initium (n.)
Latin
[The] beginning.
__________________
There's a theory in the world that explains love.
Something about dead stars and antimatter. Something about lucid dreams and the unconscious. Something about God and four elements in your veins.
Something about promises.
I don't think I have to tell or not tell you now. I think you know. And I think if you don't, you will and don't need me to go spoiling anything. So much spoils so soon. The freshest sweets, plump with life and sumptuary with youth, red apple glaze and berry reduction. Like a breath of burning oxygen. Hellish. Heavenly. Spoiled rotten.
Take a bite.
__________________
Olivia said, "What's love to you?"
Ari blinked. The world was a picture show. "Excuse me?"
Olivia leaned back. Blink. She smiled. Blink. She sighed. "When you say you love someone," she elaborated, "what does that mean?"
He said, "Why are you asking me this?"
"Why can't I?" she pressed. "I'm not here to chase you, Ari. I'm not here to fight or lecture or chastise. I'm not going to chain you to this chair. If you don't want to be here, then don't be here. Simple as that. If you think your marriage doesn't need me, then it doesn't need me. Who am I?" Blink. Olivia leaned forward. "I'm going to tell you something honest."
Ari rapped at the chair's arm. "I wish someone would."
"Love is the least of a marriage."
He frowned. "Oh."
"It's a good start, of course. It's important. But people love differently and thinking you will always come to meet in the middle with it is where you break." She gestured at him, to the door where Max remained outside. "And honestly? You're breaking."
Ari stared on at her. The afternoon fell like silk. He rubbed its fibers between his fingers, the saffron staining on his skin. "What's your point?"
"What's love to you?"
"What's that point?"
"Maybe if you answer, you'll find out."
Love was chemicals, was skin, was earth metals and halogens. Love was a vine in his left arm, snaking like a thread through his tendons, sprouting thorns and roses that tore up his nerves until he couldn't feel anything but it. Love was gruesome, gory, bloodlust. Love was a sick thing, a starved creature, a withered wraith. Love was a gospel, a grace, a rose-winged seraphim. Love was words. Love was silence.
But love was honest.
Perhaps that's why he feared it.
________________
YOU ARE READING
And/Of/Or
Short Story"There's a theory in the world that explains second chances." ----- When a couple goes on a camping trip in a last attempt to fix their broken marriage, they go off trail and end up falling through a seemingly-bottomless hole. Within it, they come t...
