She came to me again… this time with pale porcelin skin and ebon hair. I don’t know how she finds me, but she always does. I wonder sometimes if I’m the only one worthy of her affections, or if there are others. Hmph, that’s ego talking. Of course there are others… Maybe. The first time was almost traumatic. She had spiraled golden hair, yet the same alabaster complection. She showed me truth… Truth? And then I awoke.
It was like being cast from heaven by God himself, forever doomed to remember the paradise that you’d been close enough to touch. As the vision faded and I began to recognize my surroundings (a cheerless basement room that I’d claimed as my own), the gravity of it all finally caught up with my reeling senses. She wasn’t there. In the space of one night, one dream, I’d become so enthralled with her that her absence was painful. The harsh and grim reality of my life bore heavy upon me that day. How pathetic I really am. How lacking in so many aspects. Greatness was only a step away, yet I wouldn’t allow myself the leap of faith required to attain it. She’d shown me how close it really was that night. All I need do is simply let go. How right she was… Bah! What am I thinking? What nonsense. Impossible… Maybe.
For months I retired to sleep early, hoping beyond hope that there I would find her… Waiting. Yet she was gone. A fleeting glimpse of possibility. So young and frail was her body, but her mind as old and wise as Methuselah. Then there was the most tantalizing of her wiles… Her compassion, and her desire… for me… and me alone.
I searched the the faces of those whose paths I crossed in my waking hours, in the forlorn hope of seeing some glimpse of her essence captured within them. Occasionally I saw aspects of her floating through the packed throngs of my city, but only aspects. One may possess the beauty of her, but their mind was young and weak. While another would be brimming with desire, but had no understanding of me… merely my body.
It proceded as such for a long while. I filled the gap with petty things designed to distract myself. Mostly drugs. It only amplified the loss in the end.
One day whilst I slumbered in a feverish alcohol induced delerium she called out to me. My name rolled from the tip of her tongue like the song of the siren. I stood and looked for her, but it was dark. I caught a fleeting image of her in the darkness, and so I gave chase. It was as if pursuing a quarry constructed of light through a forest of tangible darkness. Her laughter beckoned me through the shadow trees. Why does she torment me so? Her girlish giggles inflamed rage within my heart, yet still I followed. Where is she? Another glimpse, and I at last caught sight of her. Only now did I realize Where she was leading me. The sun was rising across this strange realm of darkness, and she was running towards it, as if she would dive into it. I followed her willfully into the bright and shining light. Though the illumination was so intense that it blinded my eyes, and so I closed them. When I next opened them, I was lying on a gurney in an emergency room. I don’t recall how I’d gotten there, or why, but the pain in my face was unmistakable. The doctors showed me the X-rays later that day. I’d broken my own nose in a drunken rage. Someone had dropped me off at the emergency room, and left me bleeding on the front steps. She had abandoned me.
It took a year before I was free from the chains of drugs and alcohol. My nose mended with minor surgery, and now only I can tell that it was ever broken. Life slowly returned to normal. The woman of my dreams faded away like so many old scars. I was serene. But it was not meant to last.
(If you want to know what happens next, leave a comment. If you don’t care, and you think this is all crap… leave a comment. If you chanced upon this accidentally… leave a comment. And if you like rice… … … … leave a comment.)