Without Bargaining

As by Rote

"You know, if you don't want to keep meeting up, that will be ok, okay?"

"What? What are you trying to tell me?"

pause. Again, that question.

"I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm just being considerate."

Sometimes there are ways of knowing what to say, and what not to say in advance. Sometimes our choices are clear and the tricky bit is deciding which choice to choose; multiple fates hang in the balance, culled to singularity by the destinies we select on our fleeting, narcissitic whims and fancies.

Yet sometimes all we have is a sense of being a puppet in the story, or perhaps game, of some higher being, and there is only one particular path to walk; one set of keys to a single door. One permissable answer to every question...

Moments are allowed to slip away, silences are mandatorily respected. It is almost a form of cinematic convention.

Mistakes are made, consciously.

Words are left unspoken, with difficulty.

Eyes meet, and are held, then glance away in slow motion; a moment is a celestial masterwork forged from nothing, flaring to painful, blinding brilliance for a brief instant - acknowledged, beheld... and then cast callously aside to to the floor, left unwatched and uncherished to fade to dull, pitted, unhoned normality with the cold passage of forgotten todays.

We toy with almost-fates in our infant minds, and then they are taken away from us, leaving us to wonder if the destiny that remains behind was even ever ours to choose.

Our subconscious minds rise up, palms pummeling desperately against the stained glass of our weary eyes - why can't you hear us - we are you? Don't!

But sometimes....

... we have only a script, which we are obliged to follow.

*****
A lifetime ago :

the asker was different.
the question was different.
the answerer was different.

The script was the same.

The answer was a white lie, to be uncovered years later.

*****
Several nights ago :

the asker was lost
the question was different
the answerer held his silence for a moment, straining to ignore the voices behind his eyes.

The script was the same.

The answer, a white lie.

*****
Perhaps we both know the answers to your questions :

Perhaps I am trying to tell you something...

Perhaps I do know why we speak so -too often ?- reaching out to one another with words, spoken, written, typed, keyed-in.
Perhaps you are right to remind me in my own voice - it takes two... and perhaps the fault is not yours alone...

Perhaps our eyes seek out each other's too easily, and too often, and perhaps we laugh too much, and I catch myself smiling too frequently.

Perhaps there is a reason I lean in, unconsciously, when you speak - only to be made aware of it when this newly-acquired fire flares in my side.

Perhaps there is a reason why the uncanny similarities accumulate so; why it is so easy to spend time by your side without a growing sense of unease...
... perhaps it is not similarity that creates the escalating arguments you described to me once... that have you backpeddling and standing down in the face of a hail of words... but perhaps it is inconsiderateness.

Perhaps, as I listen in silence to your thoughts, nailed by the sleeping serpent of pain to my mechanical, inclinable bed... I burn to speak...

... perhaps as you ask me that question, in the pitch blackness of my darkened hospital room...

... perhaps I want to tell you something... different to what I will eventually hear myself say, out of decency, respect, and morality.

Perhaps I watch you turn to go and almost know already what you will do - because you are me, from a lifetime ago - I burn to call once more to you - wait! and reach out, without words this time, to bid you goodbye.

Perhaps there is a reason I find myself once again futilely wading against the tide, climbing uphill, stumbling through the snowdrifts, biting back the truths, watching the moment fade...

... perhaps there is a reason why everything is scripted again.

Perhaps it is time to speak not in questions, but in answers - after all, every question belongs to an answer, both are members of an intimate couplet, a lock and a key to a destiny falling inexorably out of time.

And the first answer is this : you were unexpected.

But now you have chosen.

I only pray that you did not base that choice on the basis of my white lie...

*****
Or, perhaps not.

*****
He cannot bargain now, the stakes are too high and his codes of tired morality too unyielding.

But time will erode everything, and there will come a time when he will ask if there was, or is something he could have given, promised or done...

by then, it will no longer matter.