The Constorium of Greater Minds

The most difficult part of seeing her again after so long is the realization that the next month together will not progress as so intensely anticipated. The inconsistency of expectation and reality cut deep with the painful blade of reality as the image of the idyllic reunion dissolves in a flood washed forth from an ominous rain cloud that descends upon the city on the third day. It’s in the eyes, the way she looks at him, the imperceptible glance away when he greets her. There is now a boundary between them, a force that although intangible will prove a greater barrier than any physical wall could ever be. She stands in front of him but the look in her eyes tells him she is now unavailable. Gazing at her realizing the change he sees her as she was two years ago when they parted. Her hair, black as midnight, a wild storm against the golden brown of her skin. The sadness in her heart betrayed by a glimmer in the corner of her eyes. Her lips are soft and taste like longing as she kisses him for the last time. Now, standing in front of him two years and three days later her eyes are hard, cold as the accumulation of their two winters spent apart. Where her beauty once engulfed him in a warm radiant glow it now leaves him in the shadow of a melancholy half-light.
Over the following days and weeks she moves further and further away and each day when he sees her it hurts a little more. She has her reasons, which she explains to him, self-preservation and the preservation of heart. Her energy is focused inward or so she claims; it’s in situations such as this that Love makes a skeptic out of everyone. Unrequited love has taught her to be cautious, he has taught her to be cold and he sees in her a reflection of himself. In this turn of fate he cannot help but admire the ironic cruelty with which Love plays her tricks.
For three weeks he exists in a state of limbo. Watching her as if from behind a camera, not in the scene himself but capturing every painful detail on a reel that is to be played continuously in his mind as he lies in bed at night, as he watches the surf crash on the rocky New England coast. He sees the way she carries herself in a group, what role she assumes, what part she plays. He watches, heart aching, as she interacts with other men. The way she laughs at a joke makes his stomach ache and to see her dance is almost more than he can take. When she laughs at another man’s jokes he is reminded of the way she would laugh at his own droll remarks, when she dances with other men he is reminded of the way they danced the night he found out she felt the same way. Now all those little things that would let him know she was his all serve to cruelly remind him that she is slipping further and further away.