|
Introspection
by ET
Rating: General
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Living Doll'
Disclaimer: I wish I owned. I don't.
Author’s Note: This is my entry to the Summer Reading Ficathon
over at  Geekfiction
Summer Reading Ficathon Prompt: Edgar Allan Poe
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the
most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.”
– Edgar Allan Poe
It wasn’t a quote I had ever understood. Not before Sara. And even after I met
her, I spent so much time and effort trying not to contemplate her beauty
that I never got to experience the pleasure that was supposedly associated with
such thoughts.
Eventually I reached a point where it was impossible to reign in my thoughts and
fantasies – they inevitably found their way to Sara, whether I wanted them to or
not.
I’m not sure who was actually the more surprised when I finally asked her out,
her, or me. And while the time since hasn’t always been easy, I finally
understand what Poe was talking about.
Being with Sara, sharing my life with her, has brought me pleasure like nothing
I’d ever known before. Just thinking of her smile, her loving embrace, can
lighten my heart.
So now, now that I am faced with the prospect that I may never experience either
again, those thoughts which have brought me so much pleasure over the last
months are now the source of immeasurable pain. Knowing that my time with Sara
may be drawing to a close only heightens my regrets over all the months and
years that I wasted in pointless resistance. The one source of true pleasure in
my life may be gone and it’s all my fault.
Poe has another quote, and I’m not so sure I even agree with this one.
“The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in
the world.”
Right now the possibility doesn’t seem so much poetical as painful. Agonising.
Excruciating even. But I’m not seeing the poetry. Maybe I don’t want to, because
acknowledging it means she may really not be coming back, and that’s something I
just can’t accept right now.
She has to come back to me. Living with Sara has finally taught me to live, and
I’m not ready to die just yet.
*******
"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague.
Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" – Edgar Allan
Poe
Death is something I see every day. It’s something that has played far too large
a part of my life ever since childhood. And yet, I’ve never really considered it
in terms of actually experiencing it myself. Sure, I’ve been in a few sticky
situations over the years, I’ve had a few brief moments where I wondered if I’d
make it out of there, but I’ve never really taken the time to consider it. Funny
where being trapped under a ton of shifting metal in the middle of the desert
will take your thoughts.
I know one thing for sure, I’m not ready to die. Not just yet. Not when I’ve
only really just begun to live.
So I wait, and I hope, and I pray to a God that I’m not at all convinced even
exists. I figure it can’t hurt. I try my best to stay conscious, and I entertain
elaborate fantasies where this is all just some terrible nightmare and in a
moment I’ll wake up and Gil will be right there to comfort me. It’s the only way
I can stay sane, although maybe I’m losing my grip on sanity anyway. There’s a
quote, I think it’s Poe, that sums it up pretty nicely.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Gil’s rubbing off on me it seems. Facing death and all I can do is come up with
quotes. He seems to have one for every situation, every mood. I wonder what he’s
quoting right now, and I wish I could be there to hear him. I wish I could be
anywhere but here, alone. I wish…
THE END
|
