Breaking Young Divinities

Chapter 11

Love. What, at its most basic, is it really? I don't know. But I think of love when I think of Jen. Does this mean that I loved her, or that she loved me? I don't know. Can there be an attachment between two people without them even realizing it? I am unsure. But I will keep the idea alive for later.

"Jen," I said quietly as I leaned toward her, almost touching her face with mine. "Have I ever told you that you have really pretty eyes?"

"Right!" she said. She smiled and nudged her fist into my shoulder. "You're so full of it."

We were sitting on the lawn at the south side of Hart House. It was a muggy hot day in September. The long lazy shadow of an old tree kept us cool. From there we could see the Parliament building on Queen's Park.

"Do you think we'll ever be important?" Jen asked. She pointed at the old stone building. It brushed the sky with its green copper roof.

"I'm not finished talking about your eyes," I said.

"I'm serious."

Jen looked at me for a second and then turned away. She looked back toward the Parliament building.

"What's wrong?"

She raised her shoulders and took a deep breath. "I don't know," Jen said. Her voice was chased by a current of tense breath.

I gave her a hug.

Jen smiled slightly, and said, "I just feel insignificant." She pulled up a few blades of grass and tossed them into the air.

"We're going to do great things."

"Yeah. I'm going to be a famous bestiality star."

"What?"

"Never mind," she said. Her face brightened somewhat.

I laughed, and gave her a hug.

We're going to do great things – famous last words spoken by troubled souls with too little time for the important things in life, like friendship. What is friendship? Once more I am left clueless, except that in Jen's arms I know that I found something.

A true friend does not stifle the other person's personal growth. I think that a real friend will correct the errors of his soul-mate's ways and help his friend to achieve beyond either of their own individual abilities. But how often does this happen? Probably infrequently. And when it is done, it is not often done well.

"What was that hug for?" Jen asked. The sun sat low behind our backs, making a hundred-foot shadow out of a twenty-foot tree.

"Just to let you know how I feel," I said.

"Well," she said, looking at me with those eyes, "thanks...."

"You're welcome," I replied. "We're okay."

"Well, do you really think we'll be okay?"

"I don't know. I hope so. Why can't we be? Everyone else is okay."

"But what if something happens? What if there's a car accident? Or a shooting?"

"I don't know," I said.

I should have told her that we must live with the intention of still being alive next week. Life does make chumps of us all, but not right away if we are lucky. If we are vigilant.

I was under-whelmed the first time I stood in the lobby of the Faculty of Music. On the outside it looked like a giant brick, and on the inside it looked like the inside of a giant brick. Red-brown in color, uniform in shape, and uninspiring in disposition, the Faculty of Music was the big cell where musicians were sent to have their spirits whither.