introspective inconsistencies.

It was a bright summer day, along an ocean, with waves crashing slowly along a walkway next to the pristine green grass of a grand park, where people danced, played, and forgot about their worries. In the background, and across a bay, surrounding this feeling, were buildings of cold respite—tall, seemingly unobtrusive structures, but peaking harsh along the skyline nonetheless; glowing and reflecting their barren grandeur to anyone who would wish to partake in the system.

He stood there, taking it all in. His soft, shaggy, uncombed hair blowing in the wind. But the enormity of the situation came across to him as little more then a remembrance of something distant—as if he had been here a million times before. These sights, these smells, these sounds, all a synonymous symphony of unsaid words, reminding him of a higher state; an essence which he had forgotten, but could never quite forget, and considered…just a dream.

She stood there, at the other edge of the park. The wind dancing delicately through her blue plaid skirt and around her skin as she watched the adversely indelicate dance of children, their play only meters away in a noisy playground. The breeze cooled her face, whisking sweat from her pores like a ducks back swimming on the bay, insetting her view of the ocean. At first, the cacophony of this scene overwhelmed her. She sat. A splintery, rain-faded bench scraping at the back of her smoothly shaved legs. The moment brought her past together with her present and her future all at once, as if some kind of slightly disordered juxtapose of memories. In which she was reminded of what could not quite be remembered. And in the same instant she realized it, her muse faded, and she was swept back into the realization of here and now. Just a dream…she thought.

Even before he noticed her, he felt himself already in motion. As though instinct drove his strong legs forward, for reasons his mind could not possibly conclude. A driving force, motivated by some otherworldly universe of foreign design, but which somehow, wasn’t alien to his heart at all. It willed his body, and his body followed—with not one doubt to cloud his sense.

She first noticed him walking towards her, with an almost frantic pace. What would be the normal human reaction of fear, was completely absent from her mind—replaced instead, with an alarming, but gently familiar tug at her pale, long legs as she found herself inexplicably moving towards him, and before even the understanding of the desire overcame her heart. Walking briskly, the wind took her steps, as though her body was nothing more then an automaton, completely ruled by some unknown, but self-operating impulse.

They accelerated towards each other, in a tumultuous yet purposeful motion. Jagged. Forceful. As if a magnet had been placed between these two—this strong gravitational pull manifesting only in their midst—the positive and negative charges so strong, the electricity of it all revealing, in its uncontrolled, crashing, primal self. Bright flashes blinded their sight for not more than an instant. But it was then, when they forgot their existence [as if only a metaphor], slowly retreating into the figment of the others imagination. The closer they got, the faster they approached the other; faster and faster; straighter and straighter. Racing through a channelled conduit with arms open wide; ready to appeal to whatever power had brought them together, and give themselves in complete capitulation and sacrifice to each other—an endless congruence of togetherness, a coupling that could never be fully complete, one without the other—two souls, joined as one.

As with any efficacious connection, the closer they came, the stronger and more desirable their attraction to each other became. They acted completely on instinct. Words and emotions could not adequately describe their pull—the feeling that drove them together. A flower to another. A bee to the hive. The sun to the earth. The aura borealis to the northern magnetic fields. Simply modes of existence. And in this existence the two were drawn to each other for no other reason than that each was destined for the other. And they could not be convinced otherwise. It was their purpose. Their existence. To constantly be drawn in the other’s direction.

What is existence, compared to only mere seconds of love? Perhaps only an instant. Not much more than but a twinkle in time. A minuscule moment in that big, grand scheme of things. Just a mere blink on a cosmic expanse—stretching as far back as the beginning of a time; which was nothing more than an extension to the end of another time long since forgotten. A time which, in itself, could be the beginning or the end of yet another time, cycling throughout an endless duration of an eternity of indeterminate realities; a single infinitesimally small point along an infinitely long line, with neither future nor past fully written or established. How can such a small point be anything but nothing amongst such enormity? But for them, the two, become one—that was all there was. And they understood. For an eternity they had been separated, and eternally they would be running to each other. Only to reach their destination of themselves, to hold forever, all over again. They were lost in each other. And in the pursuit. Both the exquisite pain, even so much as the delicious pleasure of it all. There could not be one without the other. There was no existence, but for their love.

