Recognition
what belongs together
Cassandra has left the
old house behind.
Rather efficiently, actually.
There are flights to catch. Teams to
manage. Things to build.
This world suits her.
Sharp lines. Clear decisions. A
respectable amount of control.
And tucked inside her bag, a book of
poetry. Naturally.
Cassandra sees no contradiction in
this. Neither do I.
Still, long flights have a habit of
becoming interesting.
Especially when one has brought a
book.
ANtEVASIN
I sat in the airport lounge, catching my
reflection in the mirror across from me.
The scent of coffee lingered in the air.
The tailored suit clung like a second skin,
its sharp lines echoing the click of my
heels. A single piece of jewelry adorned
me. A ring with a black diamond,
glinting like a secret.
On the phone, I commanded my team
with a blend of warmth and unrelenting
precision, my voice steady, my mind
racing.
When the flight was called, I rose with
practiced grace, made my way to the
gate, and settled into my first-class
seat. A glass of champagne already
waiting in the quiet solitude of the
cabin.
Across the aisle, a man took his seat.
Our eyes met briefly; he nodded, and I
returned the gesture.
No words passed between us. My
fingers danced across the tablet -
emails, charts, numbers.
My world of tech humming beneath
them. I sighed, the weight of it all
pressing in.
He glanced over, a faint smile curving
his lips, but he remained silent.
Eventually, I set the tablet aside. From
my bag, I drew a worn green leather
book, its golden letters faded - no
author, no title. Poems, it simply read.
I’d found it years ago in a dusty
London bookshop, tucked behind a
shelf as if waiting for me.
I opened to the poem that always
stirred something deep within.
The one that spoke to the fracture in my soul.
He stalks the seam
where worlds fray thin,
Bleeds shadows
where two skies have bled.
Eyes like wounds,
they carve the dark,
each glance a spark,
each truth a mark.
Both homes call;
their echoes clash,
heart torn in two
by starlight’s slash.
He grips the void,
feels time’s teeth tear,
a name half-sung
in shivering air.
Yet in the rift,
where worlds burn bare,
an ember flares -
his soul still there,
a light to chase,
a vow to mend,
to weave the worlds
where breaks don’t end.
The words sank into me, heavy with
truth; I was also a wanderer, caught
between two worlds.
The corporate layer, sharp and
unyielding, and the poet who wandered
secret gardens in my dreams,
seeing beyond the veil I kept so
carefully hidden.
The man’s voice broke the silence, a
warm baritone. “You like poems.” It
wasn’t a question.
I looked up, meeting his gaze, and
nodded. Something in his eyes, deep,
knowing, held me a moment longer
than I expected. He smiled, his face
softening, almost boyish.
“You live them?” he asked.
The question startled me, but my lips
moved before I could stop the words.
“Yes, in a way, I do,” I said, my voice
warmer than I intended. He nodded, as
if he’d known my answer all along.
“Good.” With a mischievous glint, he
lifted his own book - black leather,
identical to mine except for the color.
I chuckled, surprised. “We share the
same taste.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, his eyes
flicking to my bag, where the tablet’s
faint glow betrayed my other life.
“You’re quite the contradiction. I came
across your interview once.
You spoke of building systems for
connection. And here you are, reading
poems.”
His smirk was playful, but his gaze
carried weight.
I smiled, leaning into the warmth of his
observation.
“You figured me out,” I said, my tone
light but honest.
“Don’t believe the interviews - they’re all
lies, a mask I wear.”
His eyes softened. “A mask… or armor?”
The question struck like a blade,
piercing the fortress I’d built over years.
My breath caught, a tremor in my voice
as I admitted, “Armor.”
For the first time, I felt it crack. No one
had ever seen through me like this.
“You’re perceptive,” I said, studying him,
his tailored coat, the quiet confidence
in his posture.
He held my gaze, unflinching.
“I see you.”
Simple, devastating words. I looked
away, my chest tight with turmoil.
The armor held, but a piece had fallen,
leaving me raw.
Silence stretched between us, saying
everything, and nothing.
“You live in the threshold:“ his words
deliberate, “the space between.”
I blinked, the words resonating with the
poem’s echo. “What do you mean?”
His gaze was steady, warm. “You’re an
Antevasin - a wanderer between
worlds.”
A smile curved his lips, as if he’d named
something I’d always known. I couldn’t
speak.
Two selves warred within me: the
Warrior Queen, forged in steel, who’d
clawed her way to the top.
Witty, cunning, untouchable,
a fortress of will.
And within those walls, a quieter self, a
lover of poems and roses, soft and
caged, dreaming of a mystical garden
where rivers sang truth and words
wove reality.
No one knew her. No one.
His eyes locked on mine. “You know
where you truly live, don’t you?”
My breath hitched. I saw it, the garden,
vast and wondrous, where stories
bloomed and truths shimmered like
starlight.
“There she is,” he said, his smile radiant.
His hand brushed my cheek, soft as a whisper.
“That’s where you wander, Antevasin -
here, there, and in between.
Don’t be surprised. Make the threshold
yours. I’ll wait on the other side.
I see you. Always.”
His voice was a gentle tide,
pulling me under.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely
above a whisper.
His laugh was warm, resonant.
“One who looks for an Antevasin.”
He pressed a kiss to my hand, and the
world blurred.
I woke with a start, alone in my seat. A
flicker of a silhouette in the corner of
my eye.
The plane hummed; the cabin was
empty. He was gone.
Only the book remained on the seat
beside me - black leather,
Antevasin etched in gold, a rose laid
across it.
I opened it. On the first page, in a hand
both elegant and firm, I read:
She walks the seam
where light leaks through,
a shadowed crown, a flame subdued.
Her voice is glass - it cuts, it sings,
it carries dawn on broken wings.
She hides her garden, locked in steel,
yet roses bloom where her feet kneel.
I watch, I wait, the threshold’s line,
until her gaze will turn to mine.
Not here, not there, but in between,
the Antevasin, the unseen queen.
My breath caught. Every word was me.
He had known me all along.
When the plane touched down, I
hesitated, then called my team.
“Build it like I said,” I told them, steady
now.
“A platform for stories, for those who
live between. Call it Antevasin.”
As I ended the call, a whisper brushed
my ear, soft as silk over steel: “Always.”
I turned to the glass wall of the
terminal. For a heartbeat his reflection
stood beside mine.
Then the glass shimmered, no longer
barrier, but passage.
I stepped forward. Breath held, the
threshold opened.
The garden unfolded in light, rivers
singing, roses climbing the air.
And there he was, waiting.
Well.
Someone saw her.
That doesn't happen to Cassandra
very often.
Not like this.
The woman who commands a room.
The woman who dreams of gardens.
Steel and roses.
She has spent years moving between
them without allowing them to touch.
Then a stranger looks at both and sees
one woman.
Cassandra wasn't prepared for that.
People rarely are.
Being admired is easy enough.
Being recognised is considerably more
inconvenient.
Especially when someone gives a name
to something you've never quite known
how to name.
Antevasin.
A wanderer between worlds.
And what does Cassandra do with this?
She builds something.
Of course she does.
Give Cassandra an existential
discovery and apparently someone
gets a project plan.
I rather like that about her.
The stranger, of course, is gone.
Mostly.
He left a book.
A rose.
And a name.
Cassandra kept the name.
We'll leave the rest where it is.
For now.
