Most of us long to "Be" but when the path gets too costly, or steep, we take solace in what we "Have." Remove the trappings of what we own and then what is the sum of us?
They were the survivors, abandoned by the allies who swore to protect, in...
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She had been amusing to him at first. Intoxicating even. However as the days passed the chains and bars of his close captivity had worn on him. Aran had also begun to wonder of his purpose here?
He had dined well considering his status as a prisoner, and was for the most part treated with respect even if it was of a curt kind. The golden warrior had become well aware the small woman with no more than the stature of a doll treated him like a possession.
Dahlia guarded her two little daughters closely from his gaze. Though he was to learn their names, Koemi meaning little laugh, who was only three, and Kokoa - love of the heart who was no more than seven years of age. Dahlia herself watching him constantly from afar with slit eyed scrutiny.
Though at times, mostly late evenings after the little ones were in bed and the intrusions of the day were past, she would deign to sit close to her captive and speak to him, while she sewed. Aran would watch the needle with mesmerizing accuracy puncture the rich silken fabrics and embellish them with fabulous color and design.
Dahlia fascinated him, her creativity and composure something he had not credited to a woman before. He had seen Maya fashion very serviceable garments, however this was something magical and way beyond anything he had witnessed from what he deemed an inferior woman's mind.
Part of him wished to treat her with a certain contempt that he had always shown for a female, as though she were some kind of a lesser creature, incapable of any kind of noble action or high thought. Though he found himself wary to openly do so.
The smell of incense drifted to him, however to his acute senses honed by years of hard survival it did little to dull the scent of her. Aran's mind wandering to places of carnality as he watched on through the bars of his prison.
Dahlia shifted restlessly as though well aware of her captive's intent, demurely covering with the red silk of her kimono, the accidentally inviting curve of a breast. Pinning back a strand of errant black hair that had somehow slipped the confines of the tight knot at the nape of her neck. Then continuing with the embroidery she had been so engrossed in. It was of a white fox in snow, on an ice blue background.
Dahlia would often speak quietly to him during this creative time by candlelight. In between sips of green tea and silent contemplation of her creations. She spoke of her husband Thorne, the man who brought her from Japan when she was no more than a teenager. She had revealed to Aran that she had feared him much at first, and that he had been before his death the leader of a vicious biker gang the Finks. Whose motto was proudly displayed on the men's leather jackets and in banners that hung about the compound stating 'Attitude Violence'.
She spoke of life in the compound at Thebarton in the inner city suburbs, the police raids, and the rival gang wars amongst the Banditos and the Hells' Angels. The shootings and the crime, of heroin busts and drug use. She would cease her labors on occasion to look ahead to a place it appeared only she could glimpse, then tell her captive of the long motorcycle rides into the unknown. Of the fear of the everyday folk as the gang rode into their quiet and remote little towns, bent on causing trouble.
