• ...The over-laden clouds, dark and heavy with the looming storm, raced sloth-like across ever-deepening skies...

    ...Wind frothed the harbor to a frenzy of tiny wave crests and peaks and sent mists air-born. A rapidly thickening saline-saturated fog skimmed over the chaos and strolled purposefully towards shore...

    ...Skyscrapers blinked out of existence at their uppermost heights, obliterating all thought of blue firmament and shining sun...

    ...Gusts that fluctuated in strength blew about pedestrians below. Their hair whipped and blinded them ceaselessly, while long coats and skirts worked to trip and hinder desperate shuffles for safety...

    ...Newspapers that had once tried to serve their owners as shields from the full force of the wind, or the drizzle that had begun to fall ruthlessly down upon them, now fought and wrestled for the freedom of flight. The ones that succeeded either cackled around in the air currents or aided free-flowing hair and long garments to further torment the bystanders...

    ...Few people still attempting to hike dingy urban sidewalks did so for previous purposes. Most were minds turning cogs of worry and on-coming stress, cursing sinister storms and how they had tracked mud through once-clean plans. Others floated calmly along with the wind, accepting it instead of trying to fight it, and letting fear melt insignificantly off their skin. You could tell who was who by their particular stride if you were an observer from an upper-story apartment window...

    ...Tira's hands glued themselves to the glass, flexing unconsciously at the touch of cold. Her breath came in short puffs, condensing on the pane and quickly clearing before the next heated burst of exhalation could hit. Her liquid-brown eyes roamed the potentially destructive scene outside her quiet world. Excitement stacked high in her subconscious; her fingers tapped the window sporadically and convulsively. As her attention flicked more and more fleetingly over streets and skies, the back of her mind began itching. She'd have to give in and scratch soon, to let the images explode...

    ...Sighing, she dropped her vigil on the now-thundering city, and dragged herself to fall like dead weight onto the couch. The urge to paint was there, but the will seemed non-existent. The perfect scene to an epic natural disaster lay before her and still she couldn't bring herself to press brush and paper together. She couldn't bring herself to create harmony in disaster with ink.

    ...How utterly frustrating.

    ...Slowly, she ran the fingers of one golden-brown hand through the death trap of her hair; slowly so as not to upset the jungle of chocolate vines that fervently attempted to strangle her. Eyes closed, brows crinkled, she thrust her head back in hopeless annoyance...

    ...but ended up throwing her head, hard, into the armrest. Fingers already positioned over the pain, ripping out deep-seeded roots as they shot to the point of impact, she grappled her way up from the couch and stomped sock-footed into the kitchen. One-handed, she flipped on her automatic kettle and prepared a homey mug for a soothing cup of hot green tea and honey. Just the thought warmed her up and relaxed her hunched shoulders. Still one-handed, she rubbed her aching blades and stiff neck, trying to alleviate the stress of deadlines and publishing companies from her muscles. Only seconds passed before she gave up and resolved to let the tea work its magic instead.

    ...The kettle whined and hissed, sending up enough condensed steam to add a ripe flush to her face, and she poured its water into the awaiting cup. As tea stirred and swirled around clouds of quickly dissolving sugar, above the golden undercurrent of slower dissolving honey, the smell of peace and contentment wafted from the surface and hit her eager nose with a sigh. Dreamily, she glided to her small, modern, mahogany kitchen table and burrowed into a matching cushy chair. Her whole body responded to the call of the tea, and she leaned forward over the table to better feel the warmth emanating from it. Her nose came close to another window and hit a conflicting pocket of air at the tip, at once frigid from the glass and hot from the steam, but she was too comfortable to be bothered and closed her eyes to the fact.

    ...When she felt that the mug was cool enough to grasp for longer than a few moments, she slowly opened them back up. Peeking through a vale of long raven eyelashes, she noticed the curlicues the steam made as it drifted silently from the cup...the patterns it made as it condensed on the pane...and her mind began to itch again. To distract herself, she faced her tea, but the beauty and richness of color that awaited her desperate eyes only stunned her into stupefaction. The longer she stared, the more her sight reeled in on itself, until only a part of her was really seeing the cup at all. The rest was frozen in a matrix of possible images she'd seen within, and how the curlicues swirled in symmetry with them...

    ...Snapping herself out of virtual paralysis, she rushed across hard-wood floors on slipping feet towards her studio...or rather, her half-bedroom, half-studio...to her easel. There an oversized water-paint pad had been propped, and her fingers dashed along her hoard of supplies and brushes in search of its matching tools as she threw herself into its stool. For the next hour or so, as the levels of storm-induced darkness deepened outside yet another window, throwing shadows that grew out of corners and open doorways over walls and ceilings, she exploded. She created harmony and magic within wild flings of runny paint-dripping brushes and excited strokes.

    ...When she felt the itch was thoroughly scratched, she dropped her tool unceremoniously onto the floor, not caring that it created a stain on a nearby area rug. She lifted herself from her stool, stretched as luxuriously as any feline, and returned smugly to the kitchen table where her mug was still waiting...

    ...and apparently cold.


    whee