Arlo had been watching Luna for a greys deal of time when the 'oddities' began to occur. It had been the comment regarding the realisation of convention that had earmarked her as unusual amongst the superfluous sum of observations that lived in Arlo's mind.
Arlo's intrigue grew. Arlo studied her plan, and noted the impending collision; she would meet the boy in a way that, mathematically speaking, resembled two non-perpendicular, non-bisecting, intersecting lines*. These lines would then, quite rightly, continue onto their opposing fortunes.
Arlo took a look at the boy, and Arlo frowned a little. A shame, thought Arlo, for he needs her, there is no doubting that. How very unfortunate that two such souls should be dated to become disentangled in such a very... Arlo searched for the appropriate word, trivial way.
*Please research the phrase for a visual representation
* * *
Luna had first become acquainted with Sol, she was pleased to say, in not such a conventional fashion as 'the first day of a new term', or as 'the boy who moved I n across the street', but instead at a gathering held by her grandparents in order I clever ate their fifty-fourth wedding anniversary. The slight originality of the meeting would, in time, allow her to feel as though she were not quite so mundane in the affections she would soon develop for him.
Naturally, their age, in comparison to the years help by the majority of the surrounding company, lead to their drifting towards one another, so as to maintain a level of sanity amongst a dense communal conversation concerning taxes, the state of the NHS, and the price of milk. And so they struck up their own conversation, in an attempt to counter these grey subject matters.
The marvellous thing about this initial meeting, was that neither one of them felt any kind of particular inclination towards the other. They were quite indifferent. In fact, if any comment were to be made from either party's chances are it would be that they found the other to be, perhaps, actually a little egotistical.
Irony was a particular favour tie of Arlo's, but it was with a sad smile that Arlo watched this moment, being quite unable to find enjoyment in it due to the knowledge of what would follow.
* * *
Time passed.
They met again, quite 'coincidently'.
And gradually, with sweet equilibrium, their magnetism became as protuberant as a third individual itself, developing its own character within their story.
Luna took pride in her ability to Truman wary when it came to forming attachments to other individuals. She considered herself to be quite immune to the poisonous honey of romance, having established an ability to more or less switch off feelings, after years of misfortune. Therefore the admittance other affections towards Sol caused her a great deal of anguish. For a while, she out rightly denied the yellow growth of warmth for him, opting for the approach that, if she ignored it for long enough, it Paul's go away. Unfortunately, as is often the case with suppressed emotion, it's roved to be counterproductive.
Sol, too, was troubled. Luna's endeavour to hide from him the way she felt only highlighted it more, and the prospect was frightening; he would be the first to admit that he was emotionally incapable of caring for another person, as they so deserved to cared for. He was damaged - ill-equipped - a dented being. The cocktail of drugs that secret as his primary source of energy allows to pretend, even belief, that his thoughts weren't quite so distorted, mangling them further, to the point to which they came full circle back to a fanciful sanity. Sol had lived in this purgatorial state long enough to consider it further. The real world, with its understanding and love and morals was tantamount to Hell. If he let Luna in, the only realm to which he could take her was this milieu of illusion.
"Sol?" said Luna on a semi-clouded day as they meandered along a woodland path.
"Yes?" he replied.
"Are you scared?"
He considered laughing it off. He considered denial. He considered constructing a look on his face of causal confusion.
"Yes." He said, "Terrified."
Silence descended amicably. There wasn't l need to contextualise what they were afraid of, or delve into the matter may further. Both individuals were quite were ax to the things left unsaid.
* * *
Sometimes pain is in the detail. Not a scream, or a cry for help of this whole soul. Just the tremble of a hand, a raise of the shoulders. Sometimes pain appears absent entirely, there is merely an aura of vacancy, and it is this which undo able humans emit.
Sol's eyes lacked focus. He would stare, hazily, at nothing at all, his brow quite in-furrowed, and remain so until something was requested of him. After a while, Luna stopped trying to plead with him. Words and language became insufficient, and the hurt it caused her to try and get out of the person buried beneath in the rubble of his humanity was more that is was worth, from an external perspective. But Luna remained stoic in other respects. Her faith in him never dwindling, and allowed for his silence with agonising admirable empathy. Instead, she would simply hold him. In her embrace was perhaps more pity than compassion, although she tried not to think as much, so as to retain the memory of the playful arrogance she had once seen. Luna held him as if all wounds could be healed and all spirits salvaged, and she tried very hard to believe it.
Arlo knew what to do, knew how to prevent it. Arlo should set her back on her path. And yet, still, Arlo could not, because although Arlo knew it would destroy her, to do what was right would create an alternate tragedy, either she must lose him mundanely, incompletely, in a slow and unjust manner that would torment her ceaselessly, or she would lover him, and in doing so, lose herself.
* * *
Luna was asked frequently, "If you had your time over, would you do it again?"
She would always respond, quite unequivocally, "Yes."
And this would often receive looks of pity. People who claimed to be friends calling her foolish, begging her to listen to them, but anyone who has ever been in love, and given themselves quite entirely to another being, would never dream to dispute her. Luna was a shadow of she former self. And Luna's forget self had never been much more than a wisp of smoke as it was. He thoughts would return to Sol habitually, like the tongue returns to the place of a missing tooth. And she let it be so. And Arlo let it be so. She had defied the cosmos and this was her reward.
And so, Luna lived off a diet of cocaine and milk.
"The question, O me! So sad, recurring-
What good, amid these, O me, O life?
Answer. That you are here- that life exists, and identity;
The powerful play goes on,
And you will contribute a verse."
- Walt Whitman
YOU ARE READING
Arlo and the Universe
Short Story'We should give up trying to be normal and talk instead of space and drugs and floating above the world' The people below longed to be in one of the worlds they were told about. Arlo watched them play out their stories. Arlo had always done this, a...
