A second chance at sanity

"falling, falling"

~aliquem ex animo or ex animi sententia amare —to love deeply.~
I want to fly away- Emmit Fenn

And when he met her his world made sense.

The sky was crying again. It's droplets cascading from the azure stratosphere haphazardly and slamming the sandy ground. Pelting the tarp like leaves and their leathery petioles. Leaving crystal like jewels of water on their surfaces.

When he met her, he was enthralled. Taken aback. Appalled.

It was like he was spinning, spinning faster than the grey slivers of light that managed to diffuse their way through the
dense canopies of the forest. The forest that seemed impenetrable was surprisingly like a futile umbrella in a tsunami like storm.

In the eye of the storm, she was his refuge.

As the rain cascaded from the sky he felt him self rise. Rise into a world where everything else was falling. Falling. Falling. Rising into love was something he figured was impossible, since everyone was always doing the latter. But he was doing it. And she was his trampoline.

She smiles at him as he covers himself with the tarp of his tent. He's drenched, but his heart is warm, as though it has been placed next to a fire. An infernal blaze that forced him to attest to what he truly was. A person stepping out of boyhood and into manhood. A lost soul, destined to make a home out of something that was once derelict.

He smiles back. Then it dawn's on him that she must be just as cold as she is. He offers her a place beside him, under the blue tarp of his tent. She takes it eagerly, like a ravenously hungry lion takes its pray.

She's plump. Rounded around her edges.

Nothing like Oscar. He thinks to himself. Nothing like anyone.

Her hair is blonde and stops at her shoulders. Tufts of platinum too long to even be called tufts.

The two flinch when they touch. Almost as though they are two identical charges, resisting the force of resistance between them.

"Let the show begin then." She speaks finally, her honey like voice cutting through the misty silence.

To him the rain begins to fall harder. To him he stops rising, he starts falling. Falling harder. To him the grey slivers of light that managed to penetrate the canopy become brighter. More saturated. Amber.

Amber like her eyes.
Amber like sap on a fickle maple tree.
Amber like the sky, just on the brink of sunset.
Amber like the reflection of a rich pile of gold.

Amber. Like a new day.

Suddenly all the days ahead of him seem less daunting. Less intimidating. He finds himself less reluctant and more eager. More enthusiastic. More about the future and less about his past. She fades away. And morphs into a more familiar face. With obsidian eyes that looked as though they had lead multiple lives in one.

"Sometimes I wish you hadn't been born. That you had perished along with mom and dad. That you had suffered an eternity of suffering in hell."

He spat at her. The way she spat at her own reflection.

"Sven. I'm saying sorry to you. I didn't mean-"

"To say I deserved to go through everything I went through. Well you said it, and things like that don't come out of nowhere. They come from your heart. Live in your heart."

And with that he left his sister. Standing alone in their dingy apartment. Alone to be hugged by the pitiful, moulded walls.

The girl morphed again. Again, he rose. Then he fell into her, sunk into her surface. Then he rose, to altitudes not known to man.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean. When we meet someone new, we put on a facade. We're on our best behavior for about four months. That's how long we can pretend. Well psychologically."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Who are you."

"I'm Sven. And you are?"

"I'm Aries."

Aries. Aries like the state of the stars of a warm and mapley April. Aries like maroon. Like auburn. Like fall. Like fire.

"This rain. It's drowning us don't you think."

His train of thought was disrupted by her sweet voice. A voice that sounded like a thrush, singing on the edge of winter. The brink of spring. The beginning of the rise of the petioles. The end of drudgery.

"Sometimes I wish I'd drown."

"Bleak. I like you Sven."

"I like you too, Aries."

They moved gradually, through the forest and the leaves. He didn't ask her where she was from or where she was going. He just walked and so did she. In his direction, trustingly, as though he were her lifeline. Her light at the end of the tunnel.

This was a chance encounter. An encounter that would catalyse a bond that would forever change the both of them for good.

And when he met her, his world made sense.

Each step forward was propelled by a sense of excitement and renewal. Each step forward to him, wasn't marred even by the fact that his food reserves were miniscule. Or that his life was literally in the hands of the collectors.

The collectors. It dawned on him that he had to protect Aries. Had to preserve her light. Shield her from the shadows and darkness that the collectors entailed.

In this world of darkness and drudgery and suffering, we often find our slivers of light at the most serendipitous moments. It is when it is least anticipated that love finds a home in our hearts.

They walked until they reached the horizon. Well, atleast it felt like it was because the light was unobstructed and the sky, the ombre disk of salmon pink was cloudless now. And there was nothing in front of it. No ocean. No skyline. No cityscape. Just a blank.

They set up camp. Light a fire. And talk about their journeys. She's oblivious to his world still. Oblivious to the fact that he's constantly running away.

Falling, falling.
He falls into her.
She caves in with his weight.
Then catapults him to the moon.
The moon that he thanks for once.
For being there always.