It's bizarre, that the night should seem beautiful now.
Perhaps it's the fireworks - the glowing, glittering, glimmering… huge bursts of flagrant colour, noise and light dazzling the mind beneath creased eyelids. Or the sky behind them. Because that's suddenly more shocking, more violent, than these pretty explosions ever can be. It's just an expanse of black… and there's an infinite, still ocean of it - a wasteland of soulless non-colour, and suddenly that becomes more real and more frightening than it ever seemed before.
Perhaps it's him, the way his eyes move about restlessly and reflect the same light; the way he's awkward and easy at the same time; the way he's a stranger yet he falls into place like a missing puzzle piece as he dances with her now; the way he's the charmer in the coffee shop all over, and yet she is reminded of the man she grew to know, almost, and to love.
Or her - as she turns her head and smiles into him secretly, and he observes the somehow tragic blend of emotions defining her face… the confusion and the wisdom, the joy and the loss, the pain and the acceptance. As she curls her hand in his, and the feel of her palm is warm and tender just as his is strong and gentle.
Or this dampened torment… an exquisite needling pain. Some strange knowing hangs in the air, and it isn't about love or romance or each other… not about her father or his - his what? He didn't know the man… not about Bill. Just a strange awareness… something of life, and death, and a delicate line connecting or crossing the two - too fine to be seen or understood by them, mere mortals that they are.
But he is trying to see it, and trying to understand, and he can't figure the hell why. He's in the midst of a lavish party, surrounded by the amorous lights of the fireworks, moving gently through the dancing couples, arms encircling the most captivating woman he has ever spoken to… and yet… he is thinking - or trying to think - of other things. Poetic things. Almost… morbid things. Dark thoughts, and he's never thought them before. He doesn't see why he should be thinking anything now that's not blissful, confusing though it all is. But something in him is distressed. And, yes… so confused…
She is feeling similarly lost in the sea of dancers, so close to him yet feeling as though they are beginning again, as near strangers, and clinging to the shaft of understanding she thinks she grasped before… it seemed so sensible then, but only for a second… but then it was lost, and he was just… Joe. And this isn't about Joe, and yet it is. She hasn't seen her father return, knows he won't even without looking for him, and she understands that. But she cannot understand what she is feeling… not pain, not relief, not joy - a bittersweet blend, and then some.
The night is a blanket of silence under the glossy sweep of illumination glittering against the dark sky, and it's blackly beautiful. There's confusion in the air, and acute pain, but there's also some vague understanding, a glimmer of insight… and hence there is balance, and nothing is more reassuring than that.
A/N: Just a quickie... I might develop it cause I liked the movie, but anyways... please review if you read it. :imploring eyes: Thankies. ;)