"And Love Was There Too" - short story for my fiction class

“I’ve known you before.  You’re the beautiful disparity.”

            I had never seen her before tonight.  But there she was.  In my room.  Sitting on the edge of my bed as if she always belonged there.  Knowing me.  And I wasn’t surprised.  She looked at me with her bright eyes full of hope and love and wisdom and prayer and knowledge of my life and my background.  It was as if I knew her too.  But I had never seen her before tonight. 

            The shadows danced upon my usually perfectly-made white sheets and leaf-green walls.  The streetlamp outside the window kept me awake most nights.  But tonight it wasn’t the light from outside brightening the room.  It was this being staring into my unbelieving eyes.

            “I know you too,” I said.  But how?  I looked back at her.  I was weirdly attracted.  Why was I so enthralled?  “Who are you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

            Without answering, she grabbed my journal from my desk and started reading.  No one reads my journal.  It’s the one part of my life that I keep closed to everyone because no one would understand the inconsistency.  But she already had permission.  She turned each gold-edged page with intensity and purpose.  I studied her bright, milky face for a few minutes, but it kept changing.  Her blue eyes narrowed and widened with each turn of the page, her red lips turned up at the corners into a slight smile on one page, then down into a frown on the next.  Her expression was beautiful then powerful, sweet then frightening.  I could never get a good feel for it.  But I knew it.

            “Why can’t you get it out?” she asked. 

            “I don’t know how,” I replied.

            It’s been my only struggle in life.   But it’s the worst one to have.  Nothing can be done.  No human help can be of assistance. 

            “Come with me,” she said.

            I followed her without apprehension.  I followed her through the hallway, down the creaky stairs, and out the front door.  I had no idea why I was following her so willingly.  I used to pretend I was adventurous and spontaneous, but generally I would not have followed with such eagerness. 

She took me to the beach.  I felt the salty air engulfing me again.  Finally.  I let the humidity take me over, mind and body.  The waves lapped over my feet, dancing toward the hem of the nightgown that used to belong to my mother.  This is where the beauty left my eyes. Nothing is beautiful apart from here.  We stood there together a little longer. My mind twisted with the web of thoughts tangled in my mind; my long hair glistened from the thickness of the southern air.  When at last my entire existence, was sufficiently sticky, we left.

To Chalmette we traveled.  It didn’t take as long as I had remembered.  Everyone we met last time was there.  There is so much to be done still.  Every other house you pass on the street is marked as condemned.  You can still see the water lines on the side of the buildings from the flooding.  And how many lost and wandering there are!  Why can’t we get it all done?  Austin and Jo’Nira looked pleadingly up at me, wearing their small, broken hearts on their sleeves, reaching for someone to hold them.  I wished they were mine.  I wished their parents knew what they held in their uncaring grasps.  All I could feel was my heart being ripped from my chest.  They want to come with me.  I wanted to take them back.  This is my life.  A mix of love and pain and longing.

“You left your love here,” she said. 

“I know.  Why did I do that?”

“You needed to.  But now you need it back.  You won’t be back for a while, but there are people at home who need your love too.  Brokenness is everywhere.  Mend it.”

“I can’t always find them,” I said sadly, knowing it wasn’t an excuse. 

We went higher.  Higher.  And higher.  When I could barely see the Gulf through the clouds below us, we stopped. 

“There is your wonder,” she said, hanging in the atmosphere as if it were ordinary.

I knew this was what she was going to say.  My wonder is so far from me that when I feel it, I become distant.  The whole earth!  How can anything be so big?  When I ask unanswerable questions, I give up seeking the response.  But no response is needed.  No response was ever needed. 

The trees closed in around me.  Then they opened up again.  All I could see was the lake and the mountains beyond it.  It was so cold.  The smile on my face wouldn’t go away.  Joy was all I could feel.  It was so intense that I literally saw the joy.  The trees were applauding and the mountains were singing.  It’s joy.  And beauty.  And wonder.  All at once.  And love.  Love was there too. 

She took me back home.  To the place I know.  My comfort.  To the creaky stairs, the white sheets and the leaf-green walls.  Somehow it looked different than before, more intense.  More real.  This felt like how it was meant to look. 

Back in my room, she repeated it.  “I’ve known you before,” she said. 

“I know it.  Tell me what you know of me.  Especially now.”

“You’re the beautiful disparity,” she repeated.  “You’re the writer who can’t write.  The painter who can’t paint.  The musician who can’t play.  It’s all there in your head, but you can’t seem to get it out.  Because of this, you leave your emotions laying around in the places you feel them most intensely.  They are stuck in pictures in your mind.  You have to bring them all together.  Your story isn’t finished yet.  Get it out of your mind.  Share it.”

I have to share it.  Every single day.  To everyone I meet.  There’s no way a person could possibly feel all of this and not get it out.  And someone will listen.  Someone.