Epic

There is such a thing as epic love. It becomes epic when it ends. When we fight our inner and outer demons for another glimpse. For another whisper. For another touch. When the whole world is painted with darkness, there will always be the epic stories.

I'll be an old lady in sixty years. I'll have married and have great grandchildren and have traveled the world. I'll be a writer, long out of date, but who never stopped. And when my grown up children and grandchildren come to my lap and sit on it and look into my old and starry eyes, while I look back into their equally blue eyes that they all inherited from me - I'll tell them a story. When they ask me if there's such a thing as true love, as epic love, as the cinema movie kind of love - I will answer this:

Yes.
There is.
It is the most powerful thing you can imagine.
And the most painful, all at once.

Great grandchildren, I will tell you a story.

Before I met your great grandfather, a long time ago, when I was a young and slightly foolish little girl - like you are now - I was a different person. Can you imagine me as a young girl? Well, I was young once. And I know that there is such a thing as epic passion - and epic, dangerous and challenging love. I know, because once upon a time, I saw it with my own eyes. I felt it, with my own fingers.
Now, don't tell your grandfather I told you this, but there was someone before his time. Someone stronger and in many ways wiser, but also many times more dangerous.
"Gran!"
It's true.
Your grandfather is the kind that is good for you. And it's much, much harder to love someone that is good. It is one of life's mysteries, but it's the way things are.
"Don't you love Grandpa?"
Grandpa still takes care of the lawn. Is that love?
"Gran!"
Listen, now. Before Grandpa, the world was a different place, and the people were different people. It was not a time perhaps of joy. Of happiness. But it was a time of open-mindedness, and for my part, it meant many new places to go and many new faces to see. It was difficult not to be swept away. Everything was a big adventure, and life had only just begun.
I was an independent woman, in many ways. I was openly bisexual, dears.
"That's not a big deal, Gran!"
But it was back then. I wrote books. Mostly very dark adventure books. Some might even scare you. There was a dark and unexplored side of me that sometimes took over, and lent my fingers to that pen. Remember what I usually say about the word flow.
"The word flow tells the stories, the writer only guides them to paper."
Yes, exactly. And your old grandmother here, she was a real explorer. She had friends all over the world that she would travel to, and travel with. I felt like I had seen the entire world, but it only made me eager to see the rest. And girls, I still haven't seen all there is to see. But I didn't know that then. I was very young.
"Were you young and stupid, Grandma?"
I wouldn't say I was altogether stupid. I wasn't quite as young as you are now. I had seen a little of life, enough to make me very careful where to place my feet. But I was not wise. And I'm still not, mind you. Only a fool thinks he's wise.
And only fools rush in.
"Did you?"
I tried not to, but it was hard to resist the power. There was a force pulling me in that I couldn't resist. Still today it can strike me at any time. It hasn't lost its power. I will never forget how it felt to have it control everything in my life.
It started out innocent, like it almost always does. I looked carefully where to tread. I kept watch over the ever changing path. But I was trapped. Wham! The jaws of the trap clenching me, holding me still and wounding me. For life.
"What happened, Gran?"
Late one night, we were in a nearby city, losing ourselves in the moment. It was your aunt Jessie, dears, and your aunt Mary, and me. It had been a spur of the moment to go, for once leaving the grey town where we lived. For once forgetting our every day lives and spending a few hours in light-headedness and dances. And in lust. I remember that he could tell what I was wearing that night, even months later. He always remembered. He had a photographic memory when it came to these things.
"Who?!"
Didn't I tell you? He who came before your great grandfather. He who was the epic passion. The epic love. He who would let his fingers follow the paths of my polynesian tattoo, dears, and who would later let his life surpass my own. The dangerous one, girls. The only one I really loved.
Now you want to know how I can tell that, don't you, girls? How can I know? Well, it's an easy test that my mother taught me, and that her mother taught her, and that I've always applied for every important person crossing the path of my life. It determines everything. It tells your conscious how to act. It is the Bible for non-believers.
"What's the test?"
Do you want to take it?
"Yeah!"
Alright, if you really think you're ready...
"We're ready, we're ready!"
Alright then. First of all, you close your eyes. Close them so hard you can't see anything but darkness. No peeking! Keep them closed, and think of someone important. Someone you think you love. Do you have a clear, visual image of that someone in your mind now? Can you see that face among all that darkness? Good. Now imagine this. Imagine that from this very second, you will never see this person again. Never. You will never hear their voice. Never look into their eyes. Never say goodbye. They will be gone, this minute, with the wind.
To this you will have a reaction. A feeling. Embrace the feeling. Remember it. Remember what it tells you. Now open your eyes.
"Gran... how does this make any difference?"
You will understand that when you're both older.
"No fair!"
That is how it works. It only works for pain. You are lucky. You've had no pain. Not yet.
In my case, it enables me to know. I know that what I felt for this someone, that came before your Grandpa, was love. Epic love. It becomes epic when it ends. I know this, because sixty years away, separated in time and in space, picturing his face and his voice makes it sting in my heart. It is the wound he left bleeding in me, that will not seal. It tells me that it's possible. It's possible to find real love. But not everyone are lucky enough to keep it. I was not. I was wounded.
"Grandma... tell us about him."
