palace of winds

Last night I dreamt forever of a slim old dark-haired man with a tanned, wrinkled face who was arranging my hair. I sat patiently behind the front counter of his third-story office while he gathered small strands, twisting and braiding, planning the design into which he would weave bright yellow and orange carnations. He kept getting distracted, talking to the smooth-faced young woman whose hair was as black as his, and I watched out the window.

Sometimes it was day, and everything was brilliant and bright and blindingly white and there were people walking past through the snow, and a man who I watched slip and fall. And then it was night and everything out there was as dim as the room where I sat, all was black lit with pale orange and there were no stars. People rushed up and down the rickety old wooden steps and below us the bar/ballroom hummed to life, and those who were prepared for the party left in their elegant gowns and the man arranging my hair talked on to the other woman. I reached up to feel what had already been done, and he had lifted part of the hair from my temples and woven it back and joined it in the center of the back of my head, starting an intricate knot where the flowers would go. And I knew it would be beautiful, and I knew he would never finish it.