[P] so, eden sank to grief

[Marisol]

“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” 

Of all this solstice’s festivities, the orchard must be Marisol’s favorite. It is a place she does not visit often, a normally fenced-off farm that borders one side of the swamp with carefully laid-out pumpkins, grapevines, and of course the swaybacked apple trees. Out here the warmth of the sun and the heat that rises off the water combine to turn the air almost unbearably humid. As Mari walks, sweat collects on the slope of her shoulders. At times her stomach even churns; but still she walks close to Orestes’ side, unwilling to pull herself away when their time together is already so limited.

Every now and again they draw to a stop in order to pick an apple or two. Marisol lets him choose where they pause, and which fruit to pull down. After all, it is he that has come to visit her, he to whom these celebrations must appear strange, and so she is content to follow quietly just a stride or two behind him, every so often reaching out to brush her lips against Orestes’ hip or thigh. Each time she touches him it’s the same feeling: butterflies in the stomach, a spine-clacking shudder, a rush of warmth. A phantasmal kind of kiss.

Eventually Orestes brings them to a final pause, under a tree bent in half by the weight of its fruitbearing years. Sunlight filters through the leaves and forms a pattern on the ground like the dapples of the Sun King’s coat; it plays across his skin like the moon on water, and Mari watches with muted envy just how close it is to him, how it sinks beneath the surface in a way she (at least not in this terribly solid form) will never be able to manage. Her heart aches suddenly and faintly. The wicker basket, already heavy with produce, falls with a thump into the dirt between them.

When she meets his eyes it makes her feel weaker than she can ever remember feeling. And when he says I want to know everything that makes you who you are, Marisol, a part of her instantly cracks open under the weight of wanting to cry as the thought—knowledge?—overwhelms her:

If you knew everything that makes me who I am, you would not love me anymore.

Her throat feels dry enough to bleed when she swallows, and she cannot help holding back the urge to speak by biting down on her bottom lip. But this look of panic lasts for only a second; and then she gathers her composure enough to smooth that expression away, replacing it with one of warm, earnest interest. She even presses a kiss to his cheek, briefly.

“I will tell you,” Marisol responds finally, “whatever you want to know, Orestes; but you must know, too, that not much of it is pleasant.” Her voice is softer than perhaps it has ever been, nearly drowned out by the sigh of the wind through the leaves overhead. The pleasant drone of conversation from the crowd of passersby. The shifting of the grass underfoot. Even her heartbeat seems louder than it should be.

If you knew everything that makes me who I am, you would not love me anymore.

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aimless | kokovi