"Smile for me", She said and put more wood into the fire. Her body had not changed, but her facial features had become increasingly mature, with smile lines around her mouth and her eyes sloping. The apartment we were in must have belonged to her. It did not look like it could have been mine, I would never have chosen a color scheme quite that pale and cold. Was this the kind of life we would have to live if we stayed together?
I wanted to run away from that future, to go around it as far as I could. But if I did that, I would have to cower for the rest of my life.
She offered me a cup of something warm, but it was neither sweet nor bitter. It had no taste or scent. I looked out into the winter, a white mess as far as the eye could see, and further. Could she see the same scenery? Or was her way of experiencing things so far out of my reach, so manipulated, that I could never even begin to comprehend the way she lived? We flowed through time, chains on your ankles rattling but no longer intact. There was nothing to hold us down anymore.
Yet, when time finally stopped, and we stood in a dark underground tunnel, I wished for the ground beneath us to shake and open wide. Her hand was outstretched towards me, the other one pressed against the moist cement wall, but I couldn't make out the rest of her form in the darkness. She might not have been there to begin with.
I recalled the house in all of its sleek glory; it resided in a neat suburbia, fitted into the spot between young tree saplings and fresh grass, stone paths walking across the yard from one side to another. The house itself was not warm or welcoming to me, but it must have been the kind that I would eventually grow to like. It did not have a signature scent, not even when I brought the pillows and duvets up to my nose. They were soft but empty, illusions.
The water rippled quietly into the direction of the wind. I couldn't feel the wind, though, the air was perfectly still and not as warm as it had been only a few days before. She wasn't there, at least I couldn't see her at the time. If she had been there, she would likely have stood behind me and watched, arms crossed and amused. But for all I knew, it was the only place where I could escape from her.
I must have been in my early 40's by the time I would finally start to accept her. The bitterness and friction would start to wear off, slowly, but she would win. My life would become nothing but a cycle of failure to protect my pride. Would that make her feel content? Of course, she would tell me that I was not the centerpiece of her life, nor would stepping on me ever give her satisfaction. But we both knew that was a lie. She was my suffering and my suffering was her daydream.
My body broke through the ice and into the cold water where I could no longer feel the pain. It tingled, the feeling of her fingertips gliding across my spine and up to my neck. I tried to hold back the shivers, to not tremble or let my voice break. A phoenix spread its wings in front of the sun, glimmering like a fire. I closed my eyes to escape hers. It did not work.
Her hair brushed against my skin and it was more rough in its texture than it was soft and ticklish. I whisked it away, although not really minding the tension between us. She put the dinner in the oven, and I leaned back in my chair. She opened the window to let in some air. I watched and waited for the warmth to disperse.
Lately, my hold on reality had begun to loosen and slip. It was as though I was reliving old memories, not fixed in time, but flowing within the water. A river carried me towards the edge of the cliff, the calm hum steady in the background, but not alarming like it should have been. My visions of the future were no less real than my memories of the past, all of them were just as twisted and unreliable. There was no one else to confirm whether they were real. Except for her.
She knew the kind of life she would have to carry out, regardless of what path she took, it would always lead her to the road fiddling through wilderness. I was her only escape from that destiny, at the end of which she could never die, not even at her own hand. I was death to her, but death was the only indication of life that she believed in. Her life, with its white sunrise and feather-light rain, it must have felt like nothing more than an uncertain dream that never clarified her existence.
My life on the other hand fascinated her. She said I had broken my thin red thread and was no longer bound by the rules of the world. - That I was cast out and because of that, I was free. While that may have been true, the price was greater than she could grasp. To be free meant to have nothing. No one could tackle me down when there was no surface exposed, nothing to grab onto, and most importantly, no blood to draw.
I could imagine her at the mercy of other people, but never as a victim. Although she combined all things celestial, an essence that no one could deny, she still had no innocence left. I didn't want her to look at me as a painting or a tragedy, nor did I want her to admire me, I wanted her to despise me. Which she did, in her own way, a way that I found hard to understand in the beginning.
Green meadows and blue rain wavered in the background. We walked the thin line between her and myself, where black stones crumbled into fine dust and stained our feet. I could never forgive her, I could never forget her, to me she would always remain a sinner. Her blood tasted poisonous. It was the only part of her that revealed her true intent. She was proud of her persona, justifying it as a knife that could also be used as a shield. It made sense, even though nothing else about her did.
