Smoke and Mirrors

Her coming was like a butterfly's harsh landing on a flower petal, and with her landing, the few drops of him clinging to the frictionless surface were projected into upward motion, dropped into the dirt below, and absorbed into nothing it was before, transformed by the cyclical nature of life.

Before her, his world was all smoke and mirrors. After her, the smoke cleared, and shards of broken mirror cut his feet. She was the gritty, bitter first drink of water in the morning after brushing his teeth. She was purgatory before his spiritual reckoning with some higher power. She was the only person who changed him.

“The music isn't the same across that border, “she tells him. They are sitting on her '85 Ford Bronco at the outlook by the portion of the river that doesn't stink like sewage. The sky is luminous. There are one hundred-thousand stars glowing their heat onto the human world. The air is sticky, but the bronco connects them to the cool earth below. The engine has been off for some time, maybe an hour, and she has refused all of his advances. He thinks nothing of it. Rather, he assumes it must be that time of the month.

“What do you mean?” He asks. He knows he would never hear more than vague musings if he did not invite it. She was understated; but when she spoke, it was serious. It was either serious, or it was complete foolishness. And that is why he adored her.

“It doesn't hold the same sway over my emotions. I felt free.”

She felt free on her two week trip out of town with friends? He is left out of the details of the trip. She just got back, and they drove to their favorite place to get high and, he thought, to catch up on lost face time. Instead, he is frustrated by her serious talk that does not sound at all like a positive reflection upon their relationship.

Without thinking much about it, the rational and irrational portions of his brain both seize up defensively. Do I suffocate her? How? He feels like they barely see each other. He speaks.

“Free from what? What restrains you here?”

She props herself onto her elbow, facing him.

“I restrain me. I am nothing here. Past that border, “ she points with the hand holding the blunt once more to the horizon, the symbol of her border. “Past that border, I come alive.”

He swallows. He knows he has to be completely and utterly irresistible.

“What more life do you breathe there than what you breathe into me when we make love right here, mi amor?“

He tries to lighten her blank faced mood with a whisper past the hair covering her ear. He kisses her lobe, she touches his arm and smiles with the left side of her face, distantly facing him still. She frowns with the right side of her face, he can see it. She really is no good at this, being what he wants her to be. She is no good at anything here.

“You fill the void. I want....“ she pauses to look briefly into his eyes. She turns her gaze back to the sky, begging the stars to keep her focused and to inspire her to keep going.

“I need something that will chase the void away. When you leave -- when we are apart – the void gapes open and emptiness oozes all over my truths once again. It throbs at my being like an open sore, its painful pulse telling me that, regardless of what we have while entangled in each other, I am not balanced on my own.

While I was gone, I was strong. The girls felt the change. That whole gaping feeling just didn't happen at all. I mean, sure, it took some time to stop missing you. But I don't even know what I was missing about you. What, exactly, I longed for within you. I know I needed you to cover me in warmth. But I began to question if you could suffice as anything but a cover. I reasoned with myself. I can buy a cover at the store. I need spiritual nourishment. I just.... God, I thought you should know. I just think you should know these things.”

Bewildered, he joins her in gazing up at the sky moments before she ends her explanation. She turns her head to him for a response and feels her stomach drop when she realizes he is not looking up at her. He is staring towards her freedom, and his gaze is dead.

She came and went like a butterfly.