The Horrified Look (a love story in too many words)

by Sensate Mass

The moment in question came amid the subjunctive wreckage of a great love affair which never took place, but might have. Perhaps one or both of them believe it should have happened out of a sense of rectitude, owing to particular and general congruences that mobilized the armies of Fate to defend and legitimize their uncanny improbability.

They had met through a coupling of mutual friends. In the scatter-charts of their previous groupings, one might have said of them that they were closest to the periphery, although it would be difficult to say, if you laid transparencies of the two representations atop one another, whether their two individual dots would have been congruent or diametrical. Without wasting a thought on it, any observer would have said it was moot, the mere fact of distance would suffice for illustration.

She was pretty, he noticed at once, although not physically compelling, and that relieved him. In fact, when they first met, they didn't speak directly to each other at all. It has not been given to us to know what her complementary opinions were at that time, but everyone in that section of the bar had the intimation (to which they would have been unified in assent, were it specified) that the two were intently eavesdropping upon one another.

Key to understanding the situation is a laying-bare of how their minds anticipated things, not necessarily accurately, but meticulously, obsessively, continually. Additionally, since this was the shape of their sensoria, they each endeavored, so as to have the autonomy of unpredictability, to make themselves utterly opaque to such assumed precognition through exercises in inscrutability.

It was an unspoken article of faith to them that mystery in itself, accentuated, thrown into relief with flamboyant actions and muttered words, most conferred legitimacy to their claim to genius, and, more importantly, the claim that the genius was itself worthwhile. This fatal misunderstanding, ironically, arose out of their reliance upon those of lesser gifts for validation: while an exposition upon the minutiae of the contribution of Art to Life, or the role of the individual in society, or some such, was above the heads and beneath the contempt of their adjudicators, the latter's own misconceptions about intellect, their mistaking of effect for cause, made mysterious airs and the occasional, oracular polysyllabic utterance, suffice for brilliance.

Now, although this unhappy confluence has raised and nurtured legions of those who would count themselves among the intellectual gentry, and has won for many free rides on the coattails of ancient ideas of the power of great minds, such was not here the case. The two were entitled to their claims, but, being where they were, they had no way of knowing this for certain.

The second time they saw one another was also in a bar, and she was accompanied by her lover, a pleasant, engaging man. This night saw the first of their unique conversations, thick with qualifications and reiterations, and which quite obliviated all else. More memorable, perhaps, than the discussions themselves, were the moments of disequilibrium at their end or interruption. Still more memorable, though unnoticed, were their seamless resumptions.

At first, others would attempt to participate in the furious dashing-against of concept and concept, in the endless reformulation of gladiatorial metaphors. This dwindled shortly to amused spectatorship and bemused avoidance. It was as if, when the two of them began talking, their fundamental vibrations shifted in unison to a pitch only partially visible to the rest of the world, and completely inaudible. At first, they didn't notice this, carried along on crest after crest of recognition and the joy of fellowship.

Further along, they played at identifying this thing that bound them together. They called each other wonderfully obscure.

Their conversations continued nearly every time they were together, without pretense and guided (or, should I say, distracted) only by their respective egos. I should mention that their first forays into each other were, for each of them to assure, by as bloody means as were at their disposal, that the other was genuine and not a parrot or longwinded cynic. These might have been their finest moments: having, out of obligation, devised and set traps to snare the pretender, only to have the other, without the malice of betrayal, spring exultantly free. Their greatest joy came through the realization that the other knew the rules of this game, and its necessity, without an explicit word having been said on the subject.

All the preliminaries having been satisfied, he steeled himself to present (as the highest compliment) to her 'something written,' which he was almost certain had merit, but which others of promise had failed to grasp. A week later, it was returned to him, with knowing annotations neatly inscribed in the margins. Here is where he made the first Mistake, responding immediately to the objections, which were valid and well-thought out, with what he came to realize were ascerbic self-justifications. True enough, for one who had ruminated endlessly on the subject, and corrective, but delivered in entirely the wrong manner.

He had asked too much, and, in the elation of having someone finally comprehend his innermosts, alienated her. 'Frosty' would be an inadequate term to capture her attitude towards him, hurt and betrayed, with the skinned knee or black eye of a friendly game gotten out of hand.

Slow to realize this, it was redeemed on a night when she was pointedly avoiding him for the third time, he confronted her, saying with (unaccountably) the right blend of anger and supplication, that had only wanted to thank her for being, for making something finally real of the thing written, for allowing him to finally know he hadn't been 'just pissing in the wind.' In the way of women won by force, she smiled. Electric.

Of course, she was still at this time with her lover, as it turns out, of three years, and he was distractedly entertaining thoughts of other women, the image of her having drifted occasionally into his nexus romanticum, only to be willed again out, as she was unavailable. Unjust as it might seem, there are effective obstacles to even the most fundamental attractions, and he had enough sense to realize this. He even tried to turn the situation to good account, saying to himself that, over and above the mere affinity of their minds, the impossible attraction was a force that elevated their interaction still higher. Body and soul, he thought ironically to himself.

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