Roger lifted his eyes, just for that brief second when he knew she would be walking by. Then, he lowered them again. Why waste the energy?
She wasn't just beautiful (although for him, she was a libido explosion, a self-control catastrophe, a lovely miracle), she was mysterious. That very quality of unknown is what drew him to her like a moth to flame. That impenetrable question is why he stared every time she was around.
Roger was, therefore, unprepared for what came next. Possibly because his eyes were down (what's the point) and possibly because he could never figure her out (could anybody?) but she sat down to talk with him. Him, of all people.
They had a lovely conversation about their present and avoided talking about their past. It was like everything was fixed. Solid ground. He decided to risk it, to ask a question, ever so subtle, about something she talked about THEN.
"Roger, it's not time for that."
Shut down, cold. That's fine. He never expected more, but with her, he couldn't know. But he wanted to go back, to relive, to try. If he had a time machine, single use, go and come back (try and change one thing about your past) he would go to himself that cold day in February and convince himself that the feeling would pass, he would be fine, don't make that mistake, but of course time machines aren't real, and he knew that.
But then, she said something he didn't expect.
"Rog, do you ever want to go back? If things were different . . ."
They sat for a long while in silence. His personal beauty ideal, mysterious and lovely, sat across the table from him wishing to have him back. Couldn't they? What unspoken rule held them back? What keeps you from retreading old ground?
Oh, the solid ground breaks up and lava pours out. That lava solidifies into new rock that the creator meant for you to walk on instead.
Roger picks up his proverbial pickaxe and begins to work his way backwards through the wreckage. For her, he would see the plain again, break loose all the lava flow and patch the ground.
Penelope.
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Well done. Painful. Super-painful.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of this guy here at camp. I've sort of adopted him as a younger brother. Every year I've been here (and according to stories, this has happened every year he's been here), he hurts himself badly, refuses to let the nurse patch him up, gets sick, and gets a bunch of other people sick. Every year.
He's great, and he never really MEANS to do it. It just happens, like that's just how things are.
His skills of pattern recognition will eventually weed him from the gene pool.
ReplyDeleteI think this story is TREMENDOUSLY sad and yet I yearn to do this sort of thig with every mistake I make. It's so bad, sometimes, that I obsess for weeks.
I know. I keep wanting to be missed. That doesn't make any sense, but whatever. When I was younger, I used to wish for some big, obvious problem that no one would judge me for, like cancer or leukemia, that would explain my sadness and inability to life.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make it right. I'm slowly learning, I think. The one thing I believe I have that I did not have before is the knowledge that every temptation is a date with Jesus. An invitation, at least. I wish I took Him up on them more often.
I love that way of looking at temptation.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's relatively new. It started as a way to deal with feelings.
ReplyDelete