fields

once he passed by a large field of grass below the overpass one morning in november while riding on a bus to his old high school. someone had parked their van in the middle of it, and he imagined sitting in that van with the girl he loved and watching with them as the cars passed by on the overpass, one by one.

several months later he was having trouble sleeping at night thinking of a million ways he could lose her, a million parts of her that had changed over the years in the dark places he couldn’t see, he thought of how she must have felt when she first started liking her boyfriend, the excitement when they finally confessed to each other, the jokes they traded over skype every night. he thought of the friends she had made, the times she cried and they comforted her, the birthday parties she had had with them over the years, and he felt like he was seeing someone else, and it frustrated him.

and on these nights he would imagine different scenarios where they sat together in that van out in the field on a snowy evening, trading swigs from a bottle of whiskey until he was drunk enough to talk honestly. he tended to cry when drunk, so he thought maybe after he had told her everything, every fear he had about her, and she said it was all fine, whatever, don’t worry about it, he would be so relieved he would be reduced to a mess of tears. maybe after that everything would be fine forever, or at least he would be brave enough to tell her every stupid insecurity before it festered and burst. come night they could drive out to a local convenience store for tea eggs and warm drinks and watch the snow fall outside, and he would realize she was still there. this was the story he repeated the most. more than anything he just wanted to talk to her again, about life things, about shared insecurities and personal triumphs, so he could cheer her on and she could do the same for him.

he had other stories. he thought about other worlds where they had gotten to know each other better over the years, and he had seen all these hidden places of hers and they were his own, perhaps they had attended the same college, spent nights together talking in the park, and now many years later they were old friends, meeting up in that field to catch up. in the time apart he would have become someone much braver, much more caring, more interesting, more considerate, maybe less in love with her. in these stories the conversations were about the things that had happened in their years apart: old lovers, current crushes, that one time he took too much of this and ended up there… how they both had changed, because people change. and perhaps she would be okay then that he was still in love with her, after all these years, though they both knew she would never love him back in the same way. that was fine of course, because--sigh--such are the ways of the human heart, or something or other.

there was one story, he thought about this the least, he cursed himself when he did, but maybe, many world-cycles away, where yama the god of death tired and fell asleep at his wheel... he thought about a perfect world where they fall in love back in high school, and time never went beyond that, and as they lay in the grass and breathe steam into the cold air they never even think that many world-cycles away he is wrapped in blankets drowning in doubt about her.