For Just One Day

Once upon a time, in the southeastern Australian countryside, there lived two young friends. Of course there were many friends, some large groups, some tight units, some just the pair, but this particular pair were special. A young boy, all of five, and a girl, only one year older. They were special, because while other friends saw each other now and then, when parents allowed for it or when circumstances were accommodating, these two forever sought each other. When one was taken away for the day on some outing with the family; a day at the markets, off fishing with their dad or a trip to town with their mum, the other would not play with anyone else, but just wait, and the two thought of little but each other whenever one or the other was not around. Even when their parents did not arrange the play, these two children would either pester their parents to arrange for it, or request to be left under the care of the other’s parents for time enough to spend with their friend.

Indeed the parents puzzled over the intense relationship between the two children, whose names were Peter and Sarah, but mostly everybody just stood back and appreciated for whatever they saw it as; puppy love, an innocent and therefore cute prelude to the intense romantic relationships each was bound for later in life; a convention defying friendship with no other connotations but the platonic love which usually is reserved only for those of the same gender, which still is not so often believed in by the common folk, and ignores, as usual, the possibility that anyone’s child will grow up to be homosexual; and of course, in mentioning that, there were some who simply figured that Peter would grow up to be a homosexual, because he always played with a girl, and none of the others could ever truly understand why this scenario was spoke of with such accusing tones and glares directed toward Peter’s mother. But as anybody can see, times have only truly progressed from the days when anyone unusual would be burned alive in the sense that they are no longer burned alive, and most prominently in country Australia, there are many who still secretly think they should be.

One of the above mentioned was correct, but for now it was, for the parents and invariably most empathetic toward Peter and Sarah and their cute friendship, it was just one happy screenshot amidst the great kaleidoscope of joy and sorrow, tragedy and triumph, days and hours and months and years which fly by over the course of life. Like stopping for a rest on an almighty road trip, and incidentally discovering that you’ve parked your car beside a gorgeous lake nobody else knows about, flanked by right, breathtaking forest, you stop and sigh at how sweet and how beautiful it is, and none of the opinions and options and preceding sights or details along the road ahead matter for that moment, because all you see is beauty, and though know there is mystery, you are happy for it to remain thus, for its just another layer in the serene and wonderful landscape. They just liked seeing their little ones happy to be with each other, and never mind the rest.

As for Peter and Sarah, they had no idea why their bond was so strong, or if it was unusual, or even if it was important to anyone but them, they just knew they like being around each other and they enjoyed it. They play in the backyard, prowling around the gardens, or they’d walk up and down the driveway after the rain, making ripples in the puddles with their heels, or they’d go to the park with one or the other’s parents, or parent, and they roll about in the grass or throw bread to ducks or watch the eels roll over each other for a morsel in the ponds. But they were just as happy sitting in the back of the car or in the living room, nothing else going on and not a word spoke between them, but just being together. Together in silence.

Years rolled on and the innocence remained, and Sarah’s parents were the first to divorce, and she would spend a great deal of time at Peter’s until his parents divorced as well, and then it was just as normal, except that they’d now four houses at which they could meet, instead just the two. Whatever emotional trauma either event inflicted on the children, it was alleviated whenever they were with each other, and when they were seven and eight, Peter hugged Sarah as she’d cried about it.

It had happened when they were six and seven, and she’d not cried then, but she cried at eight, and he at seven had hugged her.

Sarah began to notice boys around that time, not in any profoundly physical way, but only that when the magazines or media displayed a pleasing picture of one, she found it pleasing in turn, and thus began to see a new use for these creatures, that being to look at them, but still never any comment as such was made for Peter. As well, Peter’s father was eager for him to start displaying some interest in girls, and began pointing out women of adult age who he’d obviously some interest in, and insisting Peter try to find some for himself, but seemed a heart reserved only for Sarah. He didn’t look at magazines, or the women who dance while syncing their lip movements to carefully mastered vocal tracks on television, or anything female. Anything female seemed only to remind him of Sarah, and he’d be off with his thoughts of her, and to his father’s delight would then mention her in relation to anything attractive, beautiful or exciting. Yet it was to his father’s dismay the way he seemed fixated only with her; at the tender age of seven, he’d yet to learn not to put all his eggs in one basket.

The boy will learn the hard way, Peter’s father thought.

It was never to be.

Sarah was the more extroverted of the two, and by the time she reached the age of thirteen she’d established a vast and loud circle of girlfriends, and even managed to enjoy the company of the odd boy, who’d hold her hand as they walked around at recess or lunch time, before dispensing of him in favor of another, more athletic, more outgoing boy the way her magazines were informing her she should. It’s called “keeping your options open”, they say, and a cavalier attitude awards she who has it with power and control. They told her that when she is desired, she has power and control. They, along with the gossiping circle of friends she was now frequently extending time with beyond school hours and, in the case of Friday nights, well into the Saturdays with, proved far more intoxicating a thrill than the mere comfort of having all the pieces in place the way they seemed to fall whenever Peter was around.

