The Lovers

Each had fallen in love; each was infatuated. But neither had feelings for a mere bundle of flesh and bone. They had fallen for thoughts. They wanted what was too large to possess, too grand to chase. And each knew it.

When she had realised that she preferred the world as she imagined it — the world wrapped in her heavy blankets — she dove into a beer bottle. She drank until her brain was waterlogged, until her liver was saturated. She drank hoping she might pass out and die — die unaware of her leaving — die without acknowledging her regrets. But when she awoke in a strange house, when she stared deeply into the bowl of a toilet, when she reached for another bottle of booze, she knew that she would die in a hospital. She would die wide awake. She would die long and torturous. She would die waiting for a transplant. And still, she didn't change a thing.

When he realised that he would never fly above the horizon, he acted as though he could. He put his arms to the sky and willed his feet to move — begged them to leave the ground — knowing full well that they would stubbornly stick to the dirt. And inside him grew a sadness, deep and endless, from which he would draw many beautiful lines. But years after the realisation, he could take it no more. He grabbed his last pen and wrote. Gently he replaced it, opting instead for a gun. Next to him lay a bloodied scrap of paper. 'My only regret is that my thoughts were all that touched the sky.'

And so the small dreamer went to bed each night, longing for what she could very easily have. And so the big dreamer entered the big sleep, unable to bear the burden of an unattainable fancy.