Assailant
He had never been a dreamer before, but the more time he spends on his soul-searching in this new incarnation of Beqanna, and the more time he spends with her, the closer he gets to becoming one. Visions of the future still dance in his mind’s eye, even as reality implodes around him, something he is yet to realize. For a brief moment, he sees the faceless shape of a darkly colored child with red and gold tendrils falling over its eyes, eyes that he knows are ice-blue. Though it is but an image, a mere thought, it warms his heart unlike any of his true children had in their lifetimes.
But the fantasy is quickly disrupted as she flinches away from his touch and the picture is set ablaze by her heated words. Confusion spreads like wildfire through his brain, for he does not understand why or how easily she shifts into this cool, controlled anger. The jealousy he understands, for he would have felt similarly had she mentioned meeting another man, but this is something else. Then it hits him.
She thinks that there has been more to his interactions, and her assumption, her utter lack of faith in him lights another kind of fire inside of his chest. His own brand of anger sparks and rapidly boils over, fueled by disbelief that she thinks so lowly of him. But there is no time for him to issue a scathing retort, for she vanishes into the water in the blink of an eye.
The anger does not reduce to a simmer, but bubbles of regret cool the frothing heat just a touch. Perhaps he should have thought more carefully about what he said, should have made it much more apparent that he had only spoken to (and gleaned much insight) from those other women. But the time for that is long passed now.
He had come with the intention of giving his heart to her, but instead he is left standing, heart in hand, alone in indignation, staring at the waves beneath which she has sank.
“For fuck’s sake…”
Now what?
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware
--Martin Buber