for several months following the session. This little story vignette was also written with a piece of music in mind. Lord Huron’s The Night We Met played on repeat as I wrote this, so feel free to sit with this writing and these images with that song in your ear.
When I found her she was smiling. The slick cavern walls curved around the Wishing Pool and there at its heart she stood. I scrambled breathlessly into her lair. The chase was over.
My dreams had been filled with finding the woman who’d appeared to me night after night, the woman who had slowly dismantled my resolve to resist. I’d left everything behind to find her.
The dim light of sunset filtered through the chamber shaft, but the sun-gold rays were as cold as the mountain summit itself. It didn’t matter. Her smile stoked a fire in my chest that promised I’d be forever warm.The mountain I’d conquered to reach her had weathered me to the point I knew I was no longer the same man, but my desire was stronger than ever. My heart should have been beating wildly. Maybe it was. My world was in a hush of reverence for my triumphant discovery.
“No longer just in my dreams.” I murmured softly, splashing to her. The moon-silver dress she wore billowed against my legs despite the lack of breeze. Gooseflesh rose on my skin. Despite being so close that our bodies nearly touched, she radiated no heat. I reached out my hand and her frigid slender fingers wrapped around mine.
My siren parted her lips soundlessly. Her mouth opened to a deep darkness. A loneliness such that I’ve never known crept upon me like ice and her eyes were on me, alight with the same beacon I knew from my nightly visions. My breath caught in my throat, and then… an unearthly melody drifted from my lips, but… The voice was not my own.
In that fleeting moment I thought of the letter I’d left at home, folded carefully under my son’s pillow, promising that I would return with a worthy bride. My bride stood at last before me. She was winnowing the air from my chest. A torrent of wind rushed through me with her swan song. The voice that had haunted my nights had now turned mournful as my blood ran cold and air ripped from my lungs like a gale.
My legs buckled first. Pain shot through my body. Her grip on my hand became an iron vice and my skin quickly went ashen as I felt my life drain. The fire in her eyes blazed on, seeming to dance as the last hint of the day fled to leave only darkness. My siren smiled again as the world slipped from me.
“Thank you”. The flames danced in her eyes. Fervent lips brushed my forehead. Her flesh felt like a furnace on mine. Her voice was a rasp, getting stronger with every stolen breath. “Thank you”.
Her thanks rippled across the Wishing Pool as I gave my final breath.
