Resonance

It had been 4 years since anyone had seen her roam the town; she had left in search of the city of broken glasses. Perhaps it would be good to let you know that it did not exist, but she believed that it did. And so she went on, and left her family and friends behind. I came upon the town she had left about three summers after, and the town went on without her, but still, there was a boy at the edge of the town who seemed to still hold her memory like one holds a glass of water after not drinking for weeks. I went up to him to ask him, “Oh boy, have you perhaps heard of the girl who is gone?” and he reclined his head, not wanting to look me in the eye, but I saw him give me the faintest of nods.

I then told him, “Could you perhaps tell me off her?”

He said, “ Sure, but it’s been three summers since I last saw her face, but I’ll tell you what I remember”

***

In the town, there was once a man and a woman who had married and had three children, the youngest being Lovethorn. It was the custom in this town to name children with two-part names, so that would explain the strangeness of her name. I called her Love tho, and as did others for she hated her full name and preferred to be known as just Love. When I first met her after arriving in town, she was 10 years of age, and already she had begun to write her thoughts down. However, it wasn’t until a bit of years later that her pen began to glow and with it she wrote such tapestries with such ease that it was like her brain itself was made of poetry. I began to want her to write about me, and she vexed me to no end for it seemed every word she wrote was like I wrote and when she spoke to me it seemed I was talking to my mirror and I hated her for that. Especially because she began to write about a boy she had appeared to have fallen in love with, a boy with a poet’s face and a fool’s mouth but still I could tell this boy had a pull on him and after all he was my best friend. But I hated how much she seemed to love him and yet with every word she wrote he seemed to grow more and more quiet towards her until he began to see her as a poisonous flower beautiful to see but never to touch. I believe that’s why she left, one day when all she could see in his eyes were that of fear for her love, she packed her bags and said she would wander off to get inspiration elsewhere, to the city of broken glasses where there were mirrors that allowed hearts to open up and she wanted him to have one. I grew angry with her, more angry than anybody could have ever felt, for how could she leave, how could she leave me?!!. I began to treat her like she was the devil itself, and she began to have disdain for me too, and then I rejoiced for suddenly in her every lovely thought she had of him, she was also having a thought of me. If I could not be her lover, then I could be her villain. I knew why she hated me, as it was the same reason I hated her, she was me, she was going to look for a mirror for him but she knew she had already found her mirror it was me.

***

The boy had grown angry while telling the story, I could see in his eyes, that emotion I could not name he had for the girl. I began to wonder if he was truly the right one to tell the tale but alas it seemed no one else could recall her, unless I were to go look for that other lover of hers tho from what the boy told he would be little to no help. Perhaps, he might even make it all about her love for him and I couldn't buy that was the real reason she had left. Sure, love does make people do crazy things but leaving your home, maybe it was for love but not just for that fool’s mouth boy, no it was some deeper love some other strange ancient force. I looked at the

boy again, wondering if I could tell something about the girl from his face, as he claimed they were mirrors of each other after all. He was a handsome boy, though his beauty came not from the sun but the fire that burns beneath the earth. I wonder if she was like that too, like an unstable atom about to undergo nuclear fission and kill us all. His eyes had a thousand thoughts and if I looked closer I could see the tips of his soul were ripped like someone had taken a knife and split it into two, and I wondered if the other half was with her.

I fear I have gotten incredibly into my thoughts, my mother used to tell me if I thought too much I would become my thoughts and then I would cease to exist in the physical world. Maybe it has already happened, as why am I able to see this boy’s soul so clearly.

“ You’re staring, and I know I’m handsome but I’m afraid you’re not my type mate” said the boy “ Do you want me to continue telling you about her, I haven’t even gotten to the good part”

I nodded and the boy continued his tale

***

I believe the most harmful thing for Love is she is unable to be perceived outside of love. I know I’m a comedian, but anyways, if you were to ask Waterbridge what he thinks of her, he’ll probably tell you in terms of how much she loved him, but that wouldn’t be it now would it. She had a thousand thoughts, and it irritated me to no end, and I made it my life’s mission to have an opposite thought to whatever thought she may have. In truth, it was annoying that we were the

same level of intelligence, though we went about it in different ways. She was as always a contrarian in everything she did, for she had a poet’s mouth but a scientist’s brain. Waterbridge, once told her to be a writer though I believe he did that solely so her life’s purpose would be to think of him, but even then I liked to believe she wrote his face but my thoughts. I say this because I know I said she ditched town to find him that mirror, but truth is I believe she left so she could turn science into poems and then be able to live in peace writing about nature, or that she could heal people with her words instead of studying for those long medical exams she was always going on and on about. And again you must be wondering, how do I even know any of this. She wrote to me about random things but wrote to me all the same. To be honest I believe we both rationalized it as we wrote to each other because we hated each other and wanted to pick up a fight over letters. I learned about her worries, and her disdains for the world and she sometimes wrote about him, asking me for information, though even then I believed that was her saving face. She pestered me about the women in my life, after all I am such a handsome lad even if she would probably never admit she thinks that of me too. Perhaps one of the things we loved to argue about was society, and our very clear different views on it, though I’d much rather you not tell her this but I will admit sometimes I play devil’s advocate because I can picture her cheeks flushing and her blood rushing at her anger, and I love that I have that effect on her.

