Thirty years after their last meeting on the eve of the war, they began their correspondence. Two love-starved solitudes, each on a different continent.
It took two years and thousands of exchanged words to realize there was no help or salvation for either of them outside of themselves. Or rather, she was the one who realized it. He was looking for a life partner, while she, having just walked away from a long relationship, was looking for herself.
Already in their early correspondence, they started to talk past each other. When he grew serious about astrology and referenced shady YouTube clips of fortune-tellers, she became more pretentious with literature and music references. His early demands for emotional exclusivity made her instinctively back off. And when she finally went so far as to point out his cardinal grammatical errors—something that had irritated her from the very beginning—the mood turned sour. He took it as a personal attack. She thought it was bizarre—he was, after all, a doctor of psychology. A man who had played an instrument for nearly his entire life. Even so, she let the meeting happen that early September.
She parked the car beneath heavy, twisted apple tree branches bowing under the weight of the fruit. A creek flowed between the tree and the house. He stood on the other side, concealed behind grapevines. She walked across the bridge toward him; so far, she could only make out his contours and his striped shirt. How short he was. Suddenly, he spun on his heel and started walking toward the house. A surge of aversion struck her, a lack of attraction impossible to ignore. She saw a stranger resembling a timid, startled deer, and she knew almost instantly that the two of them would never become an Us.
By the time they went inside and sat on the sofa, he had tucked his hands between his thighs and began dangling his feet, which didn’t reach the floor. He looked so small, huddled and gaunt on that couch.
The illusion built over two years disappeared in a matter of seconds. She needed that illusion.
— In every photograph you’ve sent of yourself, you keep your lips tightly clenched and drawn in, as if you’re afraid something might fly into your mouth.
— It’s just camera-phobia. Otherwise, my mouth would be wide open now, after your tongue has left it. What we created is immortal—if only because I still need to believe it was real. Even now, when it’s over.