Last night as I dwelled upon the fathomless shores of my dreams I met you for the first time. It was the real you, the you of imagination, of thoughts and feelings and transparency like an ancient glacial lake. You were dazzling to behold like a bauble in a curious bird’s nest and to you I was as new and wondrous as food to a baby’s first tooth. Together we were tentative fingers sampling fabric in a garment shop. As our spirits drifted along the infinite beach we contemplated an eternity together.
But soon our other selves invaded our dreamscape and injected their tribulations into our perfect world. They swirled about and coalesced into a gruesome sphinx, but one that was disfigured from the anxieties and pettiness that had created it. From a lack of faith, its wings were pathetic and vestigial; from a lack of hope, its eyes were morbidly sunken, casting shadows of despair; and from a lack of charity, its body was grotesquely emaciated.
It fixed us with its evil gaze, “You have summoned me to destroy your love for you lack the courage to do so yourselves! But I will spare it if you answer me this riddle: what is vague and nebulous in the morning; sure and swift in the afternoon; and bottomless in the evening?”
So sure I was of my answer, I jolted, “Water! At first it is mere droplets in the sky; then it sweeps ferociously down steep mountain faces and wide meandering rivers; and finally it rests in the company of its brethren in a world of oceanic endlessness.”
So sure were you that I had spoken ill, you quickly rebuked, “Love! At its dawning it is tenuous and light-footed; in its infancy breathless and passionate; and in maturity it is true, deep, and pure.”
The Fearinx gleefully cackled at us for answering twice and began to drive us back from the limitless expanse of our wandering walk. We retraced our steps whence we had tread, forgetting with each lost footprint where we had been and why. But as we retreated from its attacks, we remembered not to look into its eyes but into each other’s. And there, in the spaces where our spirits and bodies collide, we found our strength and stood our ground.
We called out to the Fearinx, “We no longer fear being of two thoughts and of two minds, so long as we are of one love.” With that, we held hands once again and sang:
We have faith in our very souls
We have hope in our merry hearts
We have charity in our every prayer
That tomorrow is the best day of our lives!
As we turned our back on the Fearinx, it dissolved into the desert dunes of memory, never to be dreamed of again in the long evening of our love. And as we sang our lullaby until the night was through, the real you, the real me, and our waking selves became as one, and we awoke complete.
