House of Gold
Vanilla light ignites in the corner of her room and she, awake now and poised at her bed’s edge, studies the bold beacon that hails her like one unnerved by the beauty of a child born with one blue eye, one green. Far to the east, the frankincense trees lift their gnarled limbs in gestures of stoic repose. Slashed, they shed resinous tears that harden like scars on jagged wounds. The fires are already stoked whose steam will coax perfume from milky soft gum. In her room, the girl gathers herself for the onslaught of her affirmation. The house begins to shrink around her as she rises, crosses toward the white eddies streaming in the darkness, and kneels. Earth labors to bring forth gifts and the room swells with the scent of lemon and vanilla and bitter smoke. But the girl has no grandiloquent gestures, only the openness of her face still rapt by the overshadowing beacon and the stillness of hands resting on her midriff while she awaits the golden change within.
--Robert Meade
A transplanted Bostonian now firmly rooted in New York, Robert Meade lives in Mohegan Lake in Westchester County with his wife and three children. He received the Wordweaving Award for Excellence for Daily Bread: Seven Days to a Healthier Soul. His short fiction has appeared online in Apollo’s Lyre, BartlebySnopes, and The New Flesh, as well as in print media such as Guideposts and its subsidiary, Angels on Earth. His poetry projects have appeared in EJ, MAGISine, and Sol Magazine. This is his first appearance in Dappled Things!
