A Random Love Story

He sat in his dark great room smoking a cigarillo and sipping on what was his favorite single malt scotch. The emptiness of his mind focused his attention on breaking down the tastes. The thick smoke from the drag was like ethereal chocolate with subtle amaretto under tones. The scotch was a smooth highland spirit. Tastes of liquid wood smoke coated the faint citrus and apple aspects that began to reveal themselves to his tongue. The feelings of relaxation brought him back to himself that began the familiar sadness and disappointment.

The first few months after that traumatic night was a Xanax and sedative induced haze but in the fog he was still there, simply trading the unbearable pain of conscious loss for the numb pain of grey emptiness. He craved death but couldn’t bring himself to end it. Even with what felt like a shattered mind and soul he had the clarity to not want them to misconstrue him fulfilling the desperate wish for his fathomless emptiness to end as having anything to do with those people he had left in his life. There was something of an exchange in pain in what felt like primarily existing so those he cared for wouldn’t hurt; Sticking it out seemed the right thing to do for the people that cared for him but he existed as a phantom of who he once was. He was a walking talking corpse, doing his best to look alive while decaying on the inside.

Rob got better at going through the motions of looking like a living person, he kicked the medications, somewhat picked up eating and drinking again and made honest plans for a well meaning but relatively empty “future”. In the plans he made he would dress in his well-fitted black suits and white dress shirts and drive her old mustang to the new job he hoped to obtain, a job with a charity devoted to helping those that seemed to need it. Rob had the idea that maybe if she were looking, it would make her proud but that thought couldn’t ignite his soul’s flame again in the absence of the oxygen of seeing her smile and basking in the present warm embrace of her love. Underneath the illusion of on the outside what looked like baby steps towards that new future he was crawling on his knees. No one saw that he never really got back up after collapsing from losing her, his foundation of existence. Despite knowing he could get up, knowing he could go through the motions Rob simply no longer wanted to. He was aware that the legs of his capability could take him anywhere he wanted to go in the world but he only wanted to go to her.

In the beginning he could still talk to her briefly in dreams and see her at the boundary of sleep and waking. He remembered the morning he awoke to a place showered in the brightest yet inexplicability gentle white light he had ever seen. She was lying peacefully asleep next to him with her arms folded under herself like he remembered she did when she was alive. She had always looked like an angel to him but with that unique light bathing her pale skin and blond hair if he didn’t know her previously as the human love of his existence he would swear she was a celestial being. There was no fading of the environment or waking as if from a dream, one moment he was there and the next he was not. As far as Rob was concerned he was with her that morning. Then there was the dream that in the instant he gained lucidity she ran up to him from his peripheral and excitedly hugged him.

“I knew you could do it!” She squealed in delight and he melted in her tight embrace. The memory of the smile on her face and feeling of her arms around him in that dream moment became a bitter sweet memory he was thankful to have but sorrowful to have no more of.

In the absence of true purpose and will for the future he more than he cared to succumbed to the tide of apathy and mindlessness that he thought was the bane of the world. In his moments of clarity he felt sometimes conflicted and sometimes disgusted at too often finding himself not himself, not the him he chose to be, the him she loved. He found in time his animal urges clawed their way to the surface. His body longed for the intimacy experienced between men and women, not plainly sex but complete connection. He was aware he was alluring to the opposite sex; He was handsome, intelligent, and seemed to possess that je ne sais quoi that intrigued women. He wanted to lose himself to the animal aspect of man; The desire burned in him to use his nature to obtain that intimacy even though he knew it could never be complete but at his core he couldn’t bring himself to know another woman. He couldn’t bare the idea of the deception of another woman believing he could truly be hers nor the idea of potentially depriving that woman of the chance of her true other with Rob knowing that he himself was not it. In his lighthearted moments he often wondered to himself how the hell monks managed to do it, he eventually concluded it was through decided delusion and possibly a lot of masturbation.