His name was John. He accidentally took me for a musician. It wasn't all that wrong. I wrote songs back then, many, many songs. Or to say it right, I wrote lyrics. John played guitar. In an enchanting way. He is still the most talented guitarist that I've ever listened to. But he never believed me, of course. He was modest, to a start. Someday, I would like to hear him play again. But by now maybe his fingers are caught by rheumatism and I can only hear him play inside my head. Like the only way I still see him.
I don't see him as an 84-year-old, as he would have been by now. I don't see myself that way, when I think of him. I see us both where we were at the time. In our early twenties. I'll always remember him that way. That's even the way that I miss him, today.
"You still miss him?"
Every day, and every night.
"It's been such a long time."
I know. It almost scares me. I can't go to sleep at night before saying out loud that I miss him, hoping in some way, somewhere, he would hear me. He'd find his way back to me, as if he had simply lost me. We'd just start where everything ended, and pick it up from there. It would be as if he never left.
He is in my dreams. He talks to me there. I say I find him foolish for missing out on what we had. He says he knows he is foolish. We laugh about it, in my dreams, and then we have breakfast together in the kitchen. The one he used to have, of course. Because in my dreams we are always young. Always frozen where we were.
And every morning, he wakes me up. Really early. He knows that it annoys me. He does it anyway. He wakes me up from my dreams quite roughly, I must say, making me sit up and gasp for air, as if it had been a nightmare driving me towards my wake. And every morning, I realize again that feeling I have when I do the test. I realize he is not here. He is still not here. And every time it makes my heart sting.
"Grandma... is that really him?"
I don't know, dears. Do you think it is?
"Maybe?"
Well, of this I am not sure. He could be a ghost from my memories. He could be here, and it could really be him, in some strange and unexplainable way. Maybe, in his end, he remembers too. Maybe in his dreams I let him sleep way too long. I know it would annoy him. But in the end - I can't know. What I feel is the only truth, and it is all I can be sure of.
"It must have lasted for a lifetime, Gran."
Rest assure, kids, that the greatest things in life are the most fleeting. All in all, everything happened in less than one year, and still it was all that it took to change your old grandmother's entire life. Life has a curious way of interfering with your business. It always has to come looking for a way to hit you from a new direction, only to see what will happen when it does. We can't always explain it. We only sense that it's there.
Your John and me were pretty obvious, from the beginning. It was difficult to keep away. Invisible chains grew, that kept us both in a tight clench. I don't know which of us was the most trapped. All I knew was that it filled me with the rush of freedom. It gave me hope that there was still some good in this world. By then I didn't believe he was dangerous. The opposite. I believed that I'd be safe around him, that he would somehow keep me away from harm. That would be why he rocked me to sleep at night in his arms. That would be why coming to where he lived made me feel at home. Me, kids, who never felt like I belonged anywhere. Not even here, with your Grandpa.
"Granny... how was the whole thing... epic?"
Well, you see, apart from that he's still here, or I imagine that he is; even though he said once he'd leave me, and even though closing my eyes and remembering him makes my heart weigh like a big boulder, that is not all. Maybe this is just your old grandmother's vivid imagination, but I believe there is some sense to it all. That it if not else holds some grain of truth.
See, I remember the time with John as if in snapshots. Clear videos if you will. Scenes from a grand movie. I remember when I ran to him through the falling rain, and it made me short of breath, but I wouldn't stop. I can replay it inside my head. And then I know it's epic.
I remember when my mother and me were finishing up in the apartment I lived in with my sister and with your aunt Mary. I remember that we fought and that I cried. I remember that in that moment, John came up the stairs, and I hadn't seen him in days. That's how I know it was epic.
I remember his blue eyes, blue and grey, almost as your eyes. I remember them looking at me as if it was just yesterday. I can picture them so easily in my mind, after all these years, when everyone else from my past have been forgotten.
And as I said before, it becomes epic when it ends.
"Why did it end, Gran?"
I asked him the same. He tried to answer in many ways. I think he was trying to make up for his guilt by trying to put words on what he felt. Or rather, what he didn't feel. You see, this is where he really turned dangerous, and where the passion I'd held for him really turned cinematic. Epic, as it ended.
We tried to speak. We spoke past eachother. No one wanted to hear what the other had to say. It didn't take long before all attempts died out. I deleted all my ways to get in contact with him, because I knew I would never hold. I would break. And I wouldn't survive it one more time.
Time passed, kids. A lot of time. Days at first, in a haze. Then weeks, months. Years. He had desired to leave me and lead a lonely existence, but it didn't last. He haunted me. He still does. I wish I had a way to haunt him back, just to let him know I'm still here, but I know no such ways. I wonder, many times, if his life turned out for the better. Maybe he has his own grandchildren on his lap now, telling this story, or maybe some other story that mattered more in his eyes. But to me this is the only story. This is what I know of him, and how I will remember him.
He believed leaving me would make my life easier. That I would be free. But the chains that he saw as imprisoning were to me a ladder to freedom. There was no way I could reach there without them. I believe he may have told the truth when he said he didn't love me. Not anymore. But I tend to go for one of many other theories when I'm in denial of the first. Maybe he was scared. He had been left before. Maybe he was fleeing from the pain that I never knew until he himself inflicted it on me.
I saw his face when I faced danger. It made me seek it out. And to this day it still does. I wish I was vital enough to still cliff dive and jump motorcycles, because that brought me closer to him. When he left, I died; and I had to nearly kill myself to know that I was still alive.

