This story begins like many others, not with an apparent revelation but with confusion and internal conflict. I remember I was seated on a bench just a few yards from a small pond enjoying the gentle spring wind and warm rays of the sun when it all began.
My thoughts were drifting from the relaxing view laid out before me to the vivid images of the chaotic night before. One image from that night remains engraved in my memory still to this day. If I try, I can recall scraps of other images but most of them have faded like dust in the wind. This one however would be impossible to forget. I have tried to bury it in the deepest recess of my mind and for a while it remains hidden. Then with the simple thought of my accomplishment, it rises to the surface once more.
I am convinced my life would be very different if I had decided not to go to the pond that day. I don’t know if my life would have been better or worse, but I am certain it would have been different. I guess looking back on it, one could say I had approached a crossroads, but that would be over simplifying the situation. At the time it felt as if I was in a cave without any light, feeling my way around jagged rocks and unstable ground. There might have been a crossroads and signs telling me which road led where, but if there was I couldn’t see it. All I knew was that I had fallen in love with two girls, in less than twenty-four hours.
The first is the subject in the image I spoke of earlier. I spotted her on the outskirts of the dance floor at a concert. Beautiful locks of golden hair swayed as she danced. Her hips moved slow, twisting seductively in the vibrant lights. They way her body responded to the tempo of the music was intriguing. Before I knew it, my hands rested on her hips and were drawing her closer.
She opened her eyes when her rhythm was interrupted by my intrusion but recovered with ease. Her hands slid up my chest as her golden brown eyes stared up into mine. My heart stopped. For a moment suspended in time, bliss washed over me. When her fingers clasped at the back of my neck, reality and time stated up again. I could feel my body moving, my hands caressing and leading, but my eyes never left hers. The music slowed. The end of the song imminent.
She used her hands to pull herself higher, and my body responded in kind. My hands grasped her firmly and lifted her into my arms. We kissed. Beyond us the world was no longer made up of people and homes, but plastic dolls and make-believe houses. In an instant, everything changed and the darkness receded like an ocean’s tide.
Mile 29 