Till dust do us part

Dan was slumped, lost in the invariable reverie of his Sunday mid-afternoon and wistfully cast his mind back through the leaves of time to the pulverising semi-autobiographical story he’d written several years earlier during a frantic writing phase when he had to get everything in his head on paper before his skull blew up. It took three months. The story revolved around two people, near exact mirrors, each carrying the same burden and manner in which it was shouldered; each facing life’s myriad trials with the same dark and preposterous humour. They were soul mates, made for each other, woven in the same fabric, patterned with the same design, held together by the same glue. How does this happen, two individuals with distinct genetic identities, developmental narratives, sub-cultural influences and environments become twins? The tale, though magical at first, wondrous in its multi-coloured dream-world depiction of young love and the potential for both existential and interpersonal happiness, becomes so woefully bleak and disturbing that it is difficult to keep looking at the unfolding words, the impulse is to close one's eyes and imagine a more pleasant and hopeful page-filler (a child with a huge smile and a coloured-in ball). As it is that these two, near perfect match, find themselves in such an intensified bond, forged through years of interpersonal reinforcing and identifying, figuratively and physically, cling to each other so tightly, through fear that they may, at any one point, lose each other entirely (or indeed fractionally) that they crush one another to dust (conjugal death) and exist thereafter as mere fragments (figments), shattered characters, shards,  jigsaw pieces, pitifully incomplete, incapable of attaining anything tangible or real or wholesome again; apart physically but forever together in their souls, emotionally in a state of catatonic regression, fixed in that phase of perfection: their hearts, as their minds and bodies move on in reckless futility without sense or guidance, careless and wanton, in ironical parallel nihilism.

Reviews

[Penlady]

I was breathless when I came to the last word BUT the story kind of read itself for me and I understood precisely. You've expressed exactly how codependents become twin tornadoes, whirling and tightening toward each other until they are one funnel pulling on each others strength. I could hear the wind as I read. Your story is one of the true desperation such a relationship becomes. Unique writing, I must say!

[Nikki Richardson]

I like the irony. The two people just want to be together, so they hold on too tightly, and in the end they are physically separated forever. That is an incredible ending. This is a power piece. Thank for the friend request too.

[Jane Doe]

I like it, it's quiet enjoyable. I like how sophisticated it sounds as well I'm positive many may have a hard time with it but I love the challenge!
Xoxo
~a
100.100

[Beau-dee-loot]

Thank you