The Door Did Finally Close

"How many lives do you think we have to live?" 

It was one of those nights. They were indulging in their particular style of conversation. The city off in the horizon. The world seemed distant - the motions of vehicles meandering through the streets, the sirens shrieking through the night sky, the glimmering lights - wasn't it all just off in some other dimension? 

In a daring display that almost penetrated through the faux ambivalent aura of adolescence he'd cultivated he formulated the following answer: "I don't know Zoe and I barely care, just as long as I have you next to me in each and every life I live". The latter part of the sentence was spoken in an over exaggerated manner, intentionally theatrical to the point of absurdity... a cunning delivery that would help his mask his emotions. What a smoke screen. 

This was the beginning of summer and so the darkness that settled on the hills they were resting on brought with it a chilling bite. Ancient winds seem to crash upon them like unpredictable cosmic waves, the breath of something transcendent. 

"I'm being serious." He knew that Zoe liked to be serious. Her face contained within it some sort of unnatural intensity. Rarely was she prone to banal outbursts of humour. Still, there was an earnestness about the girl, a kind of tender sincerity. She couldn't wade through the muddy puddles of jokes, jags, giggles. Like the city that stretched out underneath them, spreading like a toxic spillage, humour, frivolity, these things were just not part of her plane of existence. She perched over such things, surveying his world like some beautiful statue. 

He'd long believed that she loved this spot, this remote bench on a hill, far from the city because it helped her feel this sense of separation, of otherness. Her parents were rich, well off. She was raised out in the middle of nowhere. She was raised in a quasi-vacuum, a dizzying, desolate blizzard of a place. Nature devoid of human corruption. In this oasis of purity she had blossomed like a flower, something to behold. 

"I don't believe in an afterlife and you know that." He spat the words at her, like venom. Why were his words imbued with this visceral, potent disdain? He couldn't fathom why, until he could. He wanted to hurt her and tear her apart. He wanted to weaponise the English language and strip away at this naive perfection.  Didn't he? 

A forlorn expression, the futile collapsing of her features into some sort of submission. 

"I mean, I don't know." How quickly he'd retreat, for her. 

___

They migrated from the bench to a blanket that they're brought with them, as they'd done for what felt like hundreds of times before. In this miraculous blackness that belongs to something other than the Earth tears passed silently down the features of her face. He held her fragile, youthful body in his arms. He felt her potential, the physical manifestation of a nascent existence. He felt the future when he held her hands. It terrified him that, when he closed his eyes, he could see her in a black gown with the diploma in her hand. And it terrified him that he could see her elegant, pretty, hell he'd say dated, apparel replaced with the formal attire of a working woman. He saw her stoically staving off the misery of monotonous office life, remembering what she used to be and what she had in years long passed. The car, her home (with the kitchen table, fruit bowl and bills on top of it) and lastly the children. They weren't his. 

"I saw the enrolment forms and the personal statement; I hope you get in." He wanted to add "but what happens to us if you do?". 

___

He thought back to their childhood. He thought back to the time when he was only 10 or so, looking at her in the school yard with the same level of intrigue you see in the eyes of people in a zoo. What an exotic species. How she'd cling to her book. It was almost as though it were sustaining her - if you were to sever her connection to it, she might wilt and diminish. What an odd scene to take in and to try and compute when you're that young. How could his boyish brain have comprehended this scene of solemnity? Amidst the sobbing of the involuntarily excluded and the joyful screams of the popular (embroiled in their games) there was this hermit, devoted to the craft of reading. 

She was the quiet calmness in creative contrast with the pulsating, vibrant and powerful energy of childhood. She was reserve, composure and grace, long before he'd acquainted himself with these concepts. Long before he could articulate himself. 

Abandoning his small circle of friends, he made that lonely journey over to her. Head forward, eyes peering, he inspected her (a mixture of appreciation, bewilderment flaring up in him - oh how he might have looked like a critic in an art gallery, eyes cast over some grand painting). 

Everything after that gets a little hazy. 

___

He was standing outside her door now, having driven her home. She was a silhouette in an orange glow, stood in the doorway - an absence of light. She'd kissed him, tenderly, softly. On the cheek. He didn't want the door to close, for that old home to consume her image. He didn't want the morning sun to streak into the sky above them. He didn't want clocks to tick, seasons to change and life to flicker like a flame to be snuffed out. 

He didn't want this tension in his chest. He didn't want to think of the miles that would set them apart. 

___

But the door did finally close.