Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.
F
or no reason should we belong there; for no reason should our meeting evoke idyllic images of the countryside, or poetry, or anything aside from happenstance.Nevertheless, we do. We do evoke the romantic images of paintings, and the imagery of poetry. A man and woman meet at midnight in a clearing; the man stands at the fringes of the trees and the woman walks waist-deep into the grasses, which kiss her as she moves.
Mister Pravda, I’m not sure there is a reason, except that I’m very fond of walking.
I am not a man prone to expressions. I reciprocate her formal politeness, however, but dipping my own head into a bow.
(And yet, I wear the slightest of smiles; the upward turn of my lips adds warmth to typically austere demeanor). I think of remaining apart from her, as I so often do from others—but there is something in her kindness that warrants my approach. So I step from the trees, into the grass. Although—sir—I could ask you the same thing.
In a cliche, I might warn her of all the dangers the forest holds.
(Somehow—I think it must be the tragedy behind her eyes, the weight of her gaze—I understand that she must already know).
“Unfortunately, my reasoning is hardly as romantic. I simply grow restless at night. Sleep does not come easy to me.”
There is a long, almost awkward silence after that. I realize I am speechless by her presence alone.
Perhaps it is due to all of the sidelong glances shared in the library. Where others had left to partake in the joys of spring, she and I had remained to our private aisles; reading in sunlit corridors; always separate and yet… always there.
I swallow. “Perhaps—perhaps, I could join you in your walk, tonight, Ms. Katerina?”
I do not smile, because my nerves are an explosion beneath the surface. I cannot say why. Only that the jitters themselves make me feel not myself, and yet I cannot resist asking.
