The first time they meet

Rough Outline

This is a scene in which Prince Adan and Cecelia are first introduced. It’s unfinished, and you’ll see that I just wrote “prince” instead of Adan, because I hadn’t yet decided what to name him.

An intricate mandala mosaic pattern on the floor was covered by a deep red and midnight blue Persian rug. The rug itself was the size of a small room, but centered in this room with a chaise and armchairs with button tufted leather cushions on it. He perched like a bird at the end of the chaise, wanting to relax but ready to spring up. He did not want to appear nonchalant. As he looked at the portraits painted of frowning men, at least they seemed to frown to him as their eyes followed him into the room,  prince heard people approaching. When they were just outside the door they spoke.

    “Cecelia, do present yourself well now. Be a good girl and your father will be pleased.” The voice was stern, and high pitched in an effort to sound cheery.

    “Yes, mama,” she sighed, “Maybe I will like him after all. Do you think he will be handsome?”

    “Oh, my sweet……

    He heard nothing more. The sound of Cecelia’s voice struck his heart like a bell resonating to the note it was tuned to make. To his surprise, he reached up and clutched his heart; it was like glorious pain, the ache to know and be known, the anticipation pulling his heart apart as if these few seconds, waiting for this brief conversation outside the door, was an eternity of grief.

    The door knob clicked, he jumped up a little too fast and his toes lifted off the floor. This made him stumble as he moved towards the door to great his bride.

    His head spun as the blood stayed down and his body rose. He was unable to catch his stumble, turned and landed in the armchair, arms splayed out over each over stuffed arm.

    When Cecelia entered all she could see were his arms draped over the chair arms, hands hanging slack. Coming around to the front it appeared that he lay slouching, half asleep, legs extended in front of him awkwardly.

    Adan tried to spring back up, but his head was still swimming.

3 thoughts on “The first time they meet”

  1. I wasn’t sure if I really like the paragraph starting with “He heard nothing…”. It took me a couple of reads to figure out why i wasn’t liking it. I think you were trying to hard in describing the feeling but I not sure even if that is it.

    The paragraph starting with “His head spun” I was having a hard time understanding the blood stayed down and body rose…that didn’t work for me either. Sorry.

    Good start to the intro to them meeting.

    Reply
    • don’t apologize! And don’t forget that this is rough outline. I am posting these stories without having reread them myself. Your comments will be very helpful when I do go back and rewrite them.

      Reply
  2. “The rug itself was the size of a small room, but centered in this room with a chaise and armchairs with button tufted leather cushions on it.”
    Use the word room twice here, didn’t work for me. Maybe a bit more descriptive of the size of the area the rug is in may be what you’re going after?

    Reply

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