Saturday, June 13, 2015

Worlds of Wonder

I miss you.

I have always missed you, even if I was reminded of the fact only after reading a stranger's remark.

I miss you. I love you.

We met at the library. You were quiet. You were quaint. So very different from the others. I hope you will forgive me my jealousy, but back then, I hoped no one else noticed you. I hoped I was the only one that did. I hoped that our relationship was one flush with the taste of an affair: of a secret love so lovely that one can't help but question whether it was not forbidden.

When we met, perhaps you remember, I didn't speak. Neither did you. (It was a library, after all.) But I saw your face, and I could not avert my eyes. And to my surprise, you looked back at me. There we were, engaged in a staring contest neither of us wanted to back out of.

And then you smiled.

And then I smiled.

And the sun was brighter, and the grass was greener, and the air was sweeter.

Can anyone blame us for what we did next? We escaped the confines of the library, and did the thing all lovers long to do: we got to know each other. You told me about yourself, and the universes contained within you. I marveled at your tales of miracles: of a man who sails between stars, of a force of attraction that is more than mundane mass, of a farmer who built a cow, of refugees fleeing from the sun, of the magic that is science and the magical sciences. And I responded the only way I knew how: by loving sighs and smiles.

I didn't want it to end.

But it did end. As I knew it would.

For the sad, stupid fact was that you were not mine. You already belonged to someone else. And what we had, all those glorious nights and gentle days, could never be forever. The universe entrusted you to me, and me to you, for a while, but still -- you were not mine.

I said goodbye to you at the place I met you. I turned away from you and made my exit from the library, with closed ears and heart lest you called at me one more time. No one saw my tears.

Since then, I've walked on my path in this world, hoping that I would meet you somewhere else. Your soul, in another incarnation. But I have not been lucky, and I grow more pessimistic and desperate by the day.

And I can't help but wonder, if ...

If I went back to that library, that blessed library, could I, by whatever chance The Almighty allows, see you again?

I miss you. I love you.



If only books could read.