.carpet of absence.
the one thread of conversation was some talk on the weather some talk of the weather-beaten work they so loved to do
the one thread.
the second thread was the past drying on their backs reminding them of their differences their distances the borders they must not cross and as the first and the second thread pulled them farther apart
tauting,
a third underlying invisible yarn seemed to be holding them together fixated at the same spot talking of nothing but monstrous monotonies that in any other situation would have demanded self-immolation.
two seemingly intellectually-diverse figures stood balanced on tenterhooks by a string quartet (minus one) that ran through their centers’ and through and through into the infinite abyss.
they stood there keeping it together as they were falling apart crumbling into a heap unable to pick up the falling pieces of their flesh as their souls ached to crash into one another
again and again
till there would be nothing left but the string strumming its chords that rang through the cosmos uniting these could-be lovers in another life when they were just oppositely charged particles and not these lifeless blocks of social responsibilities and human afflictions.
they stood their waiting for the other to upset the balance break away as they yearned to move closer together to dissolve into something other.
and in the waiting the first and the second thread of conversation grew and the work became less weather-beaten and a simple ‘i don’t know’ contained within it the power to conjure up ruins of a disintegrating cloud and as the dust clogged their eyes the work soon lost its luster and the yearning buried under a quicksand of promises and feigned impulses.
and just like that he turned and she fell through the thousand lives that she built on the edge where he stood waiting.
and she fell through the bottom of original sin and found that the third thread was still binding still taut and life now comprised of a constant falling a constant rising through eternity whose end she’d already seen whose end was but just the beginning of a tourniquet that would plunge through her soul with each breath and she would keep falling through the false bottom neverstopping neverresting neverknowing what it meant to die for she was never living and not knowing what life meant for she was forever dying and drowning in the sorrow of his soul never reaching
as he walked the earth
unaware
indifferent
free.
