Weightless.

She stood on the edge of a steep drop. Steeper than anything she would ever know. In isolation. Nothing before her, nothing after. She turned backwards. Backwards she could face these things, backwards she would never see what was coming, all she would feel is the ability, finally all at once, to be enveloped by the sky, to esconse herself in its very existence. The endless sky, filled with such things that dwelt amongst the air, feeling the clouds brush cool and damp against her cheek, seeping its life through her, breathing as if of one organism. And as her heart fell and shattered amongst the razor-sharp rocks below, she heard him, as though all life of hers was tied to the sound of his voice.

'Do you know what this piece is called?'
She looked up, hearing a familiar voice. He smiled down at her, before collapsing his lithe frame to seat next to her. Smiled half a smile, flickered half a glance.
'No need to be hasty in reply.' He joked. 'It's Gnossienne.'
'By Satie?'
'By Satie.'
'Eric?'
'The very one.'
'I like it.' Though in truth, she would have given heart and soul to anything he had declared a passion.
'Would you believe I've loved it since I was fourteen?'
'Perhaps.'
'Stand up. Walk with me.' He took her hand and lifted her to her feet. She did not show that deep inside, in the place where all things are felt most intensely, a volt, leaping from her heart, ran down her arms to dwell, tingling her fingertips, and again, pacing through each potion of her cheat, ran down one leg, to reach the knee and run up the other. She hid this intensity of feeling underneath layers of social convention, where it is frowned upon to show ones love in such extreme honesty.
He took both her hands, starting withing her an electrical storm. Brought her closer to him, and then back again, a waltz developing.
'Because' he said, in between steps, 'It reminds me of you.'
Her heart stopped. All she could say was 'oh'.
Dark. Pensive. A damask room at dusk. Something always going unsaid, hidden in those thoughts of yours. And something I can't quite pin down. An unpredictability, I suppose.


His eyes were blank when he saw the result of her decision. Like moments made of glass, everything you thought, felt, breathed, heard, touched up until this moment is shattered, and what is left is a cruel impression of ideals. That night he found the note she left. How could one be simply 'Sorry'? The very word fell brutally, drastically short of all meaning and intention he wished it could convey.
But in truth, he did not wish it to be any more than a word, well meaning but insignificant. The word would not, could not, lift itself up from the page to explain intentions, reasons, motives. It could not even begin to extract what heartstrings were entwined with his, from that moment, seven years ago, he had beheld her for the first time, the tune of the Gnossienne floating mysteriously through the air. It could not warm his hands, tug at his hair, breathe life onto his lips, his neck. It was worthless, now the speaker of it is nothing more.

'You told me once, what it felt like to be weightless.'
'I did.'
'Did you know that ever since I was a child, I have been trying to catch that feeling, forever chasing, forever out of reach.'
'I would think it to be a regular occurrence for you.'
'No. You see, as a child I had vivid dreams, each night. In each, as slumber overtook my consciousness, an unseen figure would come and lift me and send me to all sorts of destinations, each where I would float as if nothing could tie me to the earth. I began to know with intimate familiarity what it felt like to be weightless. And at seven, the dreams stopped. Since then I've been plagued with the most dreadful form of groundedness. Nothing I do helps me capture it once more. My feet are too firmly set in the earth.'
She had lifted her eyes to the sky as she spoke, but as she drew to an end, they, like the rest of her, was drawn to her feet. 


He lay on the floor of her living room. Flat on his back, ignorant of the still steaming sup of tea by his knee. He tried to feel gravity as she would have, tried to make the earth come and threaten to swallow him whole. Still to no avail. He looked sideways at the cornices. Tried to imagine how she would have seen them, overwhelmed in unintentional intricacies. He breathed, trying to feel what feelings she must have called her own. To know for certain what overwhelming realities claimed her for their own. He knew though, it was to no avail. To some, each moment is more vivid than a lifetime, each colour brighter, each smell more intoxicating. Each vial of emotion swallowed on every street corner too much to remain bottled, too strong to remain encased in glass. And as the glass shattered, he saw no choice but to pick up the shards and remains, taking their cuts as they came.