A Deep Look

Gabriella Barouch

"I have a favour to ask you.” Puck called through the door.

Eve opened it slowly and stood looking at the apparition, who once again, looked as real as herself. She felt a mixture of happiness to see him, and annoyance that it had taken so long for him to call by. Also, she was doubly agitated because she would very much have liked to prepare, but as it was she was wearing a very worn baby pink t-shirt and matching track-pants, and her favourite bright green sandals. Her hair was all over the place as she was only half-way through drying after taking a shower.

“You turn up after three months of radio silence and expect me to let you into my apartment, and then, give you a favour? Is that what you are calling it?” as Eve said this it occurred to her for the first time who the voice was on the radio call-in asking her the obtuse questions …

“No no, you have me all wrong,” said Puck a little irritated. Eve was berating him too harshly - and he really could not stand being talked at angrily - it pricked his skin from the inside. It crossed his mind fleetingly to throw a glamor over himself, or her, or both of them, but his days of Elvish romance were spent.

“I’ll go”, he conceded. This was all too hard. “I can put Granoldi up at my place.”

“Granoldi? who’s Granoldi?”, Eve asked, being surprised at the feeling she was getting by saying his name.

“Granoldi is a prince, trapped in a bear’s body”, Puck said, somewhat sarcastically. This was not lost on Eve, she already knew that as witty Puck could be, he could also be terse. Still, the name, echoed in her mind…

“Granoldi?” she asked, hesitating to shut the door on him.

He stared at her with his best green eyes. She in turn stared back. Sometimes a look, a deep look was more intimate than sex she thought to herself. But then again …

“That’s because it is with someone who feels your weight from the inside,” Puck said out loud. “I not only hear your thoughts, I understand them.”

A sensation in her stomach curled - there was an awkward, yet wonderful silence.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series