Why have the pieces in one place, when it’s far more exiting to gossip about someone and knock their pieces further agog than your own?

But Peter never gossiped. He seldom even spoke, unless there was some truly pressing matter, such as his father or mother pestering him to tell them how his day was. As Sarah faded from his life, he simply spent more and more time alone, drawing obscure pictures in his bedroom, or simply gazing at the cotton clouds of late August with his dog. One day, while walking alongside the main road, Peter’s dog, whose name was Frank, chased a tennis ball knock from a nearby court out onto the road. Peter chased Frank. The oncoming sedan never had time to stop.

Peter graced this world for all of eleven years, and never again was he to feel the cold misty rain against his face, nor the wind in his hair or sun kiss his skin. The warmth of hugs was enjoyed all it would be, and he’d never know the embrace of one who chose him, not any but Sarah, and by then even they were but a memory. All the growing he had to do, all the learning, all the experiencing, all the hardship and joy, all the triumph and defeat, all the pain and hope, all reduced one last image of a little white coffin being lowered into the ground.

Sarah witnessed it, and was never quite exactly the same.

She fell away from her friends, and turned her attention to her schoolwork. She studied, she grew, boys liked her but she often turned them away. Sometimes she’d be lost in a lonely moment and fall into their arms, but moments pass, and so too did they. One took her virginity, his allure too great to refuse, another took her heart that she’d creep through his bedroom window after dark, one so burned her that she felt she’d never recover, but ever she fell back on her school work, and managed a placement and university.

Those boys would become a blur, replaced instead by men. Complex men, men with experience and worldliness and things to talk about. She never lost sight of what she wanted to accomplish professionally; she was good with analysis, and so she studied it with obsessive abandon, but there was some nameless void left in her core that she sought to fill. Something which bubbled whenever she saw a couple together. Which ached as though it were aflame whenever she was alone and needing a soothing voice or loving touch to keep her together. Which roiled her insides whenever she considered the prospect of love, and the thought that she might never know it.

So she told herself she just needed an aside. Love would fill the void, she thought, that’s why people seek it.

When she moved out of home, it was with a man twenty-two years her senior. She saw a professional, and a gifted artist, a man with hope, dreams and aspirations of greatness which his iron will would forbid him to ever let go of. The world saw a failed musician intent on drinking a successful musician’s quantities of alcohol with a young son to a wife he abandoned.

She did her best, putting up with his boisterous housemates and being left to care for the dissatisfied child while he played his gigs and didn’t come home until the next day. Always at the bar whence she first met him, where she worked to survive while studying. Studies which were not adversely effected. So she had no reason to give in. No reason to walk away.

Other than the void. It may have shrunk or fallen numb amidst the blissful rush of intense physical partnership and burning admiration for a man, but it did not disappear. So with nothing but that for a reason, she left him. She moved in with girlfriends. She said she was strong and independent. She said she didn’t need any man. She finished her first year of study, and went on to the next with high accolades. On weekends she swallowed exciting pills with her girlfriends. She snared men whenever the moment took her, and released them just as quickly. Some she kept at arm’s length, just tempted enough, just hopeful enough, just in case she ever needed them.

It led to her next boyfriend.

She could never quite say what drew her in. Perhaps his perfect physical form. Perhaps his exciting charisma. Perhaps the fact that he could get them into all the best clubs and supply them with an inexhaustible selection of pills. He was a DJ, who packed boxes with home appliances by day. He was also barely articulate enough to formulate a sentence.

But when they lay together, she felt physical sensations she never dreamed of, and when she looked into his eyes, she felt them rising and tingling inside her again. He was her new drug.

As though to save her, the void ached more than ever. But she wouldn’t leave. She was convinced that only love could make touch so intensely perfect. She saw it as kismet. But the void was powerful, and it was angry, like an infected wound, and it made her short-tempered and violent with him. He cheated, so did she, and eventually it was he who cast her out.

Back to living with girlfriends, these ones more bookish than the last gaggle, and she finished her course and got a job as a data analyst. There she started with one other newcomer, a mild-mannered young man who had no particular interests of any great intensity, no overruling aspirations, no extreme opinions of anything one way or the other, and no exciting stories to tell.

For a woman who fancied herself as she did, having undergone a great shift in the focus of loving oneself and serving oneself, he was perfect. They were living together before the year was out. Their families combined.

It was a bliss like a calm ocean after a tempest. He was nothing like the others. He would never stir the peaceful waters she wished to idle in. He would never press for conversation, because he had nothing much to say of anything, and he would allow her to carry the baton for the house and work fronts, happy in the background.

