You said go slow i'll follow behind if you're lost you can look and find me time after time if you fall i'll catch you i'll be waiting time after...watching you through windows....you're wondering if i'm okay...drumbeat out of time if you're lost you can look you'll find me time after time....if you fall i'll catch you i'll be waiting time after time...

The song floated in the background. In the foreground sat the two, at a table, with two coffee cups and averted eyes between them. She's looking at the passing cyclists, speeding by, in a race against the clock and each other. He's looking at the tree, which springs from the concrete in a most unnatural way, sway to the whims of a gentle favonian breeze, perhaps wondering when this flourished sapling shall wilt and perish like all mortal things.

It is love that mortals imbue with an undeserved immortality. They like to believe it shall triumph over their basest creature desires, that it shall outlive their most egregious errors, and that, in the final place, it is in love that they shall find ultimate redemption. Love, at the height of its metaphysical glory, is but a marginal consolation for a life squandered.

But love is the most mortal of all things. It does not endure. It comes to be like an explosion of a far away star seen in an empty night sky. But soon all that shall remain are the ruins and remnants of something that has passed. And the heavens darken again. Love is most intense in that initial instant, when the leaden weight of mortality seems to give way to something lighter, something capable of transcending its eternal limitations. They feel as if gravity, that humorless tyrant, no longer takes hold. They feel as if the Dream can be true, for now and forever. "Forever" for a mortal life is a resilient illusion. For what is forever, if like that tree springing forth from a concrete forest, it will all perish?

They sat there again. Each taking turns sipping from the others mug and turning their averted gazes elsewhere. She turned to the young, perky barista working feverishly on a caffe latte for a customer. He turned to the young man in the suit hammering on his laptop keyboard. It is interesting how people see themselves in those they encounter. Is she like me? Does he enjoy the things I enjoy? People are wondrously selfish creatures. However, their perspectives aren't always focused on assorted trivium and miscellany. This need to see themselves in others is, at bottom, a parasitic impulse. It is not blood nor flesh they seek to consume. It is time, youth, and potential -- all of which need to be recovered or redirected. They want to see a younger, more beautiful, more intelligent version of themselves in others. Their own paths have narrowed or they believe it to have narrowed and seek to deform others to widen it.

The barista catches her gaze and gives her a smile - a smile she has provided on countless occassions in a day, per company protocol. She returns the gesture and adds a polite wave. The smile on the barista's face fades and shes turns to another customer.

He simply stares at the young man with the laptop; it is an indifferent gaze marked by the slightest hint of puzzlement. The young man reciprocates with a withering look, as if wanting to say, young men tend to do, "what's this asshole's problem?" This rather belligerent reply did not change the spectator's gaze -- still indifferent and with the slightest hint of puzzlement. The young man, concerned that he was courting certain trouble or the undesired attention of a predatory character, quickly averted his gaze and quickly packed away his computer and notepad and left in a haste. He turned, at last, to his tablemate. He opened his hitherto pursed lips and threatened to speak, but abstained to do so at the final instant. Those unsaid words wafted between them as the song in the background continued to fade into its final concluding notes.

Time after timmmmmme.....

Long flowing blonde locks,
wise, illumined blue eyes,
my love, my spectre,
all time, all space, all of the world mourns
the passing of your unspeakably cruel beauty.

why must such unparalleled beauty remain ever elusive? why must i remain still, unable to move, unable to speak? why must i be doomed to this interminable chase and never to attain what i most desire?

Strange moonlight,
where have you taken my beloved?