AUTHOR: RosDeidre
TITLE: ANTARIAN SKY
E-MAIL: RosDeidre@aol.com
RATING: PG-13
Couple: M/L
DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended with respect to Jason Katims, Melinda Metz, or UPN. Nor intended toward Cameron Crowe. Cough, cough. Hint, hint…though not too much of one!

Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
From John Keats’ ODE ON A GRECIAN URN


Frieze. A moment caught in time, figures in dance with one another, hand to hand, shadow to light. Ancient battles fought, long ago decided, and ever yet hanging in balance so long as sculpture remained.

A weapon lifted, a horse rearing, a moment lost in time.

An empire crumbling.

She’d stood in the British Museum and studied their antiquities collection, and she’d walked the grounds of the Parthenon. Alone…always alone. In her memories and recollections, it didn’t matter if Maria had flown cross Atlantic to tour with her on a Eurail pass. Or if some boy from her exchange program had asked to tag along to the museum.

In her remembrances, she was always detached, studying the ancient dramas, captured in stone—wondering how these great figures, mythological and immortal, still died such very slow deaths after countless years. Yet unlike Liz Parker, they weren’t quite alone. No, they were accompanied in death by the hands of artisans and builders, and students throughout the ages.

Frieze. A term she’d first learned in Art History 101 some eight years earlier. The term for decorative sculpture and ornament atop a building, like on the temples in Greece and Rome.

And for some reason, she dreamed it every night.

In her sleep, there was always the brightly dappled hillside, some place exotic like Athens or Rome. A crumbling building, ruins all around. Chunks of stone and pediments. Rocks and heat simmering in a desert mirage.

And then the frieze.

A ruler, servants bowing down, sometimes soldiers. Fluttering pages in open art history tomes…slides flashing on her college classroom wall. A kaleidoscope of kings and emperors, tragedy and ruin.

And always the strangest sky, like something from an impressionist painting, all pink and purple and dappled. Too bright. Unearthly.

Like now, as Liz lay on her back at the foot of the temple, arms spread out at her sides, unable to move, unfeeling. Just watching the clouds float quickly overhead in the purple sky. Too quickly, as the sun began setting with shocking ease, and yet still she remained immobilized. Her hands grew cold, her feet, numb and paralyzed.

And her face always ached with the same excruciating pain. Particularly her jaw as she wrestled to speak, but couldn’t so much as cry for help.

Help me, she moaned within her mind. Love me, see me…acknowledge my existence. Heal me.

Yet she remained alone, broken…and utterly unable to speak.

Liz slammed awake, the damp sheets tangled around her body. She clutched at her throat, working her mouth soundlessly. God, why was it always so real, the aching need to cry out? Her nightshirt was wet with perspiration, and her hair clung to her neck.

Liz rubbed her jaw, which ached a bit. Her dentist said she ground her teeth at night, and that was why she woke with the pain. Yet he couldn’t find any signs of TMJ or anything else to elicit such sharp facial sensations during her sleep.

She sank back into the mattress, pulling the blankets around her and wished the dreams would end. And wondered why they’d begun her freshman year in college, a snowy morning in Virginia…exactly one day after Max Evans’ death.

***
Liz sipped her gourmet coffee, pulling her jacket tight around her shoulders. Santa Fe winters were bitingly cold, with chilling winds that blew unexpectedly. She loved how the lights twinkled in darkness on the plaza, though, how fresh the winter air felt when it filled her lungs. Roswell had never been that way, with its dusty air and shuddering heat.

Liz had bought a small house just a few blocks off the plaza, which meant she could walk to her gallery in a matter of moments. A convenient fact, since she all but lived in her small downtown shop, and seemed to walk there most often when it was still dark. And only headed home long after sunset.

She glanced down at her watch, tightening her knit scarf around her neck and hunkered low over her coffee. Six-thirty eight a.m. Late again, she thought, laughing wryly as the plaza came into view. Her gallery was nestled into a far corner, probably the least glamorous art establishment in the heart of downtown.

Funny how things had turned out, how unlike what she’d always imagined. For years her father had offered her a role in the Crashdown, suggested she open up a second café on the other side of Roswell. But the idea of entering the family business had left her cold. How ironic then, that in the end she’d turned out to be more of an entrepreneur than her father had ever guessed—and now made a decent living not only running the gallery, but also representing artists for a living.

