The first thing I should tell you is that this story doesn't end well. It stops rather abruptly, has very little resolution, and doesn't answer very many questions. Some other bad news I have is that this is a story about you.
That wouldn't be particularly bad news if it wasn't for the first thing. It isn't just about you, it's about both of us, you and I.
When we first met, it was at the dog park. You were walking your golden retriever, whose name was Golden, admittedly you aren't very imaginative when it comes to naming dogs.
You saw me before I saw you. You thought I looked beautiful. You shyly looked at me, thinking I didn't notice, I did. Though your attempts to look at me were sly, eventually we accidently locked eyes. Your head snapped away.
The awkwardness of the situation forced me to let out a small laugh, I'm pretty sure you heard it. You took that as your cue. You asked me where my dog was, I told you that I don't have a dog, I just like to get out while the weather is nice. I also added that, although I can't have a dog where I live, I wish I could, I like being around dogs.
You thought I was a little odd, you also knew that was okay, you like being around people who are a little weird. We talked for about an hour, you told me about how you go to school and also work part time. We talked about how Golden was getting older, you tried to make it sound like you accepted that fact but I could see in your eyes it hurt you more than you were willing to admit.
Then you woke up.
You remembered saying goodbye to me, telling me that you hoped we could talk again soon, that you liked my company. We forgot to exchange phone numbers. You thought for a moment that our interactions had been a dream, after all, most things that are followed by waking up in bed are. You came to the conclusion that what you felt was too real to be a dream, and that if it was, you would rather go on thinking it was real. Sometimes living a lie is what's best, if it's what makes you happy. Funny, isn't it? The way dreams are as real as waking life, just up until we question them. You always thought there was some poetic beauty in that.
The next time we met, much like the first, was complete happenstance.
It was warm for a fall night, the perfect weather as far as you're concerned. You needed to get out more, you had been feeling depressed, staying in every weekend. You had heard that there was Shakespeare in the park, you loved Shakespeare, I'm indifferent.
You arrived just as a community theater Tybalt gave his over-dramatic death cry. The novice stage lights cast an angelic glow over the crowd, light spilled over the audience and eventually dissipated into the night air, and that's when you saw me.
You made your way through the crowd, pushing and subsequently apologizing for pushing. You stood next to me hoping I would notice you, secretly you were scared I didn't remember you. I was far too entrenched in the play to notice you.
You eventually worked up the nerve to tap me on the shoulder. My head snapped to find you standing next to me, you looked as startled as I was. You unnecessarily apologized for scaring me, trying to keep your voice down as not to disturb the rest of the audience. I told you that you had nothing to worry about, I told you how I'm easily startled.
We both laughed, you have a nice laugh. I told you that I would love to talk to you, but after the play was over. You liked that idea. So together we stood and watched in silence as the story unfolded before us.
After the actors had given their bows I turned to you smiling, you smiled back. We found a bench so we could sit and talk, standing for a whole play was tiring for the both of us. As we sat down next to each other, I asked you how you had been since we had last met. You didn't know how to respond. You were torn between telling me the truth, about being depressed and feeling dreadfully alone, or the "I've been good” that you would tell to co-workers when they asked how your weekend had been.
The pause you took was all the answer I needed. I asked you what had been making you feel so down. You admitted that you felt your life wasn't going anywhere, you felt stuck and that no one cared. Honestly, you weren't too far from the truth.
I told you that life can be hard, sometimes it can beat us down and can feel pointless. I also told you that we need to keep moving through life, doing our best not to get trapped in the endless self pity that keeps us from bettering ourselves.
I knew that a speech wasn't going to fix your problems, but it helped a little, that counts for something. You forced a smile and thanked me, then changed the topic.
You didn't know why, but you felt comfortable enough to trust me. That night we talked for a long time about a lot of different things, we got to know each other.
At the end of the night, when we had decided it had become late enough that sleep was necessary, we parted ways. This time you asked for my phone number. You mentioned how you had forgotten last time and I told you that you didn't need to come up with an excuse to ask me.
I tore a corner off of a page from a journal, wrote on it, then handed it to you. You smiled and told me you looked forward to seeing me again, I told you that I couldn't wait. We went our separate ways, you walked home with your headphones in, but what you heard gave you pause.
The voices you heard sang of an angel, they told you that these things happen to other people, that they don't happen at all, in fact. You didn't know why these words resonated with you, but they did. "Was the person I had just seen and spoken to that night even a human?” You thought to yourself in a panic. You remembered how dream-like our first meeting was, how heavenly this night had been.
Maybe, you pondered as the song repeated its chorus, maybe I wasn't real, a figment of your own imagination. Perhaps I had been an angel sent down to help you through these rough times. You never have been particularly religious, you jokingly thought that having a mental break was a much more reasonable answer.
As the song ended you dove your hand into your pocket, attempting to repeat the song that held so much meaning at this odd moment in your life. Unfortunately, in your spastic motion a certain piece of paper fell from your pocket, landing forgotten on the ground.
The missing numbers didn't help calm notions of insanity over the next week. You couldn't stop thinking about me, how our first meeting was so strange, how our second was like an encounter with the divine. You obsessed over those numbers, why had they gone missing.
You knew you didn't ask after our first meeting, but the second you remembered in such detail, you remembered the black leather notebook from which the paper was torn, the only thing you couldn't remember was the numbers and their order. Of course you didn't know of the papers fate, if you had maybe it would have eased your mind, maybe not.
You spent most of your time thinking about me, who was I, why did I mean so much to you. Maybe I was only important to you because of the strange circumstances that surrounded our meetings. You didn't think that for long. You then thought that it was the way you felt comfortable with me, how I had seemed like a long lost friend, how quick to kindness I had been.
Regardless of the true answer you knew that you wanted to see me again, a troubling thought when you had no way to contact me.
You had decided to take a walk to try and clear your mind, a tactic almost sure to fail. It was raining, but it was as if you didn't notice, more important things clung to your mind. You continued in this trance state, slowly gliding through the world around you. Your thoughts a vortex.
Was I just a symbol of your desperation? A shining example of what you thought would end the worst of your suffering. The rain came down harder. Were you holding on to the thought of me because it was all you had? After all, when we have nothing more to hold we fall, don't we? No, you refused to believe that, I was real, you had seen me, I was real.
You repeated that thought to yourself, you weren't very convincing. Just then the rain soaked through your shoe and into your sock. The cold water brought your attention back to the world around you like a camera pulling focus. The rain was heavier than you remembered. That's when you saw me, again, for the last time.
I stood opposite you, on the other side of the road. You caught my eye and I smiled at you. You ran towards me, clinging to the idea that on the other side of this road was a better life, that you were one person away from salvation. Everything went black. The speed that the car was going is irrelevant, it was fast enough to kill you.
It was sad if you ask me, despite its inevitability. I wasn't at your funeral, but I heard it was sad. I suppose that's a good thing, it means people cared for you. See, I told you the ending was disappointing, most people's are. I don't know if our story has a message or a meaning but if it did I think I would say that it's this. Everyone dies alone, the real tragedy is that some live that way.