Beneath the Stars - 10thDoM RoM A Space Iliad

John looked over at Elle and simply smiled. She felt like he was glad to have her fingers intertwined with his and was relieved that he didn't seem to have noticed her indulgence in his scent, or if he did, he did not care.

Their conversations stopped and started with a familiarity typically reserved for age-old friends. There were no awkward pauses, and when Elle's mind drifted so far away that the dialogue became lost in the cacophony of the surrounding sounds, John seemed to either not notice or not be bothered. It didn't occur to her that he just wouldn't care.

It was evening and the aquarium was getting ready to close. Elle wasn't ready to leave John, and John didn't seem eager to leave her either. There was an open grassy knoll between the aquarium and another museum, and they found themselves sitting in the middle of the field, oblivious to other life except the street musicians serenading the rise and fall of their unending conversation.

The familiarity between the two on this day of their initial meeting was one of confusion for Elle. She didn't understand the lack of awkwardness and candor. They both spoke of old relationships, philosophies on life, love, religion, politics, and all the other supposedly forbidden subjects as the lolled about on the emerald field.

She didn't notice until they were nearly lying down, side by side, that their hands had never released and were still intertwined as though that was the way they had always meant to be. It was odd that she had not gotten the sensation to pull away because even though it was Elle who had intertwined their fingers in the first place, she was typically the first to pull away from any situation that became too close or intimate. She liked his hands; they were handsome.

The day seemed to go on forever in a way that Elle deemed beautiful and serene. Most days that went on forever were dreadfully depressing days filled with sadness and wishful thinking and her own unique method of over-analyzing any situation in which she found herself.

Under the stars, her mind flew at warp speed, contemplating how she had gotten to this point, from being a complacently single woman on the journey of finding herself through being truly on her own to feeling desire and wondering about possibilities. Her mind jumped arduously through every hoop she could imagine, and despite all her reservations, all that mattered to her in this moment, in this time, is that she loved how his hand felt intertwined in hers.

It didn't matter that this day was meant to be a day of solidarity, concreting her commitment to a life of being single for a while. Today was the day that she would lie beneath the stars, talking about space and Homer and poetic epics and all the nothingness in between. This day could be the day that she met her true love, and who was she to put her foot down and intimate that this was a time of solitude for her. Elle firmly believed that people came into her life for a reason, and beneath these stars, beneath the endlessness of space, she would not let this opportunity for love pass her by. Even though she could feel her eyes welling, unsure of whether they were from fear or happiness, she, like Andromache, smiled through her tears and squeezed John's hand a little tighter.



I was in pieces
When he came around
Thought I was lucky I’d found
A man with feet on the ground

And he told me he’d be
Oh, he told me he’d be
My rock on the sea
He told me

I was in pieces
He put his hands on my face
Followed my offbeat pace
He loved looking off into space

And he told me he’d be
Oh, he told me he’d be
My rock on the sea
He told me

How could I know
Oh, how could I know
That you weren’t so my dear
How could I know
Oh, how could I know

I was in pieces
When he said my name
Said he’d never play games
Or put my heart to shame

And he told me he’d be
Oh, he told me he’d be
My rock on the sea
He promised me

How could I know
Oh, how could I know
That you weren’t so my dear
How could I know
Oh, how could I know