Great grandchildren, there's a hole through my chest, that your Grandpa, your parents or just about anyone in the whole world could ever fully fill. Not even you, although you are most entertaining. This is the hole made by epic love.
A love that became epic as it ended.

Love Artistically

1.
It was not until the moment the brush touched the surface that he knew what the painting would look like. It was an artistic quality that helped him preserve the freedom of creation in his hobby. Therefore, one of the worst things he knew was painting on command. If you first got a pointer, your thoughts were locked down, and the result would never be half as good as it could have been.
He followed the strokes of the brush with his eyes as he conducted them, watching them while they slowly began taking shape. Now he knew exactly how it was to be done. Oh yes, it would encapsulate his memories, become a tribute to the past. His throat felt thick thinking about it, but he bit his lip and continued his work. The painting would be finished, and it would be exquisite.
It would depict her.

2.
She had been the love of his life, and he would never forget her. He always had an image of her inside his mind. She lay there, floating teasingly in the outskirts of his conscious, only showing herself when it suited her. At times he woke up at night in despair, not being able to picture her face, but she would always come back to him later on, striking him with twice the power. It was not rare that she made him break down, partially out of relief, and partially out of the unbearable longing for her. He had not reached the step of sorrow where he could think about her without feeling sad, and he was unsure if he would ever get there. Meanwhile, he was cast away without her.
The taste of salt water on his tongue was driving him mad.

