Marmalade Haze
M a r m a l a de H a z e
written by Ellycat / CJ / cuddlesjr
Sunlight poured through the window frame, flooding the room with a marmalade haze. Apathetic speckles of dust drifted across the placid wilderness of Louise’s apartment. They left shimmering dapples across the backs of Edith and Eliel, two pups that dozed heavily into the afternoon. Edith’s eyelids quivered with her dreams, accompanied by an airy whimper - a tentative objection to the stories her unconscious told her. Eliel tactfully gave his companion a slight and deliberate lick upon her velveteen ear, reassuring her with his presence. Edith’s frenzied dream calmed with the soothing touch.
A paltry breeze crept through an off-kilter sill, playing music that enticed the dust to dance and swirl among the rays. The melodic crescendo was short lived as the debris of life settled back into its aimless meandering between the pillars of books and towers of clothing, where the two intertwined among the fresh linen. Eliel reverently continued his consoling caress, keeping Edith’s imagination in an engrossing serenity. Her head took its home upon his paw, giving Eliel an immaculate place to rest his tender nose after his duty came to an end: upon the top of her walnut and gingerbread-coloured head. Eliel’s shadow cast over her, keeping the honeyed rays from setting her colours ablaze.
The sun continued to ease itself down upon the horizon, answering to the beckoning call of a shimmering sea, drawn in by its own radiant reflection towards the enticing quivers of impatient waves. It was time for the sun to slumber, slipping between each foaming crest as it fussed its way into liquid sheets. Eliel gazed out the window, awaiting with baited breath the moment that the pleasant heat of the burnt coral beacon to vanish from the final cusp of his oat-coloured ears. Edith stirred beside him, striking him as she slept, oblivious to the force of her blow. He scarcely moved, only being forced to exhale as the day’s fire lifted from him. A drowsy walloping was nothing new.
Chills had begun to dawdle in after edging their way through window panes. It hovered momentarily before setting claim to all the light had once warmed, and even the corners the sun had strained for, inevitably leaving nooks dark and primed for air of a moon-less night. Edith twinged a moment as Eliel buried his nose between fresh-fleece rolls of buttermilk fur. Her body drank deep of the sun’s rays, holding the last of its heat hostage, sending her brunette ablaze. Eliel buried deeper, breathing in the scent of comfort and peace that came with the sun, and got caught in Edith’s fur. One nearly-immeasurable inhale was it: Eliel succumbed to the serenity of the post-sunbathe scent and joined Edith in her unconscious utopia. Adrift, together, in the pursuit of vermin to accost.