In addition to his desire for selfish lust and intimacy he found in his most empty moments the darkest of apathy taking the reigns. An apathy which was at ends with who he decided he really was. Rob sunk into deeper despair at the idea of her watching her knight in what he thought might have once looked like shining armor now on his knees in scraps rusted by those moments of lost self. He withered at the thought that she may have left him, but decided he couldn’t blame her for it. Angels deserve better than Devils with generally good intentions he thought sorrowfully. Rob sighed but hoped she felt the depth of love for him that he did for her and that maybe she would still want to keep him when he got to the other side.

He stopped grocery shopping when she left and as such often existed on take out and the generosity of his mother and bother who did their best to help keep his body running. The thought of his brother and mom trying to help him pushed him to feed himself despite not being hungry. Though it was nothing new for him to be frequently absent minded when it involved eating on a normal schedule his new eating habits were sometimes non-existent. The feeling of the hunger he knew was dulled by pain and emptiness. A food trip! He told himself. He hoped the ride on his motorcycle would wipe away some of the despair in his heart. He peeled off his standard uniform of house clothes exchanging them for his jeans, t-shirt and black motorcycle jacket.

“Hey look… He’s going out…”

“Let’s not get too excited, it’s just for Chinese.” He said weakly smiling at the man in the mirror.

The start of the ride felt like everything the ride should have been, it felt like freedom. He was one with his bike and the black Ducati was a master of the road. He picked up the food and made the streets his playground as he often did when he would ride. Rob scanned ahead and seeing nothing but green lights and slow moving traffic began to blur through the slower traffic. He was lost in the experience of swaying his way around the slow cars when he noticed the traffic under the overpass ahead not moving despite their green light. He tested the feel of his brakes, which told him there was no way to safely bleed off his speed without losing control. The red lights of the stopped cars in front of him which were rapidly increasing in size took his conscious thought and he reacted instinctively quickly splitting lanes between a semi and other cars which began closing gaps that he could enter seemingly perturbed that he was lane splitting. He wondered why they reacted that way, especially considering he will more than likely be a tail light in the distance as soon as he was able to take off. He managed to maneuver carefully around the cars and proceeded home. In his side mirror he noticed the cars oddly were still not moving, for seemingly no reason.

The danger of the potential crash behind him his mind began to wander again like it tended to on the rides home. Rob longed to have her arms around his waist and her “noggin” side to side with his, he spent the rest of his ride imagining her on the bike with him doing just that.

One more excursion on my short list of trips outside ended, Rob thought to himself as he signaled his garage door to open. Beyond all reason she was there, just as she used to be. She stood holding the garage entrance to the house open like she would when she would hear his motorcycle approach. Despite feeling what felt like a flood of emotions, his face registered no change from his wide-eyed glare composed of confusion and wonder. Rob took in her smile and he softened but did not move as he in his way tried to make sense of the situation. A million possibilities crossed his mind and in a moment he decided he didn’t care how, he ripped off his helmet revealing his newly unkempt curly hair. Rob felt his soul spark and his heart beat. The piece of him that could fill the void that was caving him in stood in front of him.

He previously never knew the doubt of an unsure proposal as they both desperately wanted to wed each other. Rob had held marriage as something sacred since childhood despite not knowing or comprehending the love he might be lucky enough to experience one day. Marriage was a promise that he would be hers and do his best, the best. Upon Ash gracing his existence his desire to be worthy of her hand only grew, as did his expectations for himself. Rob wanted to wait for things to be perfect; He did not regret his desire but desperately wished he would have gave into the idea of being her work in progress.

Things were different now though he thought. He was a shell and ashamed of himself for not being strong enough to hold on tighter to being the “Bear” that she knew and loved. He looked into her beautiful eyes and screamed inside that he was still in there and desperately wanted to be her eternal work in progress. This is what marriage had always meant to him; He wanted to be hers forever.

“My happiness…” he said softly while dismounting his bike. He stood there still frozen unintentionally holding his breath and then the moment passed, they rushed to each other’s embrace.

“Honey you deserve better than an inept devil with good intentions.” He whispered in her ear.

“We choose.” She said back into his hear and squeezed tighter.