It sat, though, like a hot stone in her heart; discontent. A longing for excitement. The thrill of something more. Heartbreaking though it was, there was something altogether more numbing in her previous years. Yes, they anesthetized her, the pills and the heartbreaks and the losses and the fights and the madness, and amidst all the neon traffic, she forgot that void in her heart.

With the shores so peaceful now, she had nothing to hide behind. No noise to drown it out. No turmoil to keep her from the heavy, twisting, swathe-like chasm of bleakness and sorrow that scarred her heart. But what was it?

By then, she’d had it so long she almost loved it. She wanted to hug it. Stop it from crying all the time. She wanted to nurse and care for it like it was a child. But it was just a nameless pain that would never, ever relent.

She did not know that while she was growing, and leaning, and making mistakes, and hurting so many, including herself, that eyes watched from whence they could not be seen. Though no heart that could beat, one loved her as limitlessly as any heart ever longed to. For every one of her sorrows, there was someone aching and crushing beneath the weight of her tears.

Little Peter was growing and learning with her. He’d grown to love her completely. Such that he could never rest, not while she destroyed herself. Such that his soul could never let go.

So it came to be that he was given this chance; one single day.

It was not a gift given lightly, but since two spirits would never rest but for one cause, it was decided by the rider of the pale horse to grant him one magical consideration in order to alleviate the burden placed on both by poor circumstance. It would not be perfect, but it should be enough. He would inhabit Sarah’s boyfriend for one whole day. The boyfriend would feel as though he were sleeping, as though it were all a dream. Sarah would never know it was Peter, if Peter blew his cover, he would spend eternity in the same painful limbo he’d been in all these years.

He woke up beside her in the daylight. The first living encounter with her since his death. There she was, eyes closed, little nose whistling with each deep breath. Perfect face serene in deep rest. Her body warming the place beside him. Already his heart unlocked a great flood of dreams unfulfilled, and he made her breakfast in bed.

Sarah only thought her boyfriend had decided to turn over a new leaf. Such was the man’s complacency in life that he failed note that she didn’t always enjoy going to the same places he did, that liked to discover new things while he didn’t, and though she went along with his plans, she did so begrudgingly, and longed for spontaneity. This was the first spontaneous thing she remembers him ever doing. Even the manner in which they got together had been underwhelming; she asking, he shrugging. To have him anew was such a joy that she forgot the ache in her heart.

They talked then. On matters of the world. He was curious. He looked deep into her eyes, and penetrated her mind, and absorbed every word she spoke. She couldn’t believe it; her boyfriend was not swayed to any particular thing, and as a consequence, this included whatever she had to say. But here he was, lost in her, rejoicing in her beliefs and opinions, taking in her insights and asking for more.

The ache in her heart shrunk. The void began to close.

It was then to a vineyard out of town for lunch. A beautiful, open gorge left from an old copper mine, with green rows stretching as far as the hills rolled, until they met the clear blue sky. Peter had been there as a child. It was out of the way, Sarah delightfully puzzled over how her boyfriend, who never felt much need to fly from the nest, could have found such a place.

Then they walked through the gardens, holding hands, and Peter felt her warm, soft skin against his, and they kissed, and Peter tested the delicate sweetness and caressed the smooth softness he’d only been able to dream of.

As sun set they went home, and settled to watch a movie. But Peter found an old DVD they’d watch as children, and insisted upon it. Sarah glowed as she agreed; her boyfriend only took an interest in her past when he wished to abate his own paranoia about her past lovers; how many, where are they, will they hurt him, etcetera. He didn’t seem to ever care about her history.

The void healed over.

That night they made love, and Peter felt her body with his, and he revealed himself to her, and she to him, and they saw each other and every line and every curve and Peter forgot that he had someone else’s body, and Sarah felt as though she was loving this man for the first time. They experienced each other’s heat, felt their skin and sweat against each other, they felt each other’s warmth, each other’s pulsing life, heard each other’s deepest moans expressed into each other, and felt the pleasure which each entered and nurtured and swelled inside each other, until they finally exploded as one and collapsed in each other’s arms, stopping for one final deep taste of each other’s life before the night took them.

He’d never touched her like that before; so deeply, so lovingly, as though his grip on her was all that kept him from floating off into space.

The void was gone. The memory of it faded as quickly. Though she would remember some strange discontent having existed, she would never be able to recall it as it was, and before long, she could never have imagined such a burden ever was.

Sarah woke the next day, and her boyfriend was back to normal. But something was new, something in her. She’d experienced something, she was never sure what, but it seemed the key to a door which had blocked her from standing in the light of now. An experience due to her but which had somehow alluded her, and suddenly her boyfriend was as lovable as she had always though he should be. It was not an experience she could have enjoyed forever, for while that intense and attentive love might have suited her once, it was not the person she was now. She was able to love what he gave her, instead of what she wanted. She was free. Freedom. Serenity. Nothing hurt. Nothing wanted. Nothing ached.

Such was the perfect healing that she forgot it was ever there.

THE END.