He is inherently masculine, the perfect embodiment of male. It forms in solid layers, the singular embodiment of this entity that possesses a form of acknowledged life, perhaps even a soul burning somewhere inside. He brings together two disparate chromosomes to form a potent mixture that falls into proscribed roles already predetermined possibly hundreds of years ago, and then throws it out so it sticks to another. It isn’t personal. He is not me nor you. He is outside of that circle.
She says He, and he stiffens, swiveling his head to pinpoint the particular specimen she’s referring to. Sounds rise up his chest, to his throat, before he clamps his teeth in front, trapping them, afraid of whether they’ll burst out as antagonistic or pitiful whimpering, neither one welcomed. He watches the other male, tracking him step by step, measuring, evaluating, comparing. What about the other man catches her eye? And does he, himself, possess those qualities? He still can’t figure out why she chose him, out of every possessor of the Y chromosome alive in this world. Maybe, at the moment of meeting, he was the only fitting option, and, as she steps out further into the world, more options, better fitting options, will coalesce before her, drawing her away from him. And he can’t bear that possibility. She is his. Even if everyone she meets falls at her feet, and why wouldn’t they, he is the only one whose fingers twine with hers, whose nose nuzzles the soft hairs at her temple, who knows the imprint of her body against his. She says He, and he wraps his arm around her waist, whispering inside jokes to her until she laughs and forgets everyone else in the room.
Got is crass and unrefined, greedy and grasping. It possesses, a casual confident ownership of the situation. Sometimes, it transforms, pulling on new meanings like temporary masks, a cheap disposable replacement good culture demands to be eradicated. First, it pulls on an imperative, an exclamation of outraged surprise, then, it turns and a new facet exposes, insidious, infectious, wrapping grasping tendrils through the soul.
She says Got and the word slides against him like the silk-warm caress of an over-affectionate cat. He is owned by her, so he is in good hands. His heartbeat calms, his stomach unclenches, and his teeth release his beleaguered lower lip. It’s strange that she’s so small next to him she has to tiptoe to kiss him, but as soon as Got falls out from behind her crooked teeth, he feels so safe, so protected, like if he hides behind her, the demons chasing him will skid in their tracks, wheel around terrified. He knows how fierce she is, how undaunted when faced with his trouble-infested past. Perhaps this is what Joan of Arc was like, or a mama bear when a stranger blocks her view of her cubs. She says Got and he curls tight in her embrace, a protected child again.
For is a gift, a transfer from one entity to another. It is also reason, the underlying motivation guiding the past into the future, pushing agendas, the invisible impetus behind innumerable conscious and unconscious choices. For can be blind, petty, evil, but it can also be a gigantic heroism, a miniscule kindness. For results in consequences, but never bears any itself. It never stands alone.
She says For and in her hands is a brightly wrapped gift, ribbons curled, paper tucked and folded precisely just-so. He can tell she’s nervous, as she always is, and he never understands why. Every gift she gifts him, her time, her smiles, her attention, the perfectly-shaped space within the circle of her arms, that funny little bookmark she’d found in some tacky cluttered souvenir shop in the back-alley of a sleepy beach town, everything, everything were his treasures. He says nothing of that, though, just cradles the present gingerly in his hands. It’s not his birthday, or Christmas, no discernible made-up holiday he can think of, and when he asks her the reason, she smiles and says For and it’s every reason and no reason and the perfect reason all rolled up in one.
Each denotes singularity, an intrinsic individuality, an innate personification of oneness. It separates, placing invisible barriers. At the same time, it highlights the similarities between disparate entities. Each is an identity of the members of a group, a badge of me-ness mixed up with us-ness, and doesn’t really care about the difference.
She taps each objects and names them, “Each”, meticulously sorted according to categories only conceived of in her mind, details only she can see. He is envious of the attention she places on inanimate objects, when he is sitting right in front of her, so he pushes one askew just so she’ll glare at him, so that he’s the focus of that laser-beam concentration. In bed, he asks her what category she’d place him in, and she tells him not to be ridiculous. Hurt, he turns away, until her fingers weave through the short hair at the base of his head, until she whispers words that puff against sensitive skin. You are not an Each, she croons to him, for you are the only and you have no category to be placed within.