Him. Her. They. Had come from different worlds. Had learned in different cultures. And each had different lives. Different feelings, emotions, and indifferent friends. For each, an alternate, diminutive reality in the greater plan. And neither could have ever imagined being conscious of the other until just this moment. And in that moment, they felt as if they had been so all along. As if, by some strange twist of fate, they had broken through the boundaries of such infinite impossibility, to find themselves running and groping at each other uncontrollably anyway. As if granted boundless and unimaginable freedom. And there was no reasoning for any of this. It was the path their existence was to take. It was simply, meant to be. And everything before that instant, before the uninhibited motivation—flinging themselves towards their inevitable yet unknown destiny—it was nothing anymore than just a distant memory, forgotten suddenly in the instant of their new conversion. A transformation from one instant to the next was rightly instantaneous. Where at one point, they had their own separate realities. And the next, they were completely inseparable. Intertwined. Intermingling. Trying desperately to reunite their longing souls through their seemingly endless mass of decaying flesh, which stood in their way.

Seconds. Became minutes. Gave way to hours. Exhausted, then energized again by each others embrace. Weary of physical encumbrance, they clumsily laid down together on an abandoned picnic blanket, left behind by a family torn in strife. The mother taking her children out for their only moment of happiness they would ever know. Before their father, then following. Then berating. Shouting obscenities. Forcing their happy, but distorted little bubble to burst. And in the families haste to return to the drab normality of their lives, they had left their least precious possession behind—their happiness. Woven deeply into the fabric of a red and white chequered piece of cloth. The two, become one ensconced this vehicle of joy to their own passions, underneath the shade of a large willow tree on the edge of the waterway. Together they embraced, entirely oblivious to the existence of everything else around themselves, pausing only to admire how much beauty their opposite had in opposition to the setting sun over the bay of so many forgotten memories. They wrapped each other in the yellow and oranges of a perfect sunset. The swelling stars in the dusk sky, a small symbol of their growing togetherness. Their minds. Their bodies. Their hearts were the same. These two become one.

But with silence of dark, they silently feared separation again. Dormant voices awoke and spoke doubt into their ears. Questioned their love. That it was not possibly strong enough to overcome their fleshy reformatory. The decaying bodies in which they were held prisoners. And when darkness washed completely over the strange scene, so did their respective friends—searching for the two, in turn. Both sides worried and bemused at their antics. Confounded over their motives. But at the same time, awash with a pleasant feeling of contentment for those two who had found happiness. But with great effort [and a tinge of remorse], these others finally succeeded in plying the two from their conjugal grasp, berating them for forgoing their commitments. For forgetting their plans. With people, and at places they could no longer recognize.

Separated again. Trapped in their own wanton existence, cursing the very day they were born: a hell for the two lovers. The following days saw them fall into such fantastic disorder; they could think of nothing else but each other’s arms. Every waking moment dedicated to chaotic thoughts of the other; about what the other was thinking about them in return; and about thinking about the other thinking about what the other was thinking about thinking about: or if the other was even thinking about them at all. It was a vicious cycle that could not be stopped. Fate had spoken. Separating the two. By seams which they had so beautifully woven each other together at, with the thread of their passions. And as the weeks passed, they slowly withdrew from society. As the months passed, they withdrew even more from the outside world. A little over a year passed, and they completely isolated themselves, with no connection to anything, or anyone. The only thing they could recall anymore was the presence of each other. And this was all they needed. “I believe in you!” each cried to the air about them, in a helpless, desperate finality. And suddenly, they found themselves [somehow] together again. In a freshly made bed, in their newly shared apartment. A night and a day passed by. Then another, and another. Until they were soon adrift in their own non spatial continuum. All track of analogous chronology lost—it was no longer possible to determine where one started, and the other began. After so much time apart, they would never dare let go again—not a moment was spent outside the other. And sleep was merely a dream of another embrace. That renewed again with every waking. Soon, the only reality they had ever known was again, their state of togetherness. Their minds. Their bodies. Their hearts, were the same. These two, become one.

