//------------------------------// // From the Moment We Touch // Story: And I Will Love You... // by Scootareader //------------------------------// I feel haunted by my own thoughts. What is real to me anymore, and what is just some fabrication of my mind? I dream of an orchard, miles away and several centuries’ travel expected, even with all the luck possible. How is that for attainable? I am wishing for nothing but disappointment, trying to chase away the dark clouds over my soul for several brief moments only for them to once more loom over me, releasing torrents of rain which wash away any final shred of hope that I may still cling to. It is petty, pebblish, and arrogant to think of myself as a haughty king, or even a desirable ornament. I have been trapped back here, out of sight and out of mind, so as to never force the ponies who once knew me to recollect the destruction of their bonds of friendship. I can’t say I blame them, but it hurts all the same to be exiled so completely. Who wouldn’t turn to the brighter future? Who wouldn’t fabricate a being that wishes to be with the beholder just as surely as the wish may be to be with the beheld? Am I not the most sane, the most stalwart of guardians, to turn to misguided hopes so as to not to wallow in my own despair and self-pity? Just as I have been abandoned, surely this phantom of my dreams will someday abandon me... yet, until that day, I am determined to— To what? My own mind is rebelling against me. To so blatantly lie to myself... is that not the greatest bastardization of hope that can be imagined? I am setting myself up to be crushed, to be so wholly devastated that I wish for nothing more than to disappear. Perhaps that is what I truly wish. Maybe I want to recall how great of a failure I am, to reconcile the fact that I will always be alone, and to finally lose all semblance of thought. Is that the future I strive for? Even if it isn’t what I want, I don’t have a choice. I am doomed to my life of solitude, stuck in a hole in the ground and ever unmoving. This is likely the last shred of sanity I am attempting to grasp before it tatters and flutters away to leave me alone once more. I have had the same dream for... years now. I am always watching him, his efforts concentrated on something other than seeking me. He seems so preoccupied that he doesn’t know I exist. I am not sure what to make of this. Does he no longer wonder about me? Is he laboring for another? Perhaps he no longer stands apart and he has forgotten me—even a supposed ghost will ignore me eventually. Maybe I should just stop waiting forever. It’s far better than being trapped in a limbo of wishful thinking. They say that, upon waking, in that moment between consciousness and unconsciousness, is the most perfect state of being. It only lasts a brief second at most, usually far less than that. To live in a world where the earth is still, even if we don’t noticeit—to know that the barest fragment of emotion or knowledge, feeling anything, thinking anything, will disturb such pristine wonder—it reminds me that there is still a world I regret having to be in. Dreams are something of a departure from waking life, where all is set in place and nothing ever changes. The life I see when I am aware is dull, the most ugly shade of grey imaginable; I see nothing new, I hear nothing new, and I feel nothing new. All of it is exactly what I know it to be. There are no masks; there are no surprises. What do I find in dreams? I find boundless opportunity. I think of it as a “what if?” frame of mind. I am able to be free of all bonds which tie me to my physical presence, to see and hear and feel anew. Yet, I know it is all untrue. Dreams are a blatant lie we tell ourselves, a false reassurance that life need not be so dark. No, it is the place between these two states of being that true peace lies. It is the moment when one cannot tell if they are awake, nor can they tell they are dreaming. There, the two roads meet. Dreams become reality, and reality is nothing but a dream. We feel nothing for just one iota of a lifetime—and then we are trapped once more in either the truth or the lie. It is in this briefest of moments, when I am a formless, worriless nothingness of bliss, that I feel my lover touch me. Creeping. Ever creeping. I have been growing a single root... decades now? I’m almost certain that it has been decades. I know he’s there; I’ve felt him. I hold out hope that he has felt me as well. Who is this stone? Is he gentle? Reliable? Caring? Is he anything that I fantasize him to be? I will never find out by sitting alone in this orchard. I need to feel him, to know him. What do I know? Do I know he is there, calling to me? I do. I know I do. I have no reservations, no misgivings. I am almost there. I feel my root traveling upward toward the surface, where the stone I seek remains, baked by the same ever-glowing Sun and caressed by the same ever-pale Moon which I feel. How can I be so sure he’s here? I know. I just know he’s here. My root presses against cold stone. In that moment, I am certain. Tom. Bloomberg. I love you. And I love you.