as they talked, he began to understand the truth. their life was in a rut. they had begun to live the same day over and over again. somewhere along the line they had drifted. neither one of them pulling ahead of the other. the problem was not that she had changed and he hadn’t. the problem was that they had both stayed exactly the same. he had seen this coming of course. but the problem with being able to see into the future is that you can’t always fight what you see. they were looking at each other from either side of a great divide now. he was busy looking into the abyss to see what form might spring forth. he had watched with curiosity as the ground between them opened up. from the first hairline crack to the inches wide gap. the expanse now was immeasurable. there was no possibility of pushing the continents back together. one could not simply reform pangea. and this is how our world ends, he thought. not with a bang, but a whimper. he wished now that it was more like an atom being split instead of the simple act of butter being divided from butter. some automatic function of the heart kicked in and everything inside of him began to grasp and clutch at the fragments of what had been. at what could possibly still be if he could say the words. this inner drama played itself out to an audience of none. his heart strings begged to use him for a puppet, but he ignored the temptation. let her go. no need to shed tears in futility. he wasn’t jesus. for them there was no resurrection. he remembered all the nights smoking naked in bed with her beside him. had he really been there? no. they had each had a better relationship with the tv screen. he loved her now more than ever. maybe even for the first time. *** everything had shifted a little. the sun light. each particle of dust. everything had become just a little … he couldn’t put his finger on it. but it was different, and he liked it. I am not the same, he thought. I am not the same. the thought repeated itself and began to spread like some benign cancer. reproducing at a rapid and uncontrollable rate, laying waste to any concept of self that might have come before it. he found the contours of such a thought irresistible. it possessed him. his hands busied themselves with the act of removing a cigarette from its package. he put it to his lips, struck a match and set the faggot on fire. *** sitting outside of a café on some street he’d never been down, john watched his lover slip away from him. he knew this solely by the emotional responses he was having to the reel of film currently playing in his head. it was like knowing who you were talking to in a dream. the person didn’t always look like they did in real life, but the feelings they elicited were unmistakable. wow, he thought. she is beautiful. even if I have to lose her, at least I’ll get to have her some day first. *** “hey, john.” he turned his head towards the sound of his brother’s voice and saw only Her. “this is Julia.” “nice to meet you,” She said. “marcus has told me so much about you.”