The room around their bed slowly grew barren. First, trivialities disappeared. Their books, then their toys. Their clothes, then their appliances. Each material possession. Not long after the first unnoticed disappearance, larger things started to vanish. More and more. And the room began to transform into a clean white of nothing. Empty, save for the bed, filled with the two, become one. Sharing the only thing that mattered…to each, the other. And in this way they stayed, for an eternity and a while longer. Days gave birth to weeks which, in turn, bore months. Months gave way to their yearly counterparts. Even years succumbed to the magnitude of an unyielding decade. These two, become one, long since forgotten. In a decaying room. Covered in a thick layer of dust. Knowing only the other, and only separated by a thin layer of a cellulite membrane, subsisting and supported in their existence by a life-force they could not define. They called it simply, love.

But even from the first moment when their ineffable movements drew them to such aspiration, they were again, already starting to fade as well. As with everything that exists with life, as soon as it is born, it will begin to die. And whatever the source of this accelerated death, for the first time in their shared reality, awareness picked up on something other than the other. They realized…themselves. And the state of their quickly deteriorating condition. Their room, which had malformed again, now erected a grey curtain around their bed. Vials and tubing running throughout their bodies. Beeping and flashing screens on all sides. And charts and graphs layered on top of them like sheets. Weeks seemed like eons, but slowly reverted into days, and days into hours. It all began to end, as final hours turned into mere minutes. And in those last few struggling breaths, their embrace grew stronger than ever. Each with the same thought: they would not allow the other to die alone. They would be the last to die. Because they could not bear the thought of the other being without them. And in this selfless defiance they lay there. Time ticking out those innumerable instants—inconsequential moments of the greater whole—minutely small, yet so vitally important. An integral part of everything they had shared, but in their span, nothing more then a mathematical deltafication. The smallest of the small. So trivial to the world around them, but so powerfully unforgettable to each other.

As he took his last breath of life—forgetful again of his existence—remembering only her, the room slowly dimmed, and his closing visions of their dying reality slowly replaced with the most pleasant feeling one could have. And thus he dreamed…

It was a bright summer day, along an ocean, with waves crashing slowly along a walkway next to the pristine green grass of a grand park, where people danced, played, and forgot about their worries. In the background, and across a bay, surrounding this feeling, were buildings of cold respite—tall, seemingly unobtrusive structures, but peaking harsh along the skyline nonetheless; glowing and reflecting their barren grandeur to anyone who would wish to partake in the system.

He stood there, taking it all in. His soft, shaggy, uncombed hair blowing in the wind. But the enormity of the situation came across to him as little more then a remembrance of something distant—as if he had been here a million times before. These sights, these smells, these sounds, all a synonymous symphony of unsaid words, reminding him of a higher state; an essence which he had forgotten, but could never quite forget, and considered…just a dream.

The premise of every seeming pleasant story. And in this manner, love takes it’s toll. The dream that was, the dream that is, and the dream that always will be, was again. Love…went on. Like a neverending story. It all happened as I wrote it. Because that’s what love does, too. It never fails, and there is no end.

So many times, I sit alone. In an empty room. Thinking how how I will spend this day without you. My remaining empty pages do little to cover my blank and thoughtless shame. Wishing I could do more. To love you. But all I can do, is wrap my pages around a small splinter of your mind. To record and protect you. And soak up your falling tears. With these same pages. The chapters of my heart are weak. With devotion to you.

So many times, I sit alone. In an empty room. Wondering when you’ll get tired of picking me back up. Again, and again. But you always come back. And do. Pick me up. Again.

Life has become a pleasure, that can only be enjoyed with you.