***

“Well, are you gonna continue or not?” I told the boy, who had grown quiet for a second and again was unable to look at me. I could see in his eyes again that emotion, tho now it had turned darker

“ I will tell you, but first I must make you aware that this part of the story is not my brightest moment, and if there has ever been anything that made me unworthy of her affection and gaze it was that. But it’s an addiction you know, her expression, how she’s so passionate

about everything and I loved that I got that part out of her but I do have to admit in trying to rile her up I sometimes went too far.” said the boy.

“ What on earth could you possibly be referring too, surely whatever words you exchanged she took them as jests, from what you’ve told me, she seems like a smart young woman” I said

“ Oh she is, but perhaps I forgot that when two souls are as alike as I believe her and me to be, she took my every word to be truth and the truth isn’t always pretty” said the boy and he began his tale again

***

As I was saying, Love and I loved to argue over every little thing, even the things one shouldn’t be arguing about. The world had opened her eyes to how cruel it could be, and yet I wanted to prove her wrong. I told her perhaps it was cruel but only because she had left the town was she able to be sad about it. There were many things that upset her, I do not have time to name them all though I will venture to say that perhaps it would be a much shorter list if I tell you what she did like. Nevertheless, I’ll begin by stating her hatred on the role of women in society, and I don’t intend this to become a lecture, but perhaps there’s no other way around as our love

***

The boy had interrupted his story to enter a fit of coughing, I do not know what had overcome him, I saw him shake his head and continue on with his tale

***

As our dynamic mostly entailed in long debates, in which both of us knew way too much or pretended to be the end all be all in whatever issue we were arguing about, and our debates usually made me the devil’s advocate, why I made myself the bad guy is a question I do not

know the answer too. But for whatever else, she seemed to hate that women were, despite the illusion of equality, still undermined by men. Especially back in our little town, and the great world had taught her all of what she could be just by herself. And yes, maybe I’m upset that her newfound feminism made her so independent or whatever, and she seemed to need me even less. But still I found myself proud she argued with me about it, and not Waterbridge, whose silence to her was proof he was an angel in disguise. Though I know more often than not he disagreed with her ideas, but was too cowardly to even say anything, and I love the guy, I really do, he's my best mate, but it wouldn't hurt to admit your thoughts every once in a while. In hindsight, this bloke could not have picked a worse time to admit he agreed with me.

One day, we were arguing over another topic, and then I will admit I became the monster she believed me to be. Perhaps I rejoice at that tho, because she finally grew to hate Waterbridge, and forgot about him, even if it was for a brief eternity I was the only one in her thoughts. You see at this point, she had been living in the outside for a good two years, and she, well she had begun to learn that me and Waterbridge's family had not always belonged to that town, in fact we had forced the inhabitants to let us live, well not we personally but people that had the same cadence of tongue as I did, Waterbridge didn't have that cadence of tongue, but she believed that even if we didn’t take over the town ourselves we should at least have some reverence and awareness that we had.

I must make it clear it made sense she was upset, tho her family came from all around the parts, the majority of her blood was of the original town, and there lied the clear visual difference, me and her had for although I was born in this town, unlike Waterbridge who was

foreign-born and foreign-looking., I was foreign-looking down to my voice, but I was born here and when I spoke this town’s native tongue only a faint sense of my ancestors could be heard. That being said, when I spoke in my ancestor’s tongue, I had their accent, and for all of Love’s composure I knew it was the one thing she obviously loved about me, the sound of my voice.

Look, I will admit, she was perfectly reasonable in her request but I couldn't contain myself with how riled up she got when I pissed her off on that specific topic, the topic of difference, how some despite what they do with their life are treated differently, and I knew that she was different than me in terms of obvious terms but still perhaps I felt she was me too much to understand how much this would truly upset her.

I don’t even really remember why I did it or even doing it, but I know she was back in town for the weekend. Next thing I know, I’m getting up in the morning that day, walking to the town square, picking up that device that makes your voice louder and I don’t remember my voice saying some complete nonsense about apologizing for my ancestor’s deeds and for being white, and it was all some complete utter bollocks that if she ever forgives me it will be because someone removed her frontal lobe. Though I’ve heard from the vine that she has forgiven me, she’s reduced me to the idiot she now thinks I am.

Waterbridged laughed, he actually laughed and I watched her looking at him laughing and if hearts had a sound when they break, I felt hers break then. It was like a wave of fire and anguish was melting in her and I hated myself for that, and he didn’t even care all that much from what I heard. She vanished then, and hasn’t been seen since. She gave him a letter, that he just had the mailman throw into the river because he was too much of a coward to see her fury, and then she left. It was different though, I felt her silence, and she didn’t even say any word to me. The fury she had of the moment was directed at Waterbridge for laughing at what I did, and she punished me by her indifference, she yelled at the whole town except for me.

And you know what’s so funny, is I’ve heard something happened to her that made her sent a letter to Waterbridge, and he actually opened it that time, and I’ve heard from him that she still loves him. Whether he’s telling the truth or not, she’s been sending him letters and he hasn't been reading a single one, he says he can’t.

I’ve thought about sending her letters, but I know she won’t respond. Still in my dreams, I feel her so close, like I’m in her dream and she’s in mine and not just that we are dreaming of each other but that our dreams are one. She is still me and I am still her and even if we never speak again , and waterbridge and her somehow make it work, in the end when she is one with the universe again, me and her will be one again, not him and her but me and her. For she is not Waterbridge, she is Heartspear, she is me.