querencia

CHAPTER ONE - (2) ET CETERA

and so on

𝐓om remembered a quote from The Divine Comedy, the book that he religiously studied and transcribed during his time at university as a Greek Mythology and Classics major.
"The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream." (- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy)
Tom was more hypnagogic, wrapped in a bubble that cocooned the world and when Chris walked into his life with his winsome smile, the daze muddling Tom cleared.

Days after days Tom was possessed by a restless, loud shadow of panic. The feeling was not unpleasant, it riled Tom up. But he could not explain the sudden fear that accompanied pleasure and elation when the certain blonde showed up, grinning good-naturedly. His heart would pulse heavily like a bird trapped in a cage, threatening to jump out. And his breath would catch at Chris's picturesque beauty. His body would freeze, from terror or beauty he did not know, but perhaps, they are one.

Beauty is worshipped, at the feet of Aphrodite; beauty is Pyrrhic and difficult to attain, Tom later learnt.

x

Chris somehow carried the aura of an angel, an alien touch to him that did not fit in with the rest of earth.
He was present, but rarely looked like it. His eyes would dart around, not a nervous habit, rather just seemingly unfocused.
Perhaps because he didn't seem to care, Chris exuded comfort, like a water lily growing unperturbed by the chaos of daily life.
Tom envied Chris for being mildly detached from the world despite reality, legs dangling from the clouds like a child, as he himself was trapped by the gravity of normality, (later slight pessimism) that dyed the clear waters of his soul light grey, which would glow when Tom saw Chris.

The day when Chris called Tom "brother", though through the role of Thor, it invoked warm, fuzzy affection in the pit of Tom's stomach, sending ripples across the glowing river of his soul. He wondered if it was what Patroclus felt when with Achilles.

And then there was a day where Tom's soul drowned itself in black. Chris and Tom were in the actor's lounge. The curtains were drawn that sunlight banging on the windows couldn't get in, but the room was warm and everything was submerged in a gentle filter.
They were confabulating about the best coffee.

"Back in Australia, we have this ... this brand called, uh, coffee alchemy and my wife absolutely loves them."

Tom looks up, startled. 

"You're married!?"

"Mm... Yeah. I'm married."

"Settling at such a young age?"

They both unaccountably bursted into laughter.
Tom stared into his cup of tea, lips parted. Momentarily he was disoriented. His wasn't thinking: his mind suspended - on nothing, his body motionless as a corpse's, time one frozen frame. Out of the corner of his eye he was mildly aware of Chris looking over, he brought the cup up and beamed at Chris, feeling oddly like a puppet.
The air conditioner blew in his face. The world seemed faraway. He lifted his eyes to look at speckles of dust wandering like weightless stars in space.

Tom's world was pulled off balance. He did not feel it at first, but as he sipped his tea quietly, the conversation abruptly cut off, his heart involuntarily squeezed like it were an old, notebook drenched in ink, sour, swollen and dark, pages of it ripped off, leaving jarring ruins.
Suddenly he could imagine Chris's life whizzing past him like a train steadily on its tracks, while his own trudged on slowly. 

They were only two travellers scattered each at the edges of earth, one from beyond the seas where Atlas held the heavens, one covered in jewellery from the Far West. Through the interference of fate, their paths intertwine. This summer afternoon, and perhaps for some more, their hearts and youth lie bare, souls on the plains of Elysian. Eventually they would part as they had met. 

to be continued