ii. you and i, washed ashore—and adrift, oceans apart, once again.

The first time they meet, the world is reborn in rain.

At the time, she reminisces that there are ringed ripples on the pavement with puddles as wide and immense as an ocean; in this quiet place, they wink at her in silvery flecks of light behind the backdrop of an unromantic Monday morning, skies roiling with ashen clouds that seek to rinse the earth. There is a bridge far beyond the path that gleams like a silver rod, even though it has been old and rusting up close.

Though the figure of a man on that bridge draws her attention, as he clings on the edge of the railings, like a spider barely dangling on a convoluted web. And thus, it begins here, of all places. She confronts him for a second or two, and her reality appears to bend around his presence. He seems too surreal to be true, too ethereal to be human—and some part of her wishes to touch him, because despite their proximity, he remains so distant in the planes of existence.

He is the first to speak, however. "Have I met you before?"

She shakes her head. "I don't think so."

"You look familiar."

"You're not."

Who are you?

"I'm no one," he tells her, as if he has heard her thoughts—only for her to realize that she has said them aloud. He smiles, but there are shadows under his eyes, like he's seen so much terror in his nights. But he is so calm, so closed, and just as cold.

"Why are you here?" she asks not unkindly, as her eyes carves his likeness in her mind.

"Why are you?"

She doesn't answer.

—

They meet a second time, and then a third, a fourth—his presence almost feels like limbo, the tail-end of an enduring dream.

Or a memory, she corrects.

"You look familiar," he always says that to her though he never elaborates further. He steals a glance at her face. "I think it's your eyes."

"My eyes?" she echoes back in disbelief.

"Your eyes," he affirms in a voice so naturally smooth and unnaturally sentimental. "I don't believe I've seen quite like them before."

She scoffs at that. "If you hadn't, then it isn't familiar."

His smile becomes a conundrum, the riddle of one's deepest, darkest secret.

"If it wasn't familiar, I wouldn't have remembered."

—

"The thought of suicide is a great consolation," he says in measured tones, "by means of it one gets through many a dark night."

Her brows furrow in recognition. "Nietzsche?"

"Yes," he answers. "You've read his works?"

"A few selected ones," and then in a careful voice, she whispers: "we can talk more about it, if you're at the other side of the railing."

He sighs under his breath. "I believe it's quite too late for that."

She just doesn't understand.

—

"Will you always be here?"

"I don't have quite a choice in that matter."

She musters the courage to ask: "What do you mean?"

He stares at the great lake under his feet. "You should know it by now . . ."

—

She finds a familiar portrait from the daily obituaries. In the morning, she remembers him in resentful tears.