The Choosing of the Paths

Path 1

She speaks in hushed tones, she is a beauty to behold.

When she feels pleasure - perhaps physical, perhaps of a mental kind - her face relaxes, it glows, from the top, downward, a waxing that spreads and engulfs every sorrow in its path, and turns it gold, and makes it glow.

And that at last reaches her mouth.

Oh and that smile. How it fills you, with sighs.

How it makes you whole and complete, when you behold it, how in that moment you are of a complete surrender.

It is only women who love like this, everyone will assume. For no, men's love is gruff, it cannot consist of such images of pure thought.

And how wrong they are, and how you are proof of it.

A beauty to behold, and you cannot survive her, and you do not know how you survived, before her.

She soothes your soul.

Your time is of two kinds: that spent being with her, and that spent waiting for her to call.

And you have never felt this way before, for anyone, not even for yourself.

You speak to her on the phone.

Nights that are the cure to your days, filled with worry, filled with toil, tired to the bone.

How was your day today, she asks, and you cannot see her and only hear her voice.

But from her voice alone you can reconstruct her, magical particle by magical particle, choice by choice.

That whiteness of teeth, that darkness of gum.

That skin that shines with a dark fire that burns through your body, and thrums at your heart strings.

That shapely body, those graceful hands and feet.

And then you wake up one morning and she is not there anymore, she is gone.

Just like that, with no explanation, so you can scarcely believe it at first, anxiously await her call, will not put your phone down for a moment.

Filled with an anxiety and a dread that will not let you sit, or stand, or stay in one place, or move about.

And now, dear reader, we come to a parting of the ways, a deciding.

If you wish to find out why, if she is worth it to you and you wish to find out where she has gone, and go to retrieve her, at whatever peril, go to Path 2.

If you wish to assume the worst, to seize yourself about you now rather than later, and shrug it off and move on, go to Path 3.



Path 2


She spoke, once, in hushed tones, she was a beauty to behold.

When she felt pleasure - perhaps physical, perhaps of a mental kind - her face would relax, it would glow

and then it will disappear, for it is only a memory, and memories do not suffice.

You think, the Jinays have taken her, the jealous bastards. You visit Serigns, you give out sacrifices.

You believe fervently in things you once laughed at.

And every day you grow more bereft of hope.

And then you think, perhaps not, perhaps not the Jinays then.

Another man, you think. Another man has stolen in, in the dead of night, while I thought she slept, and crept away again with her.

And so you go about the land, looking for this other man, your eyes shaded under your outstretched palm. And as you go about and speak slyly to people, and attempt to hear rumor of him, or of his whereabout, or of his ways.

And you see nothing, and you hear nothing.

Then you remember how full of faith she was, in you, You remember her eyes, and how they looked at you.

You remember her smile, and how it forgave you.

You remember the way she would turn away, when you set an intense gaze on her and said something nice. Stooop. As if she could not bear it, how much she loved you.

And you think no, it is not another man, could not possibly be.

And you think, but no, and you think, but no, and you think, she cannot be.

Death.

The most dreadful of words, and of thoughts.

The end of words, and of thoughts.

And your heart is wrenched from your breast, it is flung out into space, and you are filled with a hollowness that will not let breath past it, that constricts your chest and sinks you to the floor, your eyes closed, gasping.


You tear your hair out, with such force it tears out too your sanity, strands of white that trail from your brain, you are left crazy, reality a gold too richly hued, the Sun too bright, people about you all behaving in strange ways, ways that seem to follow rules, and laws, and a predictable order.

And in the moment of your deepest despair you turn back, you leave yourself there and return, an empty husk.

And, dear reader, you attempt to start again.

Proceed on to Path 3.


Path 3


She speaks in a hushed tone, she is a beauty to behold.

When she feels pleasure - perhaps physical, perhaps of a mental kind - her face relaxes, it glows, from the top, downward, a waxing that spreads and engulfs every sorrow in its path, and turns it gold, and makes it glow.

And that at last reaches her mouth.

Oh and that smile. How it fills you, with sighs.

The same, then. A woman is a woman is a woman, and every woman contains an angel within them, and if it is loved and cared for and teh-teh-ed it will open itself, to be seen and held, to be beholden.

And yet.

There are beauties and there are beauties, there are hushed tones and hushed tones.

Her voice is short by just a whisper's height, deficient by just a sigh's width.

She is in love with you, deeply. You can feel it, can feel your power over her. What you give, and how she receives it, with such fervent want, such gratifying need.

And yet.

When you lie with her at night it is not she in your arms, in the moment before you drift off into sleep.

The woman whose weight you feel then is a more perfect fit in your arms than she ever could be.

A whiteness of teeth, a darkness of gum.

And it is this lack you carry, through your life, until at last you are old, that exhibits itself as a certain holding back, in your manner of expression, that in the end drives women crazy and makes them leave you, until others of them seek you out.


And it is this lack you die with, wishing even at the last that you could be with her.


THE END