The Love of His Life

The fog closed in on him. Brown hazel eyes stared into the unknown expanse of colloidal whiteness. I think I love you…I think I love you…I think I love you…the words just kept playing in his head like a gramophone record that gets stuck on a couple of incongruous notes in a tacky song.

The cold wind ran, and skipped, and swam, and flew all around his head. His head grew cold too…cold and numb. An overriding sense of horror, horror so overpowering that it overshadowed itself made him say aloud “I think I love you. I think I love you. I think I love you…” It must have been some sort of defense mechanism—saying aloud words that meant nothing, just kept his wits from falling apart by the thin thread of activity. His face looked abnormally pale and the wisps of pale brown hair that crowned his face looked paler still.

Fog grew so thick you could cut it with a knife. The only thing that cut through it though, was a pair of dark, large eyes…dark and beautiful, looking at him from a distance. He couldn’t see them but he could feel them. He could feel their intense gaze, and that intensity burnt through his skin. He felt the intolerable heat in the pit of his stomach. ‘But I think I love you…But I love you…But I think…’
The soliloquy went on and on. His fists were clenched and the spot of red on the knuckles contrasted harshly with the whiteness of his hands.

He knew she was standing there—a spot just far enough to be out of his sight yet close enough for her to see every movement of his body, every contraction of his facial muscles, every bead of sweat on his skin. In his head he could see her as she always was—a pair of depthless eyes and a head of curly raven hair, her beautiful lips puckered into a half wistful half cynical smile. He knew she was smiling at him in the same manner right this moment, and the thought made him cringe with terror. “But I love you. Damnit. I love you” He screamed. It was a harrowing scream which was muffled in the fog and reached no ears but his. The wind whistled as though in answer to that scream.

It was in the bar where his band played their weekly gig that he had first seen her. Sitting in the back row, her face an enigma behind the translucent curtain of cigarette smoke she looked at him and at no one else, looked at him with no expression other than that of intense concentration. When he got off the stage he moved a few steps towards her and then stood still, staring. She smiled. It was a mocking and strangely attractive smile. It was the air of mystery, of depth that attracted him to her. She seemed beyond the trivialities of every day life, she was the material poetic and dark rock songs of the seventies were made of, she was moonlight, she was sunshine, she was the smoke from acid cigarettes, she was the vibration of an electric guitar.

He dreamed of her every free moment, and lately he had dreamt of her every busy moment as well. He had always wanted his life to be more than ordinary and she gave him that. She made him miserable but she gave him that. Slowly and steadily she had gained influence on him, turning him into a creature he hardly recognized. Now she was going have him completely. The realization that he did not want to be like her came a little too late. The cloud of death was hovering above him already.

The boy steadied himself and tried to get ready for the inevitable. He could’ve done anything to run away from those dark eyes and never see them again. They were not a girl’s, they were not even human. Those were Satan’s eyes he’d been seeing. He thought of Ana, he thought of her eyes that reflected the sky and were always full of tenderness. Ana was the opposite of this witch who had made life impossible for him. Ana was so pure, so innocent. He thought of her as he would have thought of a guardian angel and realized with a pang that that’s what she was to him. Too late now though, too late.

The girl was beautiful. She was sitting on the lap of a boy and her light blond hair swayed with rhythm to the muffled music onstage. The boy was drunk and his hands moved all over her body as they would have moved over a soft inanimate object. She tried looking into his eyes but they were blank, they were settled in her direction and still saw nothing of her. Suddenly, she felt disgusted with herself. With a jerk she lifted herself and walked out of the dingy hall and into the road as fast as her legs could carry her. “Ana” shouted a voice from the distance “Ana. Stop. Come back”. She ran. Without looking back she ran till she found herself covered by the fog on the grass field on the other side of the road.

With a shock Ana realized her cheeks were wet with tears. She hated herself. She hated being a slut. She hated being the subject of crude jokes made by the boys. She wouldn’t want Tom to know. ‘Oh god! Please don’t let Tom know’ was the prayer she said silently in her head, silently and desperately. He was the only boy who talked to her decently without wanting anything in return. He hardly talked and brooded a lot, but what did that matter? He let her be a friend to him. She loved him. He didn’t know that but she loved him.

He stood waiting with terror in his heart and dread in his soul. The fog made everything seem so dark. Suddenly out of the dark came a voice “Tom”. He thought it was in his head, but then it came again “Tom”. He turned around, and saw the silhouette of a girl at some distance. He recognized the voice; it was Ana.

She came running closer and stopped near him. On her face was a friendly smile, the smile of an angel, he thought. His face automatically broke into a grin, a disarming grin that made his dimples prominent. The dark satanic eyes vanquished and he couldn’t remember the last thing about them. The fog thinned out and the sunlight pierced through it. The darkness was gone.