Later, He Thought

This is the third post in perhaps a few where I intend to describe states of mind or mood, the first two here and here. I must mention this so charming response to what I previously wrote.

Later, after having being released from the strange grasp his mind had gripped him in, he thought how could love be called love if love could end. He realized he could not close that world down just by closing his eyes. She was still there with her long dark brown hair and her eyelashes wet. He had not dared to touch the impression she had left behind on the sofa, seeing in that confused pattern the fabric of her voice. He was struck by the decisive tide of some moments, of how an act of annihilation could also be an act of affirmation, for who knows how these things take shape in one's mind, a thing over which he had no control, as he had never understood it. What he found unsettling was the finality of spoken words, the abstract world of gestures, the unclear meaning of what had been spoken, the words still unformed, in thoughts, buried in places he could never see or name, for coming to an end also meant the beginning of something else.

He wanted desperately to see himself through her eyes, even if she had decided to close them. How could love be called love if it can be forgotten, he thought. Strangely, why had he never thought of that before? It was important to know how she left the room, when she left him. He wanted to see her thoughts and wanted her to see his sky, with its bright stars and the irritating moon, his nausea and his world through her, and simultaneously her world too, at the same time, together.

He did not want poetry but an answer, he sought her mind but not her heart, he wanted a concrete stone to rub his existence on, a certain light in a mist of words. It was absurd to live without knowing what she had felt, when she had gone down those stairs, without words, while he had leant out, staring at his sky. He wanted to see. Suddenly, yes, suddenly, he felt so alone.