3.
Of course, both of them had known how fragile their relationship was. She lived on her clairvoyance and he was telepathic. It did not take long for her to see what lay before them. The thought of the future scared them both, but none of them was willing to stride off the path they had chosen. Whatever it meant, they would at least be together. If not else, for the shortest of times.
She never could stand leaving him in the mornings. She used to drag her feet behind her, staying as long as she possibly could. She would stand there in her white dressing gown, just looking at him, taking in every ounce of their existence with eachother; and he would dress and half-heartedly argue with her, telling her to hurry up. She knew he did it to cover his own fear. Because before they parted every day they met in a tense embrace that neither of them wanted to pull themselves out of.
Every day of their life together could be their last.

4.
Afterwards, he wondered if they should have done things differently. They had had the possibility to change everything, to affect things. They had had, what should it be called, better circumstances than others. But they were naïve then, thought she could be wrong, or that they could be invincible and resist their fate. Sometimes, when the anxiety grew especially strong, she would suggest they take another path in life to form their fate themselves. The times she mentioned this she never said out loud that she wanted to part from him, but he saw it in her thoughts. It had occurred to him as well, but his love for her was too strong for him to consider it for real. He asked her if she loved him. She said she did. Then he asked her if she was afraid of the future. She said she was. And when he asked her how she wanted to face her fate, she would burst into tears and come so close to him as she could, and he would rock her from side to side telling her he would never leave her, because he loved her so much.
I love you so much.

5.
He had left the house as soon as he could. When she was no longer there, he did not want to be there either. The last day he spent there, he walked around, looking. The rooms were empty and robbed of furniture and decorations, but her presence was everywhere, and he tried to take it all in with his breath, all the things that he sensed around him, while the feeling of loneliness grew overwhelming. He made it as far as to the bathroom, where he could still smell her perfume, before the violent tears came blurring his sight, and he sank onto the floor and rocked himself into an empty, dreamless sleep.

6.
There was a little decorative animal on the windowsill. It was a swan. It hadn’t really been hers, but he had given it to her and she had loved it. She used to say everyone had a little swan in them, and he had answered that not one was as beautiful as hers. She would look at him with a smile and put it up on her shelf. She had her own shelf for things she cared a lot about, and it warmed him up to know that his gift had been placed there once. Sometimes, he wished he had a shelf like that of his own, cause then he could have put her there, and she would still be around.

7.
He had been told to move on. Maybe he would when the time came. Maybe a ship would come by and pick him up from his isolated island, or a bottle would come with the water, notifying him that aid was on its way. It would be hopeless to build a raft, because no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine where he would find the wood for it.
At least he knew she would be waiting for him when he got out of there.

8.
He remembered one night when they had gone out. They didn’t do that too often, usually they would spend all their time together in the house. But that one night, they didn’t. She was delicate and beautiful as always, this evening she was wearing a skin coloured dress that reached almost all the way down to her knees, and was covered with glitter. He thought she looked like an angel, and he was proud to have her beside him as they walked down the street.
They ate at a small restaurant, and afterwards, they went ice skating in the park, and she was glowing in a particularly enjoyable way. Her cheeks were all red, her eyes glistening, and she told him what a wonderful time she was having. He pulled her close, the way he often did, and held her as close as he could, and he smiled into her hair as he thanked God fot letting him be so happy.
No one wanted to ruin the evening by talking about time.

9.
Time was an unpleasant expression. It contained the future. He started hoping that the days would get longer and longer, and maybe then time would not disappear so quickly. He was scared when he realized how many days they had already been given… it could mean that things were drawing to an end.
She always claimed she had not seen when it would happen, and he had believed her. But something told him she had a feeling.

