During all of dinner the singing went on upstairs, and no one said a word. That's because no one heard it except for young Jonah. Not because everyone else was deaf, but because they were simply oblivious to it.

An unknown tongue draped across the dining table. For every night for the past week, just before dinner, a haunting voice would creep down the stairs and into the being of the boy. Mhairi's foreign words hung in the air. Mysterious. Ethereal. Jonah recalled the moment his family went to pick Her up at the airport. She was supposed to be an ordinary international student from Scotland. A crowd emptied out from the steel glass gates. A myriad of tourists came across the threshold. All of them were in colourful garb and all had cameras strapped around their colourful necks. Jonah's parents giraffed over the crowd to try and pick her out of the crowd.

But no one could see her coming, except adolescent Jonah. He saw what he thought to be a torch being carried towards the gate. A burning lamp, a signal, even an omen. It's flames danced in the boy's eyes. An alien dance that was somehow familiar. As the burning flame was carried over the threshold, it collapsed upon its own heat and quieted down to an autumnal simmer. The fire was gone, but the embers remained, quieted.

Then the carrier appeared. A delicate, porcelain figure. Her cheeks were sharply curved, eyes hidden deep behind jade green shields, a tender nose that seemed reluctant to be in this world. But her face did not draw Jonah's eyes. All this was insignificant compared to her richly white skin. Mhairi had the glow of an apparition's ghastly look of death. Ghostly skin given to her from the beings of another world. Adorned and wrapped in mystery.

Jonah's eyes were fixated as the apparition glided ever nearer and nearer. He had never seen such beauty before. His pupils dilated in the presence of the ghostly being. He could not stare at the whiteness of her skin. He believed, somehow, that if he stared too long, he would lose his sight, as he knows it. Unconscious to his mind, he started to fidget with his watch. He kept churning it around his wrist like rosary beads.

The lament continued to create an eerie hush over dinner. Jonah didn't know what kind of effect it had on the rest of his family (if any at all), but it created a sense of fear in him. It seemed as though an uneasy spirit constantly stirred throughout the house.

No one must rest until the spirit has been exorcized.

Jonah cautiously broke his dinner roll underneath the cloud of lyrics. He munched a bit, but the voice made his senses stand on end. The texture of the bread was accentuated into hills and valleys. The touch of the tablecloth revealed an exotic pattern to his fingertips. The smell of the roast chicken was translated into a totally foreign fragrance. The scariest of all was that the dining room turned a monochrome black and white except for this parents' glasses of red wine. They seemed so tempting to the growing boy. And the music which wholly engulfed Jonah was both inviting and haunting.

The singing stopped. Jonah welcomed the silence as his senses were restored.

Mhairi came down the stairs upon her floating feet, "I'd like to go for a walk in the snow."

"Of course, we don't always get snow like this. Right hon'.

Jonah, why don't you accompany our guest on her walk."

Jonah looked at his father with gaping eyes. Fearful yet pleased at the same time. He was designated as the escort to the restless apparition.

Jonah led Mhairi to the park just down the road. The snow was deep and heavy. Heaven and Earth were covered in a blanket of silence. Cars were scarcely seen nor driven. People were home, craving the warmth of their hearths. They are not so brave to risk the cold, the loss of redness in their cheeks. The atmosphere was ripe for change. Mhairi was uneasingly silent for Jonah throughout the walk to the park. It was as if he were leading an angel to edge of existence and banishing her forever (or returning her home). An angel from another world, another realm of understanding.

Jonah stopped at the edge of the park as Mhairi continued past him towards the lone weeping willow in the middle of the park. She stood silent before the massive trunk of the tree and was deeply buried in the sagging arms of this sad one. Then, as if sadness were a spark, Mhairi's hair bursted into a lamp of fire once again; just like at the airport.

Jonah ran towards the beacon of flames like a moth to its death. Jonah entered the willow's arms and grabbed the angel by her hands. They did not move. He peered into the full being of this ephemeral spirit. As they held hands, he felt a change in her and himself. Her dark jade green eyes started to fade. Her mysterious shield being broken, revealing lush brown eyes. Her nose began to feel more alive and venturing. Jonah felt his own eyes green over and his nose shrink.

Mhairi took her precious man in her arms and kissed him. She felt her cheeks redden deeply, a crimson glow. The blood was racing through her body vigorously. As they withdrew from the kiss, Mhairi could see his green eyes, his tender nose, and, most noticeably, his ethereal whiteness.

Her man fell from her embrace upon the snow as Mhairi returned to her world. She entered the willow. Her man laid upon the snow transformed. The spirit was now exorcized, but something of his was missing. He unwrapped his hand from his gloves and found the ghostly white skin. He was no longer afraid being blinded, though. He touched his eyes with his naked hand and felt the hardened shield of his irises. He touched his nose and found his reluctance.

As he examined his transformation further, he discovered that even his watch had been taken from him. He knew then, that all of him had been taken by the angel. Not a single spot of red was found in his pigments. He was sure she had taken it all, all that was rightfully his.

Sadness swelled within his breast, but tears would not flow. Sadness could not be emptied. His new green irises were two-way barriers. They trapped his being and memories in while keeping others oblivious to his metamorphosis. Sadness continued to multiply and swell further, there would be no release.

Then her man heard it again, the angel's lament. Dinner would never be the same.

© Copyright 1998 Henry Lam

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