I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
Paulo Neruda
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Despite the cries of his heart, the once black hole that filled his chest, his mind ruled out all hope of it's wants and needs being answered to.
Sam was the untouchable.
The thing he could never have.
The person with whom he could never be.
In the beginning it had been the regulations, the simple mentality that it was a line they could never cross within their line of work. But as the darkness surrounded him, allowing his thoughts to drift further than he'd imagined, he realised that something else was holding them back. It wasn't just about regulations or the world, but what they had become while holding back. The effortless comfort they felt in each other's presence, the precious friendship they had developed over the years. During the development of such a treasured thing, Jack noticed whenever things got too personal, unease would sneak it's way into their 'relationship'; silences would be uncomfortable, the air tightening around them, something so necessary taking on a sinister aura, one that threatened to crush at any moment. Soon enough though, it would pass, the silences became comfortable, the smiles returned and his subconscious would soar as high as was allowed, like some lighter-than-air-craft towed down by the weight of reality and reason. How he wished he could release this burden and soar above the lowly world of work and rule.
Whenever he was with her he changed. He found that he could forget; forget the terrible things that had happened in his life, forget the terrible things he'd done, the terrible person he sometimes was. Her smile spread warmth into his heart, made his blood flood though his veins, made him feel alive. Sometimes when her smile was brightest and her eyes alight he found himself close to something that he never felt possible; close to forgiving.
Forgiving himself for his blackened past that haunted him all these years.
He was unsure how he found himself close to this. But something in her, made him change, made his life change.
Made his existence life.
But his life came and went with her. She was some unpredictable Moon that brought the tide over his past, hiding it deep under the great sea, it's hypnotic movement controlled only by her. She had a power over him, over the tide of his life.
She could make him the man he'd always wanted to be, the man with troubles forgotten, and if not forgotten, the beacon of life from the shining moon would guide him until dawn and those dark figures of the past became ghosts in the bright luminescence of the Sun.
She was the Sun and the Moon.
The thing he could never reach.
The person he could never be.
But in the darkness, as the night closed around him and sleep came fitfully to his eyes, the ballast of his subconscious was thrown with pace left in reality as the craft climbed steadily to it's place in the sky, where the Sun and Moon would greet him equally as one.
In his dreams his subconscious ruled. Wants and needs fulfilled in those few hours, which broke up the regularity of the day.
In his dreams the Sun and Moon where constant and ever standing beside him.
In his dreams she was reachable, she was his, and because of her he was the man he wanted to be.
For her he was the man he wanted to be.
It was the very fact that all these things where improbable in reality that made his dreams so sweet.
The tantalising closeness of it all, and yet the very fact that it was all so far away and so unknown.
Hope was needed though.
The hope, that one-day his dreams would come true.
Hope was the very thing that fuelled the fire of his heart.
He seen the hope reflected in her, in her eyes.
Looking closer he seen the fire, swelling out towards him desperate to mingle and burn with his own.
Even now; when all hope seemed lost, when she seemed lost to him; it was there.
The eclipsed light of which the great corona could still be seen.
There was something that remained whether she knew of it or not.
This constant light, visible or not, was the base of his dreams, the solid foundation on which anything could be built. This very fact that let him cast off his worries, the reality and the rules letting his subconscious free to float to its rightful place among the stars.
The secret of his darkness.
At some point during the night, during his thoughts he was disturbed by a noise in the hall.
His eyes slid to focus on the dark empty room around him.
It was now 2.15am.
The illumination of his watch shrinking his pupils at once, causing his eyes to blink furiously amongst the din of darkness.
He had gone far beyond the rejuvenating powers of the coffee, but for some reason (of only which his subconscious knew) he felt beyond the need of sleep knowing that it would not come to him in the night.
Staring round the desolate room he watched the lights on various thing wink slowly at him, as if not bothering to make any effort.
Jack could have sworn that the lights flashed faster during the day.
Disappointed in the light show though sympathising with the lights in the strangest way, thinking that what was the point when she wasn't around, he left.
Left the lights that blinked sluggishly without her.
Left the alien devices (some of which where made on earth.)
Left the alien emptiness that had been a midnight sanctuary for his subconscious.
Home came closer to him, fast at first then slower as the driveway shortened. The house was empty. Worse, it was lifeless.
Inside no one dwelled and no one lived; it was a mere shell in which there was no life.
Stepping inside, not bothering to lock the door behind, he headed straight for his liquor cabinet. Though he had work to go to in just 5 hours, though his better judgement was against it he poured himself a stiff drink once settled deep in the couch.
Saluting the moon through his window, he drank to fill the darkness, to bring on the dreams, and burn through the ropes that held them to reality.