Desperation (Part I)

“Can they see us?” the observer asked, receiving a headshake in response.

“Look carefully,” the other replied. “What do you see?”

He looked carefully at the tableau before him, as if he had just been given a test and could, by looking, fathom the correct answers. His eyes took in the color of the garments and the cadence of the voices, hoping to find the right detail that would unlock this mystery.

For mystery it was, this tableau. It truly made no sense to him.

The young woman wore clothing that was far too revealing, as if she were willing to give everything she had away to the young man, who was only too willing to accept it. His friend looked on with a piqued expression, nearly invisible to the young woman or to the man who stared so arduously at her.

The young woman’s eyes bespoke desperation. They were wide and falsely bright. The young man’s eyes were hungry, consuming, but equally desperate.

“What are they doing?” the observer asked the other. “Why do they look so…sad?” Though he knew sad hardly described what he saw.

“They are searching,” the other said, “for love.”

“Love?” the observer asked. “Why is that so important? That can be found on every corner there from what I’ve seen. They love hamburgers, nachos, shoes, dresses, dogs, cats, sunny days, fireplaces, cars, houses, places, people, things…”

“Ah,” the other said. “That is the trap they have fallen into. They have overused the word, and drained it of its meaning. Even when they do mean it, they cannot really adequately express it anymore.”

“Love? What do they mean, then?”

“What is love? They do not understand it because they so desperately seek it. And they can only desperately seek what they do not have. When they have found it, they will not be so desperate, and then they will better understand it.”

The observer frowned. That hadn’t really answered his question. He watched as the girl made a motion with her hands that made the boy go nearly crazy. His friend, with a grimace, stood to leave. The observer didn’t know if this had happened often before, but the friend seemed to be used to this sort of thing, taking his keys from a side table and letting himself out the door.

He walked, shoulders slumped, to a vehicle that was waiting outside. He sat in the car for a while, hands on the steering wheel, face bleak as he stared out at the darkened landscape.

“Where is he going?” the observer asked.

“He isn’t sure yet,” the other replied. “He doesn’t really have anywhere to go. He is alone, and lonely.”

The observer watched the young man and woman retreat to the bedroom, deciding that this was enough to see of that scene. He turned back to the car, watching as the man pulled out of the parking lot and drove down the street to a large establishment in the center of town.

There were many people in the establishment, though they all seemed no less lonely because of it. “Scotch,” the man from the car said. He held the glass in his hand as he surveyed the room casually, yet desperately, searching.

“What is he looking for?” the observer asked.

“The same thing they’re all looking for,” the other said.

“Will he find it?”

“Not here,” the other replied, “not tonight.”

“When, then?” the observer asked. “Where?”

“They cannot find it in each other, in mind-numbing substances, in possessions, or in any created thing. And they cannot find it until they are willing to die to all of these things. To each other, possessions, false euphoria, and even themselves.”

“Why?”

“Because only once these distractions are gone can they find the truth. Only when these distractions are gone can they find themselves.”

“I thought they had to die to themselves,” the observer said.

“To who they think they are,” the other clarified.

“Why? Don’t they know who they are?”

“No,” the other said sadly. “They walk around incomplete, as pieces of a whole that have not been joined together, as parts of something that desperately need an ever elusive something else to make them something worth being.”

“But that is not who they are?”

“No!” the other said, fiercely, “Never! I did not make them thus! I made them whole, unique, united, purposed. I made them part of me.”

“Of you?” the observer was incredulous.

“Yes,” the other smiled faintly. “You see, I AM what they are all searching for."