Her head snapped up, suddenly fully awake, fully alert. He was still there, next to her (it wasn't that; she never doubted that anymore) but it was something like it. What's this feeling wrapped around her suddenly wakeful mind? She asked herself a diagnostic set of curiosities to determine what it was that kept her moving with him. First: what is right with the situation? Second: what is wrong? And you'd better hope you find her on a day when the first list supersedes the second.
First:
Love had finally done the hard work of preparing itself for her. The old house of dreams she had built was finally pulled down to the foundations. It was always a house for the before man. Now, someone else had come in and couldn't quite fit the shape of that old log frame. In fact, this new someone was probably never the right shape for her meticulous mind-bending arts. She wasted nearly a year with him, measuring out the edges of what she thought was his shape, only to find that he had edges she didn't—no, couldn't know about. No amount of bending would ever fit him to the dream she had once held. And now, together, they had cut the old logs apart, examined what she once had thought perfect, split her young opinions into eight (nine, [ten!] beautiful wedges. In her mind, they had abandoned the old dream homestead and ranged far into the woods. He pushed her to think new thoughts and old, things she hadn't touched in years, or thought she never would. And each time, for warmth almost seemingly, he would (without thinking, without knowing its value or even that such a thing was possible,) burn another log that used to shade her face from the cut of a young dawn sunbeam, used to hold off the outside wind. He just . . . burned it. No ceremony. No old familiar habits to hold together the strange memories she used to cherish. Finally, she had found something good, even if she knew she would never understand it.
Second: she could smell the smoke of his savage and unintentional deconstruction of the dream house of memories and now-subverted expectations, and the smoke of it was giving her a headache. No, actually. She was far more awake than that. She knew the smell, but couldn't find its source, knew suddenly, chillingly, it wasn't inside her head. This was real. There was smoke fingering its way across the ceiling from the door on the opposite side of the room. She could see it in the dim light from the bathroom, its cold blue nightlight driving a shaft of revealing light across the creeping particles. She sat, watching for a moment, entranced by the momentary beauty of it. Then she touched his shoulder. God, was he warm. He stirred, saw the smoke, and without speaking rushed from the bed. He levered the window open and began chucking clothes from the floor out onto the ground below. She walked to him, so slow and delicate, and when he turned, he found her standing there with a hand outstretched. Neither of them said a word. She backed out of the window, him holding, muscles strained, as she lowered toward the ground a story below. He clambered out, the light from within the room changing temperature, warmer and warmer, illuminating the edges of his skin with blue to yellow to orange light, and he dropped to the ground just as she saw the flames licking the bedroom ceiling beyond. She stepped away from the house and he walked briskly to her. They held hands in the buff, circled by mismatched clothes crumpled in the dew, watching her house burn down. Not the dream building, but the physical world.
First:
Love had finally done the hard work of preparing itself for her. The old house of dreams she had built was finally pulled down to the foundations. It was always a house for the before man. Now, someone else had come in and couldn't quite fit the shape of that old log frame. In fact, this new someone was probably never the right shape for her meticulous mind-bending arts. She wasted nearly a year with him, measuring out the edges of what she thought was his shape, only to find that he had edges she didn't—no, couldn't know about. No amount of bending would ever fit him to the dream she had once held. And now, together, they had cut the old logs apart, examined what she once had thought perfect, split her young opinions into eight (nine, [ten!] beautiful wedges. In her mind, they had abandoned the old dream homestead and ranged far into the woods. He pushed her to think new thoughts and old, things she hadn't touched in years, or thought she never would. And each time, for warmth almost seemingly, he would (without thinking, without knowing its value or even that such a thing was possible,) burn another log that used to shade her face from the cut of a young dawn sunbeam, used to hold off the outside wind. He just . . . burned it. No ceremony. No old familiar habits to hold together the strange memories she used to cherish. Finally, she had found something good, even if she knew she would never understand it.
Second: she could smell the smoke of his savage and unintentional deconstruction of the dream house of memories and now-subverted expectations, and the smoke of it was giving her a headache. No, actually. She was far more awake than that. She knew the smell, but couldn't find its source, knew suddenly, chillingly, it wasn't inside her head. This was real. There was smoke fingering its way across the ceiling from the door on the opposite side of the room. She could see it in the dim light from the bathroom, its cold blue nightlight driving a shaft of revealing light across the creeping particles. She sat, watching for a moment, entranced by the momentary beauty of it. Then she touched his shoulder. God, was he warm. He stirred, saw the smoke, and without speaking rushed from the bed. He levered the window open and began chucking clothes from the floor out onto the ground below. She walked to him, so slow and delicate, and when he turned, he found her standing there with a hand outstretched. Neither of them said a word. She backed out of the window, him holding, muscles strained, as she lowered toward the ground a story below. He clambered out, the light from within the room changing temperature, warmer and warmer, illuminating the edges of his skin with blue to yellow to orange light, and he dropped to the ground just as she saw the flames licking the bedroom ceiling beyond. She stepped away from the house and he walked briskly to her. They held hands in the buff, circled by mismatched clothes crumpled in the dew, watching her house burn down. Not the dream building, but the physical world.
She felt him looking at her, and not the flames, and turned to him.
"Well?" he said.
"I guess so," she said.
First: what is right with the situation? We're both alive, and we have each other.
Second: what is wrong? Well, the house is on fire.
Today, the first superseded the second, and she was satisfied.
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