FICTION: Time and Gravity

(But in dreams, they sometimes circle each other once again, dancers in the void, nameless and shapeless, just hunger and love.  And regret.)

*

And eventually, the connection is gone, like it was never there, just memories in each other’s vault of locked away secrets and things they can no longer face.  They are forgotten like trauma.  And, like trauma, they are a part of each other forever. 

*

The break seems to have no end.  With no bridge, there’s nothing holding them up, and they fall, thrashing, straight back into their disasters.  One rekindles old flames, the other sinks back into old habits; one finds solace in whatever is around, the other negates the pain with overwork and clenched hours at the gym.

They are in each other’s thoughts almost constantly, then less, then less, then barely at all.  

*

It happens again.  This time, no forgiveness.  Once is a mistake, but twice is a pattern.  Every word is a stabwound, now.  Every excuse hurts more.  One sobs, the other pleads.  There is no sleep.  One suggests a “break”; the other knows that a break could mean forever.  They both want this so much. They both want time to run backwards, give them another chance.  They both know this is impossible: like gravity, time makes no concessions.

*

The “just friends” turns to a fling.  The “I was drunk” helps absolutely no-one.  The “it will never happen again” counts for nothing.  Words, words, words.  But the love, the body-obliterating love, runs deep, and a bridge starts to be built, from both sides, and they meet, tentatively, like the eyes of snails, in the middle.

*

One finds the other has been texting old lovers.  Just as friends, just keeping in contact.  The other sinks into suspicion, and once the trust is broken, it’s hard to see through those eyes again.  Turns out the disasters they had bounced out of were still there beneath them: they were just in mid-bounce, suspended in the air, waiting for gravity.

*

Soon enough, they’re inseparable.  Arm in arm, lip to lip, a whirlwind of drunken sex, fiery, passionate, somehow defining the borders of the body, and simultaneously obliterating the body completely: spiritual, pure energy, a merging of consciousnesses into one writhing bodymind.

They both say “I love you,” and mean it, from head to toe and beyond.

*

They go slow.  Both bouncing out of other disasters, they decide to take it slow, but it feels slow like a building avalanche, or like tectonic plates.  Slow, but unstoppable.

*

They flirt, circling each other like dancers.  The hunger is clear on them both, palpable.  It feels like the sea of other people parts for them, like the party is magnetic and the two of them repel everyone but each other: and, inevitably, they crash into each other, locked in a field of desire.  They talk and kiss and feel each other’s bodies until the dawn.

*

But first of all, they meet.