That thought lingered with him as he stood, eyes turned halfway to the sky, a stationary island amid the lazily flowing river of pedestrians that swept back and forth through the Painted Ladies. It was often the nature of names, for a thing to be named after what it was. Now was the season when it rained, and thus, Rainy Season. The Dry Season, was, on balance, dry. In Mugroba, the Rainy Season had an even more evocative and descriptive name, the Flood Season, an accurate omen of what was likely in store. It stretched beyond such deliberate terminology, into the very core of language. Oisin found himself standing outside a bakery, in which bakers baked bread, and pastries, and other savoury goods. Oisin had even met a baker named Baker, once; though he'd also met a man named Baker who wasn't a baker, and that was where language slowly began to unravel.
Oisin liked to think that words were his salvation. Words, woven into stories, had given him hope amid the bleakness of his childhood. Words and stories were what had connected him to the mona, and provided him with a small ember of value, both in Old Rose Harbor, and then in Mugroba as a mercenary. Words and stories were now his stock and trade, a commodity he traded in to stay alive. He should have understood them, should have been able to trust them, but there were times when words became as confusing as people. There were times when words didn't say what they meant. One might be correct to describe Oisin as sinister, but only if they meant that he was left-handed, not ominous. Left could mean to leave, or what remains. Countless words, with countless meanings, some even opposed and contradictory. How did people cope? How could you rely upon words, when a change of circumstance could transform them completely?
A wince tugged at the left side of Oisin's face, as a raindrop broke free from his brow, and deviated off course a little too close to the corner of his eye. It was foolish to stand out here in the rain, and the few stray glances Oisin was sure he was getting no doubt established that the locals of the Painted Ladies felt much the same. But he wasn't here without purpose, and what he was doing couldn't be done inside; though the rain wasn't helping. Another silent lament that the morning sun hadn't been the promise of something more.
Oisin's head cocked to the side slightly, partly to guide the raindrop away from his eye before it began to look too much like a teardrop, and partly to better regard the curtains now hanging in the window of his apartment. He supposed that with clear skies, and more sunlight, the blue might be more vibrant and eye-catching, but for now it was just subtle enough: rewarding to look at, but without insisting that you did. Left to his own devices, his windows would probably have been lined with a dull brown or a drab grey. Good advice could make a world of difference.
He considered the name for them. Curtains. He'd looked it up, in the desperate hope of focusing his mind towards work, on a day spent mostly distracted. A distant cousin of court, something enclosed, or something built to enclose, like the curtain wall around a fortification. It seemed apt enough, depending on the curtains in question. At windows and doorways, curtains enclosed the privacy that they created, a safe fortified space out of range of the volleys of stray glances, and the javelins of unwanted attention. But court could mean other things, all distantly related and derived. A courtyard. A court of law. A royal court. A racquet court. Courtship. Cohort. All from the same route, spread out like branches, different leaves and different expectations shading and concealing the fruit of definition that hung from each. Bite from the wrong apple, and your words turned to poison in your mouth. Choose unwisely, and your curtains became courtship.
Oisin's eyes narrowed, nose scrunching in disapproval of the linguistic betrayal that the curtains had led him down, as if somehow he could compel them into an apology, in substitute for the one he hadn't yet found the opportunity, or the words, to provide.