The vacuum

Two young men sit across a small table. One shuffles cards. The other picks at a salad.

“Yes, I’m a student. Oh I’m in science. Yeah it’s pretty tough but I guess if you like doing something enough it doesn’t really seem that hard. No, only the planned explosions are exciting. The other ones just make you wish for a port-a-potty. And maybe a fifth of gin.”

The impact of the day would not be recognized until years later. About five years to be exact. But who’s counting?

It’s not something you ever forget: words with a razor’s edge, reverberating off of the soul, radiating into the future. It’s curious, the dichotomy that encapsulates humanity. For George Lucas it was the Force, light and dark. For Adam and Eve it was distance from God, small and large. It governs the universe: balance, cause and effect, action and reaction. Le Chatelier’s Principle. For every action there is a reaction, equal and opposite. Momentum.

Love and Hate.

“Ignorance is bliss.” The funny thing about clichés, maligned though they might be, is that they are by and large based quite firmly in reality. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

A broken heart is a condition for which there is no standard treatment. For some it involves Ben, Jerry, and a striped bucket. For others, a gas can and a source of ignition. For others still, it requires reconciliation; it requires an acknowledgment of the hurt of the past and forgiveness. Can time heal a heart that no longer beats with the love it once did?

A dozen words required to break a heart. A dozen more to destroy it. Numb, hollow. Dead and alive in the same breath. A world of gray. A monochromatic rainbow. Hurt passed on and multiplied. Innocent bystanders try to save a life, a life unaware it needs saving; a life unresponsive because it knows there is only one who can save it: itself.

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Try it. I dare you.

Time marches on.