The Pleasure Thief

She reveled in the palms and their shadows dancing on the concrete beside her feet. In the gentle sigh and insistent suck of the translucent sea. In the gradual drain of the story streaming its way out of her, little by and little and day by day. All was well and all was right and all sat patiently and pleasantly and exuberantly in its ever and never before ordained site.

Her Heart might fly away, might forget to stay heavy enough to be Earth instead of Sky. Might make it Home and remind her again what Home was like. Wasn’t this what Home was like: Easy peace, clean warmth, featherlight bright?

And then, once again, in the instant she turned the Key that might her to Home bring, there, there, ever there, was the Pleasure Thief. Stealing in to screech of all that was not at all well and not at all right. The Pleasure Thief, as expected in his arrival as day darkened by night. A gross wash of impatience and pain and dull-ity churned in her like water spinning into a drain, like all the debris swept and swirled along filthy streets by an acid rain.

Well, the more she knew him, the less scared she need be of him. And she knew him well. For the more she turned the Key to Home the Peace Bringer furnished, the more violently the Pleasure Thief snatched the Key and rattled the still-closed door to mock her. They seemed to go together, this Bringer of Peace and this Pleasure Thief.

She should have known the Pleasure Thief in would sneak, even to this Paradise shown her by the Bringer of Peace.

After all, maybe his visits were just to remind her: how sweet Light and how welcome Peace! How hard to treasure them without threat of a Thief!