10.
They used to meet eachother after work, by the birches a kilometer or so from the house. Then they would walk home together in silence. He liked that walk, and he missed strolling there with her when she was gone, looking at her enjoying the fresh air and the wind that stroked her cheeks.
A bad feeling was plaguing him throughout the day. He did not want to listen to it, but he came five minutes late to the birches that afternoon and by then she was not there. That in itself felt wrong. She was always there first. It did not feel good, not good at all. He sat down on a bench, stood up, wandered around, sat down, stood up again… He waited for two hours and she did not come. He did not know what to do. He felt up-side-down. He bent over and threw up in the grass. On his way home he did not dare breathing. She might have gone home early… forgotten to call him… and was in the house, waiting for him.
He searched the house and she was not there either.
He sat down by the phone, guarding it. He did not dare do anything else; he just sat there, on his guard. He hoped it would be her calling. He hoped something had just kept her. He hoped that she would come through the door anytime, hug him and say that everything was going to be just fine.
When the phone finally rang and he saw the number to her parents, he started feeling really sick. He stretched out a shivering hand and picked up the phone. He expected to hear the worst imagineable news.

11.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the details of her face. The painting was almost finished, and he did not even feel sad when he looked at it. She looked so happy that he had to smile himself. He imagined her looking up at her shelf, getting that special glimmer in her eyes. He switched the brush for a smaller one, blended a white and yellowish colour and used it with care to make her eyes shine, like they had been doing that night when they had gone out. He did not want the painting to show her when she was worried and anxious.
He let the contours of her stay vague and fade into the background, a soft depiction of faint leaves swirling down a grey street in the autumn wind. There she stood smiling, on her last walk home. She could not be painted to clearly, he had to leave something for himself, something that was only his. Something he would never cease loving.

12.
He had hung up the phone, not knowing what to do next. He walked out into the bathroom and threw up again. Then he went outside, raking the grass. He felt strangely absent from the world, and nothing that he did seemed to matter anymore.
He fetched the mail and sorted it into piles before he started defrosting the freezer. But when he caught sight of her favourite ice cream lying there, neatly in its box, it suddenly and seemingly out of no reason appeared to him what it meant that she was gone. His throat went thick and he started to cry.

13.
He saw her death in his dreams. They tormented him all the night through, and she was no longer as beautiful as he remembered her. Her face was bruised and her clothes bloodstained when she met his eyes, gasping for air. He shouted her name and desperately tried to wake her up, when the light in her eyes faded away. He grasped her wrists as hard as he dared while letting go of all his sorrows in a scream, he rocked her back and forth, patting her thin body, but she never woke up.
She never woke up but he did. He woke up with a wet face and sore throat. For a second or so he wanted to go back to the dream so he could see her again, but the following second the idea sickened him so that he did not sleep for the rest of the night.
He had never seen her die in real life. But he thought that he had in a way, since he had known about it, and done nothing. All because he was selfish… because he wanted her to stay with him.
Maybe they should have parted earlier, saved them both all the suffering. Maybe it would have been better if they had chosen other fates.
He thought of what she used to say about fate as he laid the very last hand on the painting, signing it in the lower left corner. It was one of his most stunning works so far, and soon he knew that he would love it. But it was important that it was love for the work itself. The love for her would sometime fade along with him, but the love he place in that painting would last for as long as someone kept it on this Earth.
He assembled his brushes, colours and palettes and washed his hands. The painting was still up on its easel, and he let it be. He smiled at it, and the woman on the painting glanced playfully at him while her lips slid apart smiling too. That was how he wanted to remember her.
The proper way to remember her.

___________________________________

This is a translation of an old short story I wrote. I got some good feedback on it at the POTF forum lately and figured, what the heck, let's put it up in the Jar. I kinda miss the short story writing, it's an exciting genre of writing. It was interesting to see how the story kinda changed a bit with the translation from Swedish. Anyway, here goes. If this works out nicely I might be barging back into the mine digging of short stories again.

See ya.