He Walks
He walks without thinking why he does or where he goes. He walks because he cannot sit still. And he cannot breathe.
So, he walks in search of something to stop his terrible thoughts, his burning fears. He walks to flee the darkness, but it is all consuming.
It creeps upon him in lost moments when all is quiet and he is still. The world that ought to be familiar washes over him and settles as a memory, aching, in the very centre of him. It calls to him at times to show what he is missing.
It doesn't need to though. He knows it all too well.
He walks through wide corridors and into narrow ones. Feet sink into pools of light, escaped from lofty windows that line the high stone walls. He likes to stand in a shaft of light and be bathed in its warm glow.
His fingers rise to chase the particles of dust that dance in its bright glory. They swarm and flutter, the sun's shining embrace holds them safe, but when they move to darkness they soon become misplaced. They melt to nothing but cold air with no hope for reformation. As does he.
Still, he walks.
The staccato rhythm of shoe to floor soothes him. It distracts him. How he craves such distraction.
And she answers his silent call. He cannot think why she comes, except that she does. And he is grateful for it.
He turns a corner and she is there again, as she has come to be. He expects it now, though he knows he shouldn't. Expectations are a dangerous thing, and she breathes fire to their burning flame.
She watches him with dark eyes full of questions. She doesn't voice them now the way she did. Perhaps she knows she will not like his answers. Perhaps she knows he doesn't either.
**
He walks the halls, a hollow presence, and she cannot help but wonder where he went and what he saw that made him so remote.
He doesn't seem to mind her there, and that makes her wonder also. She has noticed his strange behaviour. She has noticed that she cares. He's not so bad a person now, despite what others think. And she wants somehow to tell him, though she knows that she ought not to.
But he glows a ghostly pale in her mind. And she is haunted by him. And though she knows she should keep walking as she passes him in corridors, she finds that she cannot.
Mind and body are not always connected, it seems to her, and he causes them much conflict.
The first time she broke into his silence he ignored her. And the second. And the third. He just kept walking, his face a shield she could not read. He doesn't ignore her now though. But he doesn't stop either.
She doesn't know why he walks, or why he lets her walk with him. Except that he does. And so does she.
She came here with a riddle, but there is no easy answer. And though she knows she ought to stop tracing steps with him, and wanting his near presence, she finds she cannot. She must see this to its close.
Whatever close.
She looks at him today, the light falls upon his shining hair, aglow in the afternoon sun, and there is something broken in his beauty. The height befallen cripples him, in what way she cannot fathom.
She wants to though. She wants to understand.
Her skin prickles and he looks at her, a strangeness in his eye. He sees she has questions now, but she has learnt from previous times.
She likes this silent walking; this frayed companionship, though she would never tell. Just as she knows that he is lonely, but would never speak such words of weakness. She doesn't think of it as weakness though.
She thinks it makes him vulnerable. She thinks it makes him real.
He is fading slowly; he becomes less visible each day. And she wonders whether others notice. Must she be the one to haul him from the flames? So unlikely a saviour for him, but she thinks she likes the thought of it. She thinks she wants to help.
Time is drawing closer; she knows it beckons to him, seductive in its call. And she wonders whether he will answer it, compelled he is by fear. She knows he doesn't want to though, she can see it in his face. The reluctance - the urge to run and hide.
And she wishes fervently that he would, though she cannot know what it is he runs from, she knows that it's not good.
She stops in her stride and rests her palm against him. He is shocked, she knows, to see her hand upon him. But he stops and turns to look at her, and she feels this is significant. Because he stops for nothing.
His eyes are bare and deep and she feels she sees right into him. His skin is translucent, deathly in its pale glow, and darkness lurks beneath his fair-lashed eyes: the mark of sleepless nights and endless days. They take their toll on him; they have for quite some time.
She brings a hand, slow and sure, to meet his seraphic face. She wants so much to touch him, to know he's really there, for he is so much changed, she thinks she has imagined it. Imagined him.
But she has not. Her finger traces across the ice-chilled skin beneath his hooded gaze. His jaw is clenched and she knows that this is strange for him, as it is for her. Her eyes are intent upon him and she can taste his clear scent.
It seems so strange to touch him now, though she knows that she enjoys it. She wants to tell him that she doesn't care if they are seen by others, but it's not the truth. Because she does. And he knows this, he tells it in his gaze as it warns her of the danger.
He is used to danger, a different kind of danger.
She wants so much to teach him how it should be. How it could be. How it is.
And she thinks he wants to learn.
**
He paces back and forth today, the sound of urgent footfalls bounces off the walls. He paces in this space because he is waiting for her, and she has not arrived. He needs her to today though.
And he is certain she knows why.
She has taken to talking in the past few weeks, not all the time, but now and then. She prattles away in stretching monologues that occupy his mind. He doesn't have to tell her that he sometimes needs her to do that, to talk about the irrelevant, she somehow knows already though he has never told her.
Her voice fascinates him when she does speak. She tells so much with every gasp and soft inflection. He wonders if she knows how much she gives away.
Softer footsteps echo and he turns toward the sound. She watches him in wonder, and he thinks he understands why. Weariness descends upon her features, furrowing her brow. She has looked at him and knows now is the time. He has teetered on the edge for too long now, and today the decision has come.
And it is not the one she wants. She wants to save him, he knows. And he wishes that she could, but she will never fully understand, and he wishes he could show her. But he won't. And even still he does not want to see the disappointment in her eye.
He cannot shirk his duties or his family, though they hold no value to her. She will view his choice as cowardice, though he does not. No matter how he does not want to do this.
He knows that he will. And so does she.
The sun is fading slowly as darkness creeps upon it, chasing the last of light from the day. Perhaps the last he will see of it. He sees her watching also, and thinks perhaps she has read his thoughts. She seems to be quite good at it.
Dark and knowing eyes turn upon him again, and he wishes he could stay here despite the fading light, to revel in her presence. She has been a kind of gift to him, and no matter that she thinks she has not saved him in the literal sense, she has in other ways.
She comes to stand by him and he thinks she looks so small today. He wants to smile at the irony of this strange stolen moment. He tells her he is going, and she says she understands. It's a lie he knows, but he sees no use in questioning.
Her eyes are dark and liquid as they rest upon his face. They widen as he brushes a stray finger across her mouth, in a caress he has not earned. She parts her lips a little: an invitation he ought not to accept. But they are far gone now.
She tastes of oxygen and life, and he swallows it with greed. His body burns with the thirst for more, and he takes it. Her hair is soft, her cheeks are warm and he melts just a little as they touch him. His hands are urgent as they hold her, binding her with him.
He doesn't want to let her go. But he does. And she walks away without looking back.
And he walks alone again.