Into the Dangerous
Nov. 20th, 2008 04:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisnewdayIt would've been better for all of them if he'd never met her. Better for the ones who needed so much but gave nothing back. Better if, having met her, he'd somehow stayed in the same dead place, dreading, but continuing to do, what others required of him.
There were, of course, things like that for her. People who demanded much but refused to give. People who hated but still held on. People who did their best to make her feel that she was the one holding on, who needed so much so desperately.
Their talk, at first, was casual, dispassionate, intellectual. About things which could credibly be dismissed as "mutual interests." So, for a while, it was all quite safe. An outlet, merely, for interests which no one around them cared to discuss.
Then came that sideways drift into the dangerous. That drift into talk about dead feelings. That talk about parts of themselves that no longer worked. About dead parts that made it possible for them to have stayed so long in the places where they were.
And that was dangerous because, once it had gotten to that, there was no going back. Like a small plane landing in a crosswind was the way it had felt. Like wheels momentarily touching the runway then lifting off again as they glimpsed the horizon and corrected for it. And so it remained, for a while, tentative and dangerous.
It was during this time that they discovered they'd made a plan, almost without knowing it. Had written it out like incomplete parts of two different stories. Different, that is, until the stories had come together one afternoon at the tiny airport in Key West.
There were, of course, things like that for her. People who demanded much but refused to give. People who hated but still held on. People who did their best to make her feel that she was the one holding on, who needed so much so desperately.
Their talk, at first, was casual, dispassionate, intellectual. About things which could credibly be dismissed as "mutual interests." So, for a while, it was all quite safe. An outlet, merely, for interests which no one around them cared to discuss.
Then came that sideways drift into the dangerous. That drift into talk about dead feelings. That talk about parts of themselves that no longer worked. About dead parts that made it possible for them to have stayed so long in the places where they were.
And that was dangerous because, once it had gotten to that, there was no going back. Like a small plane landing in a crosswind was the way it had felt. Like wheels momentarily touching the runway then lifting off again as they glimpsed the horizon and corrected for it. And so it remained, for a while, tentative and dangerous.
It was during this time that they discovered they'd made a plan, almost without knowing it. Had written it out like incomplete parts of two different stories. Different, that is, until the stories had come together one afternoon at the tiny airport in Key West.
