Of love and betrayal (Part one)

How was he going to tell her? Another one gone.

He lay there on the clean but unmade bed and watched her as she watched the room around them. It was all for her, well most of it. It had changed when she had arrived in his world. She had introduced him to a view of life he hadn't seen before and he had seen a lot over the years.

Life is not kind on many in this world and the idea of fairness arises. Life should be fair many lament, but this never crossed his mind. He understood the position though, he just felt that it was a poor one at best.

Life is fair, life has the same set of rules for all. Society and community are the ones that dissect it into all the various class systems it can imagine, we can imagine. We are society after all. It is the way to create a community, make them need, make them chase for more, an open more, an endless more.

No matter if one understands this though, we all become a part of the machine in some way or another, he thought to himself.

He wondered what had caught her attention as she looked intently past his ear. There is no point checking, it is not a monster, they are all locked up inside his head. Better to just watch her instead.

Yes, a lot had changed since they first touched hands, a lot had progressed from that point. It was like a point of energy that heats the air around it until it dissipates into the ether but in reverse. A point of energy that explodes out and consumes all in its wake, charging the air. Science says impossible, but can something come from nothing?

Another day to be lost in thought on what could be or what is or what may never be. Today, there are more pressing concerns, as far too often these days. He laid his head back, it felt heavier than it should, another all too common feeling.

What had happened to this path, where had it veered, curved into confusion? There were so many points it could have happened, if only he had paid attention at the time, knowing it now is most likely useless as the moment of potential correction is long passed.

It had been a long day. It had been a long week, month, year and decade. So much time had travelled underfoot but the location hadn't changed, the scenery was all too familiar. He tried to shake the funk from the mind, others have it worse but, this is unproven.

One can't know what is better or worse in the mind of another, it is subjective and personal. Like pain. There is no way to know if a pin prick for one is as painful as a pin prick for another. It is unlikely it is. At least, to the subjective observes getting poked with the pin. Experience and preference play too large of role for it to be the same. Identical experience is impossible.

This is still within nature's rule book. However unfair it seems. There is too much in this world we have no control over, no choice but to accept as is. The world does not change over night, until it does.

He offered wondered about this, wondered how quickly a life can change. He never believed in 'he died instantly' How could they know? Instant means no space, no time and for a mind, there is always space and time, it is how we have been constructed. at least, it is what we have been told is the reality of us.

He has been contemplating lately on if there is an instant death, how instant is it, is there space for a last thought, the time for blinding pain, does the mind see a light? Is there there a tiny moment where the psyche realizes that it is going to come to an end?

It likely doesn't matter, what would the mind think in that space anyway? For him, he may regret for the first time, understand all of the opportunities he had missed, have them flash before his eyes. That would be the cruelest of all as there is no more to be done now, the only option is to accept defeat.

When he was young, he would fantasize about what might be after death, what would be the reward for life? He thought that perhaps we would all get a compendium of actions, every movement searchable. If one wanted to know how many hours they slept, or the percentage they spent happy, it would be available in detail.

Worry, that is where most of his life has so far been spent. Worrying and the stress that comes from it. There were always so many things applying pressure in a hundred different ways that he couldn't even remember the last time his muscles had been relaxed, his mind at ease. It was likely in childhood. Young childhood.

His mind was not cut out for relaxation, not created to put things away and ignore any issues. He was never really a let your hair down kind of kid and often took life far too seriously. Even the early relationships, where they marriage material? Did it really matter at 15 years of age? Unlikely.

He felt her move next, change position and stare at a picture on the wall. It was one he had taken himself. He looked towards it and remembered the second he pressed to open the shutter and capture one of his favourite moments. A rare slice where he almost felt free, but even there in the shadowed streets of old Barcelona, the weight remained.

It is always present or at least, never far from present. At ties it would recede into the mind and in the next moment come crashing through like storm waves breaking upon the rocks. There was no safety on a cliff edge, it was always down in the mental swell, thrown in the sea, fighting for breath and to remain calm until the dark waters would drag back again. He wondered in those times, how much of himself was dragged away, never to be seen again.

He felt this as even though the weight would bear down ever heavier, he himself felt somewhat lighter. Perhaps he was becoming strong enough to withstand the force, perhaps he was getting slowly crushed and the feelings were the first to go. Desensitized to the pain, numb.

He looked across again, her attention had shifted from the painting and had fallen onto him. How long she had watched he did not know, but her gaze always made him uneasy. It was a little too intense, it reflected back too much of himself.

He wondered how he would again admit his failing to her. At what point does understanding and forgiveness end, at what point does she look away and never turn back again?

END OF PART ONE

>>> To part two

Taraz
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