Psychosis of the East

A long time ago, he had been an artist. Selecting any given device, he would take it up and create. The movement of his hands were as clear as a tongue in speech. He was an artist, pure and simple.

More recently, he had become a lover; at least in world he had created within himself. As the seasons changed and the frost came in, he had hidden his hands in woollen gloves and his mind in the internal summer his imagination could paint.

“The Lover”

Yes, a term he had coined late one night after meditation. Love, as he imagined the idea to be, would require another. Someone with whom he could converse. Someone he would desire to touch and also long to be touched by. It would be energetic and enriching.

‘Love; such a fascinating idea’, he chuckled to himself by fireside.

The ‘other’, he suggested to himself, would look somewhat like himself, yet would be different enough to inspire wonder as he explored. Seeing no other – ever – in his life, it was difficult to image the look of Love. He gave Love arms and legs and warm eyes and a nice smile. However, the oddness of its incomplete form scared him a little and so he suggested to Love that they should lay in the shadow of the oak, watch the fidgeting leaves – instead of each other – and talk of all things.

Love agreed with a nod and they moved, hand in hand, to the oak to do as he had suggested.

Beneath the oak, he imagined a gentle touch of wind to make the branches dance just as he could remember from many months before. The sun was near its zenith and glittered splashes of light through the chaos of leaves.

“Isn’t it beautiful here?” he asked his love.

Love responded by squeezing his hand slightly. Love had tried to speak, but the voice was wrong and so Love had stopped. Thus conversation too, would be impossible.

He let his hand wonder across the skin of Love. It was as soft as the skin on the small of his back, but did not crease in the right way along the fingers and palm. He let go and simply lay there alongside Love. The sense of having another there was enough for him.

However, before long he felt uneasy. His unease came in the sudden chill of the breeze. Yet he did not look for the reason of his unease, because the act of looking would provide nothing he did not already know. Love was no longer beside him. Love had never been beside him.