"Hell! And I thought poets were..." was the normal reaction, and not without reason. Poets are not a rare specimen; but when they come in the shape of Mary Jane, they tend towards a definite uniqueness. Poets don't usually have an attractive blend of luring blue eyes, long golden hair, and the sort of symmetry that makes it so the optic is not the only 'nerve' that receives a convulsive 'jerk' when they step into view. Mary Jane would call herself a ballad in sonnet's clothing; which, in the language of the sane, means she was outwardly beautiful, refined and sophisticated; but actually a plain girl with a fervent, partisan interest in the simpler things of this world.
Mary Jane's life was an almost incompatible amalgam of wild, nocturnal gaiety, and passive daytime solitude and meditation. She had her friends; but they were like bats, clinging crazily upside-down to her company at night; but flying away blindly. silently, unnoticed during the day. Love, to Mary Jane, was no more than a poetical explanation for an emotion she had never experienced herself, but felt necessary to explain the motivation behind some of the behaviours of the human being.
'Love,' she would say, 'is supposed to be something that helps you forget the regrets of the past, but I have no past; I have no future. Scratch the thin skin of my existence and you will find nothing beneath. It's like bursting a balloon by scratching its surface with a needle; or lifting the eyelid of a blind man. The emptiness of the eye-socket represents the meaninglessness of my past; the purposelessness of my future. I am the present personified!' Her friends could not fathom this reasoning, nor was it required of them. Friendship was merely another trait of behaviour which could be explained by a psychologist's formula, which could be poetically dissected in the abstract; which could be tolerated.
Mary Jane never wrote poetry about her nightlife. Nor could she. The essence of poetry is inspiration and experience, and she found no inspiration in the jig-saw world of 'night-owls'. In any case, there was no time for anything but enjoyment. In this world of neon lights; of flashing diamonds and emeralds and rubies and sapphires which dripped like myriads of snared rainbows from graceful feminine features; of corpulent old men seeking again the pleasures of their youth; of handsome young men seeking the pleasures of their corpulent elders; of money; of luxury; in this world of high-society, Mary Jane - the poet - was dormant. This was the Mary Jane with the glass of Riesling in one hand, and five (tolerated) male fingers entwined in the other. This was the Mary Jane who savoured the throbbing, almost tangibly vibrant atmosphere of nightclub life. But this was only half of Mary Jane.
Her other world was the world of nature - her daytime world. In these realms, far from life's ostentatious reality, Mary Jane was alone with herself, with her mind, her poetry. It was her long walks through the dawn mists which shrouded the verdant landscape of forest and mountain and leaf-laden stream that bound her mind in meditation, and placed inspiration where a husk of inert nothingness had existed. Now it was her Nature, and her nature to write about it. No longer, was there an artificial rainbow of fine-cut jewellery, but the original masterpiece confined a thousand times over in its own dew-frame; no longer, the unnatural odour of Chanel No. 5 and 'after-shave', but the pure freshness of cedar, and pine, and autumn leaves; no longer fur coats to set off stiff upper lips and noses held high, but fur coats infinitely more beautiful on the backs of humbler, more diffident animals rich in life; no longer the overpowering attraction of monetary values: for to be close to nature was to own a lease of the world. Such was the spark which produced the poetry.
These, then, were the two worlds of Mary Jane. This was her life. One world was hers by inheritance, the other through heritage.
It was only to be expected that Cian would create the necessity for a radical change in this sort of life; especially considering that Mary Jane had already diagnosed herself as being in love with the man. She had begun to realise that she did have a past; and perhaps even a future. What is more, she was finding that this new emotion was not helping to forget the regrets of her past, but actually creating them (for she had had no past). Nevertheless, these changes in Mary Jane's life seemed to be for the better, and very soon she had her own little artificial rainbow on her third finger, left hand.
Strangely enough, she had not met Cian in a corner of that hectic nocturnal stage-play in which she acted, without being any character in particular; but in the world that had been only hers and Nature's. He could appreciate what she saw in her natural wonderland; and she loved him for this, if nothing else. It was paradoxical, in a sense, that their common interest should divorce their happiness. It was more than obvious that she, in particular, was dissatisfied with the circumstances.
Mary Jane's death came as a shock. Apparently, she had persuaded Cian to take her on a walk. After resting a while, Mary Jane had told him she was going on a little farther; and that she would be back in a short time. Having become mildly concerned about her failure to return, Cian set out to find her - and find her he did. Firstly he came across her clothes, folded neatly in a little bundle next to an enormous granite boulder, and, on top, a letter addressed to him. Not bothering to read it then, but certainly puzzled by what he had found, he pocketed the letter and scaled the boulder. There, on the other side, he found Mary Jane's naked body floating among the reeds of the clear-blue stream which she had so often admired.
In a confusion of despondency and frustration, Cian recovered from the shock and read the note aloud:
My dear Cian,
Below are a few verses from a poem I wrote at this very place just a few short weeks before I met you. I called it 'Now or Never'.
'Now pools of crystal placid lie
Among the jagged rocks;
Now cascades canter cadently
Down to listless lochs.
Now seas of emerald bend and wave
Lapped by the lilting wind;
Now dusty roads lasso the hills
But fain would lag behind,
Never let it fade away from sight,
This existence so intense and bright.'
Believe me, this intense, bright existence has been fading from my sight ever since I met you. Don't blame yourself. I realise it's all my fault. Had I realised my past, I am sure things would have turned out wonderfully for both of us; but I didn't, and probably couldn't. You will have noticed the onomatopoeia and alliteration in those verses I have quoted for you: and I want you to know that their sound does echo the 'sense' of my life. Everything, every moment of my past life has been an image, an impression, a glimpse, which was enjoyable while it lasted; but forgotten and meaningless when it
that's it. that's it. I'm done. time's up anyway. thanks for reading. or clicking through. there's no good ending - don't bother.