Her father could hardly contain his pride, bragging to all their friends in Roswell that his daughter had inherited the old Parker business acumen. And when she jetted to New York four times a year, he was the first one calling her hotel room every night, to ask how her meetings had gone down in Soho.

Liz reached the doorway to her gallery and paused, retrieving the key from her pocket with thickly gloved fingers. She couldn’t seem to clasp the key, as she juggled her coffee against her chest.

And that’s when she saw it, tucked neatly in the corner of the doorway, just propped against the glass door. It was wrapped in pristine brown paper, tied with a piece of plain string. Smallish, not too big, waiting like a simple calling card.

She scowled at it a moment, it was so thoroughly unexpected. She was accustomed to unsolicited submissions and queries, desperate artists clamoring for the attention of an agent. But those typically arrived by mail, Federal Express, and the notes by e-mail.

No one had ever simply left a package on her doorstep like this, some eerie talisman in the night.

Liz continued staring down at it, and wondered what kind of desperate artist would drop his original work at her gallery this way, with no guarantee that it wouldn’t be stolen or even just discarded without consideration.

But curiosity had the better of her, and slowly she knelt to retrieve it between her gloved fingers. The brown paper crinkled like dried leaves as she lifted it, and that was when she glimpsed the simple white card that was attached.

No artist’s name was listed, no phone number or address. Just one simple message.

Open Your Eyes.

****
"Alright, I know you left it." Liz cradled the phone receiver against her ear, while quickly typing out a reply to an email from a dealer in New York.

"I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about," Michael huffed from the other end of the line. He sounded grumpy and tired, even though she’d patiently waited until ten a.m., the earliest he was willing to answer her calls.

"Michael, this isn’t funny."

"I’m not doing anything!" He cried impatiently. In the background she could hear music echoing in his loft. "I’m serious, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about."

"I’m talking about the weird package you left down here in the middle of the night."

"I was sleeping in the middle of the night."

"That’s a first," she quipped. Michael typically painted until three or four a.m., then slept until at least ten.

"Dry spell," he grumbled.

"Should I be worried?"

"Thanks for the pep talk."

"It’s not my job to give you pep talks," she retorted, spinning in her chair when the small bell chimed over the door. An elderly couple, clearly tourists, entered the gallery. She lowered her voice, turning back toward the computer. "It’s my job to keep you on track. New York is expecting something from me in two weeks."

"Yeah, Liz, from you," he laughed, and she heard him take a swig of coffee. "That doesn’t mean from me."

"No, Michael, Leon wants three new paintings from you."

"You need to find some new talent," he offered softly. "You know why I’m in this…"

"For the money."

"Yeah, last I checked that was you, babe."

"Why did you leave me this painting?" She pressed again, knowing she sounded irritable.

"I’m hanging up," he said and before she could open her mouth to reply, the phone clicked.

She rotated in her desk chair, and eyed the package on the counter. She’d not opened it yet, not with how mysteriously she’d found it. Instead, she’d waited to call Michael, even though she knew he was far too boyish for this kind of thing, despite her determined questioning. He typically brought his paintings to the gallery with much fanfare, all exuberant for her praise and reaction. Leaving any of his work like that, especially so vulnerable to theft, simply wasn’t his style.

But she’d hoped somehow that he would offer an explanation, tell her it belonged to one of his artist buddies from town. She’d needed that kind of explanation because for reasons she couldn’t pinpoint, the package unsettled her. Like a quickly glimpsed dopple ganger on a train, someone who looked like a lost friend but wasn’t, the package unnerved her.

She’d watched for Max in crowds for eight years now. Eight years, traversing continents, moving in New York subway trains, walking through airports, she always sought him. And she’d done a double take on countless occasions, only to glimpse a pair of green eyes. Or a different nose or chin. Never Max, no matter how hard she looked for him. She looked, even though she knew he was dead, because she couldn’t stop looking. Old habits died hard.

So now the painting sat atop her large counter desk, neatly folded within the confines of brown wrapping. And somehow, it reminded her of those strangers on trains, men turning on Fifth Avenue…moments caught in time, full of possibility.

The package was smallish, most certainly a painting, she thought, as she shivered and reached for her knife.

Open Your Eyes, she thought, drawing in a tight breath, as slowly she sliced open the paper. It unfolded like a flower, revealing an explosion of color—purples and golds and dreamy pinks. A sky. A giant, panorama of an otherworldly sky.

Like something straight out of her dreams.