Fortress

I opened my eyes and looked around. For the first time in my life there was no overwhelming urge to rush out into a world where the possibilities were endless, every moment to be harnessed, challenged, or overcome. I could hear the drizzle of rain falling, the sound making its way to my conscious awareness with the same slowness and heaviness as it’s descent from above.

The fear of missing out is a cognitive process that drives us all, filling our lives with hope and ambition; keeps us running on the hamster wheel we call life in pursuit of a brighter tomorrow.

In this new life, the static nature of our collective predicament brought both a sense of relief, but also of slow and steady asphyxiation.

It is oxymoronic to consider how much beauty can be found in darkness, and how much despair can be brought about through illumination of cracks that existed long before we were forced to stop and notice.

I never could appreciate the concept of Groundhog Day, until this moment where life as we knew it had stopped. The cogs of our society had come to a sudden and all-encompassing stand still, allowing us a clearer view of the importance of all that we deemed irrelevant; in times that felt like they belonged to a different life.

Loneliness and isolation were once abstract terms. Now they were the basis for all that we knew.

In what is a sign of the times we had connected digitally, on a platform designed to be nothing more than a superficial introduction. A gateway to something more, no matter the intent.

What started off in much the same way as the rest, we exchanged pleasantries that built the foundation for exploration of topics that were centred on anything but the superficial. We discussed philosophy and history. What it meant to be human, and what the future may look like through the lens of minds that were so different yet managed to draw similar conclusions.

It was a slow yet purposeful descent that led to longing. What part desperation played I cannot say, but a creature of habit lives inside us all. I habituated to you as the answer to the darkness I carried inside.

To me you were poetry.

You the method, I, controlled madness.

Guilt and duty prevented us meeting, yet in these moments you were all that there was.

I fantasised of being in a place where human connection was not something to feared. The need for human touch, the locking of eyes without paranoia or shame. Where distance was no longer our obligation to protect everything we held dear.

I envisioned all the thing’s we would do, the looks we would share, what your voice would sound like reverberating off my skin.

To sit across from you and see the depth of your spirit gazing back at me. What was your favourite cuisine on a dreary Wednesday night? What was your poison of choice? Would you eat dinner early, while the day was still young or indulge in a light meal eaten over a screen as you devoted yourself to pursuits of intellect; or was distraction from the never-ending internal hum your preference?

I imagined us sitting across from each other in some tucked away hole in the wall. You dissect the wine list; deliberating on richness and character.

The waiter takes my order and turns to you.

“A glass of the St Huberts Cab Merlot”, you say. The light from a nearby lamp hit’s your jawline, the shadows darkening your eyes making them as impenetrable as the notion of escape in this newfound reality.