Do is all brawn, sometimes paired with brains, oftentimes without. Do catalyzes change, manipulates the fabric of the current existence and pushes progress forward. Without Do, there can be no done. Even when there seems to be utter stillness, Do still exists, in the beating of a heart and the blink of an eye, the inexorable change of seasons and the ever-changing tide. Do can be intentional. but often the greatest effects and affects come from the unintentional Do, the silly inconsequential Do that changes the world.
She personifies Do, or is it the other way around? Always on the move, always doing something, her fingers moving, her eyes flicking, always, always. It exhausts him watching her zoom around like Heisenberg’s particle, momentum and position always in flux. In rare moments, he snags her hand and drags her down flush against his body, half-protesting but with a soft smile, that special smile she created just for him. They lie together breathing the same potent molecular concoction of air, one minute, two, before that faraway look steals over her eyes. It usually isn’t long before her half-protests mature into full-grown protests and she’s pushing away from him. He hides his hurt, his mind knowing she’s not rejecting him, but she’s got other things to do, better, more interesting things to do. He doesn’t want to stop her, wants to see her succeed in her dreams because only when she’s doing what she does, do the sparkle flash in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks glow a dusky healthy rose. But, sometimes, it’s lonely and so he buries himself in his own list of do’s.
Could is possibility. Possibilities real and imagined and so imaginative that they can only be real. Wishes, dreams, goals, and hopes can only be manifested through Could. It takes a hold of the boundaries of the world, of the now and is, and drags it into the will be and might be and should be.
She says Could and her voice maps out a world that he’s never seen before, half-made-up stories of unconsidered futures populated by characters that don’t quite resemble him and shouldn’t be so similar to her. She spins these tales like hand-spun yarn, weaving them in and out of his waking moments, around and around him until all he sees in front of him are these images that he wants so badly to be part of but can’t imagine himself belonging within. It scares him, these Coulds, because maybe it means she’ll disappear someday to a place that he can’t reach, a topsy-turvy wonderland he’s barred from. So, he holds her tighter to him while her lips form Coulds into the chilled night air, feeling them float around him like ghosts of the future.
But interrupts, determined to have its say, determined that its opinion is right even if it’s the opposite in every way. Its contradictory nature grabs the head of the conversation and swings it round, sinews twisting and tendons cracking.
“But,” she taps her fingers against her chin. “But,” her lips curve in a smile, the kind that twitches right at the corners, and golden motes of dust float in the dreary dark darkness, sticking to each particle of each pitch-black note. She’s a magician, her power distilled into the one word that transforms his world, morphing and transforming the weak-willed despair swirling around him into gleaming shards of metal. The metal fits to him, clamps tightly to his body as armor, and he’s reminded of those cartoon characters he used to watch early Saturday mornings when he was still young enough to believe everything he saw on television. “But,” and, instead of a self-inflicted villain, he is now a hero ready to face the future.
Anyways leads in front or else it runs behind. It’s derisive, dead-pan, dominating, and dismissive and when you’ve practically had it figured out, it changes course or doubles back. It’s a reminder of a foregone choice. Or a choice of where to go.
"Anyways," she says and he braces himself, because he knows that the conversation can go any way. It’s most likely a way he refuses to contemplate, down the rabbit hole, falling and falling and ending up somewhere that’s a mirror image of everything he understands. "Anyways," and then she’s off, flitting and tripping and switching, flight or fight reflexes tensing his muscles, his mind scrambling to extract a kernel of sense of the tumbling words striking him in pinprick raindrops. An idea forms hazy in his cupped hands, though drips drops slip through his fingers still. He lifts it, carefully, tenderly, to sip, but before his lips can touch, she splashes it away with a throwaway, "Anyways," and shifts topic once again.