Slowly crawling further, wiping the salty water from my face, glancing away from the gleaming sun, I finally reach dry land. The rocks hurt my feet as I walk on them. When my eyes have adjusted, I faintly see the outlines of where I am. I remember this place. I remember the damp log I used to sit on. I remember the beaches being... not like this. The dull, yellow-white sand had been replaced by acres of ground rock. Lonesome, a few feet from the stone beach, stood a lone willow tree.
After walking for a few minutes, I reach the wooden scaffolding that I remember used to be a sort of dock. There are no boats and neither do I ever remember there being any. I sit down and let my feet drown in the clear tepid water. And I wait for what seems to take ages. Yet she never shows. It's not like the last time I was here. It doesn't bear the same happiness, the same joy as it did when I was last here. This place has nothing to care for. It's untethered. I strand along the graveled coast, unsure why. She didn't come for me as she had promised. I was all alone on what seemed to be even more lonely than the road Orpheus had taken.
Sun was setting, and I was still looking for my Eurydice. I decided to return to the house - or what was left of it - at the dockside. As I awoke the next morning, the first thing I heard was the embering as it suffocated the air around it. "I hope you like the maple over there." She said. And as I turned around, she sat there. She was different, yet the same as she had been the last time. Different from what I used to see. "I hope you don't mind I've refurnished a bit," She said smiling "I know it's not what it used to be, but it does the trick.". Through the newly hung curtain I saw a full grown sapling, in a patch of green soil. I stood up and walked outside, unintentionally ignoring her as I found her trailing behind me. I sat down again, my feet feeling the warm water. She sat next to me, twirling her feet through the crystalline scars.
"I don't want to go back." I said. -"You don't have to if you don't want to, you can stay here for as long as you like." She replied confidently. I was still unsure why this place had changed the way it had. There was nothing that felt right anymore, yet nothing that felt wrong to begin with. "What happens, if I don't go back, I mean." I asked her, looking at the distant horizon. -"Nothing at all. This is all happening at the same time." As she looked at the sea as well. "Then I want this to last forever." -"Don't be silly". She said with a condescending voice. "Why can't it be real?" -"Because it isn't." "And what if I decide it is, what if I decide that this is my reality?" -"Then you are a fool."
She was still sitting beside me as night fell. The damp wood felt warm. It felt as if the sun never set. The light never drowned by the darkness.
"What happened to this place, when I wasn't here?" -"We thought it wasn't needed anymore. So we let it all wither. We felt that you shouldn't have returned here." "What do you mean not needed anymore?" -"You can only come to this place when you're malcontent with the world. When you're done. With everything. When you just need that little moment, to scream to let it all out. This is that moment. This is that place. It's different for everyone of course..."
And the days went on. It was as if I was picking up my normal routine while I was here. I couldn't even remember the date, the amount of days I had been here. It seemed like years had passed yet it felt so little. And as I woke up, I saw her sitting at the table of the now decently decorated house.
"What day is it? You know, in my world?" -"The same as it was when you came here. Time doesn't work like it does there." And I sat opposite of her at the table. She was staring at the ocean, and I was looking down at the table. "You know it's weird. It's now more than ever that I need someone. Someone to tell me that it will be fine. That the darkness will dissipate. That the weight of the world will no longer be on my shoulders. That..."
And as I looked up - expecting to see her - I was looking at an empty crossroads. And as I looked back, I saw the light that I had been given, fading in the distance.
Never should you mistakenly consider fate, a game of chance.
