SALLY NOIR

Imaginary Landscape #6 / Collage / Russell C. Smith

Sally Noir lived in a one bedroom apartment in Old Town, built long before the shiny buildings a dozen blocks away, but a century away in structure and sense of being and breathing. One could only enter her red brick building by way of a skinny alleyway, impossible for large delivery trucks, or wide big-wheeled pushy vehicles, to roll through. She felt this vehicular restriction to be comforting, as she did upon hearing the first mournful morning exhales of the ferryboats in the harbor. On the rooftop of her six-floor walkup, she loved sitting on a pillow and watching birds flitting on treetops in the one block city park across the way. The park was home to craggy, moss-covered rocks and stubborn trees rising up through hardpacked earth. A single path cut through the park – pointing out it was never meant to be a spot for lingering and mostly served as a passageway to a more secreted away section of Old Town. Hidden side streets, filled with cottages, not houses, and lined with hedges designed to hide dwellings from casual observers, where wonderers and wanderers found solace, and often drank potent potions. Behind closed curtains. Out of earshot and away from nosey eyeballs. She laughed a lot and felt completely herself around her best friend, Jeannie Nocturne. On some nights, the two of them loved when moonlight streamed down into Jeannie’s overgrown backyard. Moonbeams giving the illusion of lunar light layered on top of the grass. They’d sit and stare up into the nighttime sky for what felt like all night long. Sometimes it was. Soaking up stars, listening to the early morning birds wakeup songs. Often the kitchen table radio murmured out the window screen, playing tunes from the local all-night jazz station. Being grounded in nature while in the city kept them true to their hearts and living freely in the ever-changing world.