𝑰𝑵𝑲 • 𝑻𝒆𝒘𝒌𝒆𝒔𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒚 / 𝑳𝒐𝒖𝒊𝒔 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

Fear For Me

To rise each day and drown each night

beside your resting head,

Would be to live the dreams I dream

Alone, at night, in bed

—————

"Don't get married,"

Was the sentence that caught my attention. Obviously, it hadn't been directed towards me in anyway. Not only was I stood in the back, clutching onto a half empty wine jug, but no one would give me such advice. Ever.

I'd been daydreaming about whatever I could to past the time, grasping at old theories and personal storylines or narratives I'd imagined or come up with as a kid. I struggled to recall conversations I'd had with strangers in town, trying to read them back in my mind like a script, only holes had been burned into the paper, effectively hiding some of the words.

A favorite of mine was to flip through some of the poem's I'd memorized. These were significantly easier to commit, for some reason. They were always short, single versed, four lined rhyming poems; consistently romantic and sensual and sublime. Every word made me feel like a different person, the person I wanted to be, the person I wished I was.

But those three words felt like water being thrown over my head, splashing me in the face and soaking my clothes until I caught a chill. They woke me up like crashing thunder during a storm, I wanted to cower, react in some way; but I couldn't. It would have been improper.

It made my stomach churn, to hear the things I'd been wrestling internally for so long said out loud, especially in someone else's voice. For I moment I felt exposed, as if they'd only said it because they'd read my mind. But it was just a coincidence, eery nonetheless.

"By God- Do not," he laughed, "Believe me when I tell you it's awful, the whole lot."

Earlier that day when I'd been preparing the dogs and tacking up the horses, I hadn't payed much attention to the men. I was too caught up in watching Tewkesbury 2.0, better and improved, confident and proper, able to speak to adults, as an adult. But looking at them now, I doubt I would have been able to notice much.

I could care less who they were and why they were here, they wouldn't be staying long, and it wasn't any of my business anyways. Had I not been forced to stand in a room and listen to them blabber on for what had now been 4 hours, they would have just remained four faceless friends of his uncles.

They all sounded similar, their accents and dialect, posh and refined. I could sense the years of tutoring just. Gushing out of them in false intelligent phrases that were too dressed up and decorated to mean anything significant.

But it seemed like nobody else could tell. They were all either doing the same thing, or too lost in the maze of impressive words and exotic vocabulary. I'm sure I would have been too, if I had any idea what any of them meant.

I'm sure they all thought the same, shared opinions an unoriginal concepts just seemed to flow between their minds and amongst their consciences; like a communal personality. It was utterly boring, watching four quarters of the same person split between four bodies; each one diluted and three fourths empty.

Of the four guests, the man who had provided Tewkesbury with the surprisingly shocking advice of avoiding matrimony was the largest; in both size and stature. He appeared to be gruff, with greying roots, combed back. The ends of his rather impressive mustache were pinched and pointed into delicate spikes. I could tell from the lines on his forehead that he had spent much of his life frowning.

Maybe his statement had been inspired by his wife. Maybe she was a horrible person. Maybe she was just bitter.

To his left sat someone significantly younger. He couldn't have been more than thirty, boasting a full head of dark, slicked back hair, pushed out of his face and atop his head. I thought his nose to be quite sizable, like a doorknob on his face, atop which sat a pair of dainty glasses, hung around the back of his neck by a silver chain.