I think I'm going insane.
I'm in Nevada now. San Francisco to here is a big climate difference, but the most shocking part was seeing Las Vegas empty. I came to the Strip once before and the amount of people there suffocated me. I was having a breakdown under the bridge near the Pink Flamingo, and that's where I met my wife. She gave me a drink and comforted me. It was the worst and best moment of my life. I can still see her smiling face in that yellow dress. I never thought I could love someone that much. I didn't think anyone had the capability to hold someone so tightly in their heart. Especially not someone like me.
Since that day, we met pretty often. At first we'd just walk around the area together, and eventually we began treating each other to coffee. It was like the strings of the universe had woven themselves into divine knots for me to truly fall in love for the first time.
It didn't last long.
I had come with a college group of mine and time had mercilessly cut itself short. Years passed and we never met again. In the centuries of moments we exchanged we couldn't find a single second to spare for even a call. I was alone for the first time again, and for the very first time it didn't feel good.
But we met again. She worked at a law firm, crossing paths, we remembered all those little moments we once shared. Or I did. Work was not so kind to bless her with the opportunity to meet an old lover.
One day, however, I found her outside her building curled up like a small child, no different from the time I wept under that sad little bridge.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "What's troubling you?" Her puddling eyes looked up at me.
And despite me, I felt my heart ache. What a dangerous feeling. I pulled her in and heavy little tears dripped down her chin and melted its way into my shirt. I thought of every transient glimpse of heaven she had given me in Las Vegas and questioned every muscle in her body that made her smile at me the way she did. A vivid memory of her vibrant yellow dress dulled down to the gray tear stains on my shirt.
Our old love, delirious and impermanent, transfigured into something so much more beyond words. Unimportant seconds from when we first met became little stories we'd laugh and tell our children after our marriage.
Of course, words are nothing but empty expression, never really able to convey the true meaning of what is felt. My wife and I had a simple story; we fell in love, and we broke apart. It's sad, but most sad things are true. I don't think one should ever marry the person they love. I don't think love should be anything beyond the feeling. It should be merely a chapter of a greater story, not so big the genre it's conceived in.
YOU ARE READING
a world once so big
AdventureA man on a journey to find other humans in an apocalyptic world ends up finding himself instead.