The night sky shone as only it could: ostentatiously and without inhibition. Arrogantly. Despite the astronomical distance between the stars and ourselves, their nightly communiqués were all that kept me sane. In spite of all that stood between us: from ozone to the infinite vacuum of space, we talked. I talked, they listened; they replied, I heard. Our relationship was ethereal, but more real than any other I had had: this was a true unconditional. Every night, without any possibility of failure, I would have my time with my celestial lovers: and each time it would be the same magic of their light being poured upon me with no judgement of my past. No pretence whatsoever. This action was universal, but it was also mine and mine alone. I felt… I felt cleansed. I felt like my emptiness was being reversed by the filling of heavenly light into every pore and every orifice of my body. I was pure. I was connected with the world. I was everything.

The unnecessary verbosity; the pseudo-political, pseudo-philosophical, half-thought out stream of nothingness: it was comforting somehow – there was some truth in the past. The message was more unsettling by a wide margin: he had been used. He had become a pawn, a tool, whichever other DIY/board game allusions can be made to the state of becoming a facilitator of goals above all else.

Flash: the first meeting. Flash: the continued interest. Flash: the illusory ‘closeness’. Flash: the dissolution of his permanent scepticism. Flash: his trust. Flash: cynicism abated. Flash: this end. Years in months, months in weeks, weeks in days, days in hours, hours in minutes, minutes in seconds: time, in all of its transitory glory, dissolved. The larger picture broken down into smaller, more significant wallet-sized memento photographs. There was no construable sequence of a past: just a series of events which formed the ever fading present – a four-year old’s flipbook.

Shoulders sagged in a plainly observable manner, perfectly in line with the increasing distance between the two. Diaphragm relaxed; ribcage lowered: musculature just giving way, as if itself disappointed – an inch for each inch that grew between them. Lacrimal ducts opened, willing for gushes of unnecessary basal tears to satiate their lust – gushes that would not come. Anything for leucine enkephalin; just something to take the edge off of this revelation. His eyes would not yield to this desire.

Then rage. Uncontrollable, inexpressible rage: the rage of a bull. Muscle tensed as the creeping paralysis of ascending anger contracted every muscle in his body. Adrenaline became the main component of his blood: flight or fight his mental prerogative; and a fight was his brain’s preference. Fists clenched, nails bored into his palms: the sticky, sweet crimson’s exit eased by his hot rage. This was symbolic: a reminder for things to come.

‘Oculus pro oculus‘ was muttered through clenched teeth.

We kept things simple, didn’t we? Pleasure above all else; fuck everything else. We didn’t discuss anything of consequence: not of philosophy, not of politics; nothing beyond the then-and-there. Yet it always felt significant. Profound, even, in its simplicity. Casual chatter amongst the sea of insults being flung between us: god, it really was perfect. You were as irreverent as I, and with an added arrogance unparalleled by even myself. You actually impressed me. You seemed to be of that rare breed that could only be comfortable in company such as mine. God, how I’ve developed a habit for collecting these people. You were one of the first: one of the first to find trust in me. Ha, how I thought that you were deluded. How I still do.

Your eyes had always been so lustrous before, but now they were glassy. Wide-open and unfocused in my direction. I never knew how to read you, and I never learned. You always kept me guessing: your talent for hiding the true tone of your sentiments had gotten us into spats of sorts in the past, but I knew that there was something honest in this blank stare. Something that I hadn’t seen in you before. Affection? No, it was less than that: something more basic. Something more instinctive. It was mere thought, in all of its glorious entirety. It was electricity: all electricity. Neurons firing on and off to power that great machine that was your mind. The cogs turned with discernible regularity: a regularity telling of your logical nature.

Clunk. Thought. Clunk. Rationale. Clunk. Evaluation. Clunk. Conclusion.

You blinked and your eyes returned to moist normality, and I watched your iris find its ideal combination of linear and circular muscle contraction. When it had found this, I myself readjusted my focus to find your gaze fixed on mine. We were so connected. There really was no one else. Nothing else. Everything behind your face had descended into the resplendent distortion of bokeh: perfect circles of out of focus material and light. It was a wonderful backdrop for you. Greens and browns became one; the grass dissolved into little more than a blur. It was just you. You and I.

I needed to be inside your head.