Maudlin music and anything less than red linen made for soft people she felt; yes felt, which was beyond knew and just before faith.
In oneself.
Her red, the blackish kind, hung in curtains and blocked out the sunlight opening only to rainy days. Contentment blocked the wants of the world.
The world bloomed red in small startling places and she searched for the sear and pucker of the color in the dead of winter.
This proved effective in drawing her attention away from the doggish way he looked upon her. He had a spaniel she liked and wished was hers.
But he wasn’t hers (the spaniel) the spaniel was his, but she ignored that fact.
Well sheltered within the stonewalled cottages described as farmhouses and which stood as manor houses they lived their lives.
The walls encompassed them and there they searched for red and a chance; she in hers him in his.
The spaniel was immortal and sighed often.
Magicians, outlawed and not allowed through the gates, directed witches to fly over their stone dwellings spelling out smokey threats over the sky.
The breeze, constant and often stiff did away with their threats by sunset so the lack of fear thwarted any sense of time and the idea of rushing headlong into passion.
What could an immortal spaniel do but sigh?
He (not the spaniel but the man who could waltz perfectly) thought of tempting fate with this or that bauble of love but without the magicians and witches no ruby red stone could be obtained to move her.
In this stonewalled place he only had his merit and his face. He was determined to surprise her with a perfect waltz later.
A curt nod only she gave him when they met upon the cobbled street. She, always with her eye on the corner of a stone building looking for red and wishing the dog was hers instead of his.
What could he do? Learn to dye the world red?
Understand her? No, that’s when love fled.
Then one autumn’s day their eyes met over the scarlet rose of fall. Embolden he walked to a stranger’s garden gate and bent his head to smell the flower and block her gaze.
He turned to see her staring out upon the horizon.
“Stay,” he said, “and the dog will dance until you see the famous scarlet sunset.”
The dog appealed to her, twitching red orange sparks around his silky long ears.
She petted the dog and watched the sun heat the earth which caused the wind that brought the clouds all pink and red.
Clasping her waist he whirled her round, and the dog barked and gamboled about their feet.
And they built a stone terrace that connected their stone houses and invited the neighbors to watch the sunset pink and blue and green and silhouetted spaniel dogs and autumn’s roses red.