"No, thats why it kills me to see it...thats why it kills me to hear you talk about it..."
The boy said as his head sunk down as he sat on the quiet sunset dock. So many words drifted to the wooden planks as she let the note fall. And with it came the small droplets slipping from her eyes and soaking the tiny sheets of paper.
"If you want me to leave...I'll understand..."
She said, she tried to hide the sobs but to no avail.
"No...no never..."
The boy countered. He wanted so badly to pull away, to let her fool herself into thinking he hated her, so that he couldnt hurt her. But the tears...his weakness as always the one thing he'd simply never have. He couldnt help himself, his arms moved in ways he knew they shouldnt. He wrapped around her pulling her in close.
"I'm so sorry...I never knew. I was so caught up in my happiness I left you behind."
An apology? His apology sat tear soaked on the dock, why was she giving one? This was his fault and yet again he couldnt keep himself from acting. The words simply slipped free as if they were destined to be said, and he was powerless to say otherwise.
"I knew. And I did it anyway. Dont cry...not over me...its not worth it..."
"Yes it is."
She countered as she handed him the small red silver of crystal. And in a single motion handed a small boy everything he needed, and yet, nothing he knew he wanted. In that instant she handed him a meaning, a meaning to himself and yet in end she might as well have tossed it into the water surrounding their thin wooden sanctuary.
She wasnt his keeper. She hadnt assembled his parts. She hadnt made the machine itself, but she had...tried to help. Why? What good is a broken machine? Why would someone fix an old chunk of machinery when they had their own device to tend to. She gave him what was needed to continue, perhaps driven by nothing more than sympathy, but was sympathy reason enough to continue, just to malfunction again later? None of these questions rose in his simple mind.
Without thought the boy grasped the crystal and sheltered it. With a few loosened screws and the crank of rusty steel and worn stone, he placed it in his chest beside a dying black gem barely with barely any glow. And it was nurtured. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and a tiny red crystal had grown into a beautiful crystalline managerie. At its center sat the dying black gem. It was a beautiful as it was fragile. A glow seeped through his chestplate where once there was nothing but a void.
He continued his role as the somewhat malfunctioned repairer, and yet she returned to her own machine. He had no need for this crystalline managerie. It was a beauty thats true. It made him glow, again true. But it held no place, served no function other than this beautiful glow. Yet still he tended to it, delicately caring for its ever need. He could never answer why. But no one asked.
Until the day her device malfunctioned. In tears she came to the repairer. The frigid water and creaking wood of that dock once again became sanctuary. You see her device had broken, and in its breaking she realized exactly how much she needed it. For a time the repairer took on her devices functions. You see, despite his age and his broken parts he was very similar to her very own device. Her creation. The only key functional difference being his repair abilities which he used to assist her...and her device. Again, he needed nothing. He only served a purpose for the time being. Once reparations were complete, he would take his true place, and her and her device would continue their existance. As he would continue his quest to find what it was he needed.
And then it came to him. On a day of repairing what had gone so wrong he looked into his other's chest plate. He saw the fragments of shattered red crystal each sat around a cold, black, gem.
He knew what was needed. And things werent the same from the moment onward. You see he had selfishly kept exactly what was needed to make things go right again. In that moment, a nothing that rested inside his chest had meaning. No. It was not as much that it suddenly found meaning as much as it was that he suddenly realized the meaning it always had.
In a split second he realized exactly what it was he needed in life. He realized what he wanted. And it was right where it had always been. He realized he had everything he wanted right here in his hands...and he was handing it to someone else. Someone who was yet more broken, someone who needed it more. As the crystalline managerie slipped into the girls device the boys systems slowly shut down. A broken repairer, given his all, just to repair."
I was presented with this story today. Its paper old and ragged, the ink smudged with my tears just like when I wrote it those many years ago. Maxine inspired it when I lost her to Maximar. For a moment I remembered my emotions. I was so sure that he would make her happy. I put all my hopes and dreams for happiness on the ideal that as long as she was happy, I would be happy. In the past when I've thought of this account, of this story, I've gotten teary eyed. I was weak.
Today I remember the emotions the story used to bring. I remember what my sadness was, but I feel nothing. No remorse no regret, I feel no love lost. I feel no lingering of missed opportunity. I see Maxine and Maximar holding hands strolling across the beach, and I feel naught.
I am cold.
And I embrace the cold.
I am told my training is complete. I am told that my descent through nothingness served me wonderfully. I feel no joy. No remorse. Am I at peace in nothing? Is this the highest level on can exist at, or the very worse? Void. Emptiness, these are my allies and closest friends.
Even my own name escapes me now. All is for the void, everything just for the purpose I have been given. I will repair this world n---
I'm being summoned.
I will make smile to make up for my inability too.
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Nocturnius Libris
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