THE BOY

"So where do you want to go next?"

"I don't think we have much time left, let's just stay here."

"Ok."

And so we sat under the stars, on the moist grass with eyes focused on the the sky but thoughts focus on each other.

"what do you see?" I asked

"you too have a pair of eyes, you know that right?"

"but I want you to describe it to me," I said looking at her perfect face, looking like she came straight from my imaginations.

"you know, sometimes you are just too much."

I looked at her with a puppy frown that she could not resist.

"Alright, stop with that look. I see lights, everywhere. flickering as if someone was constantly turning the light on and off. It's as if somebody was watching over us through those windows of flickering light."

She looked at me.

"They would look at you and think you are crazy."

"But, am I?" she asked with anticipation.

"I don't know who is crazy, me or you. But this seems like a good kind of crazy." I turned my head towards her and said: "Have you ever wondered if it's all a dream."

"why?" she said with a queer frown.

"I don't know, sometimes it seems too good to be true... you know there is always this, question in the back of my mind."

"What question?" she asked, frowning even more intensely.

"That I may be insane, even with all the people around me I feel alone. The only one that feels real is you and I can't even prove your existence. They would just say I am hallucinating, but to me you are so real, for the touch to the feeling in my heart."

She kept thinking for a moment and then said, "maybe you can see dead people or I am from another world linked only to you. Maybe I am from another dimension and we met because that's what fate wanted."

I chuckled and said with a faint smile, "maybe it's you who is insane and are imagining me."

She shrugged "I guess everything is possible, but why does it matter anyway, you are real to me and that is all that matters in the end."

She looked at the clock and sighed, "Well, times up. See you next week."

She pulled my head closer and moved her fingers through my hair, kissing me with those soft lips that looks like they would melt by the slightest touch.

"It's like I live 6 hours a week."we desperately wanted to meet

____

One week later…

I was at my desk in my room and had just closed the laptop, completing my work. When this sudden pain surfed through my head reminding me of my accident that happened a few years ago, the one that claimed the life of my wife. I have never driven a car since then, can't remember it but the headaches don't let me forget it either.

Just at that moment, the door opened and there she was excited and smiling. She ran and hugged me with all her might "tell me you missed me."

The pain struck again like lighting. This time I saw the vision of a truck approaching. I took a hasty turn and ended up hitting the divider. Everything blacked out after that but the screams remained. I woke up from the pain and kept the moan of pain inside me.

"what happened?" she asked curving herself back and grabbing my face by her delicate hands.

"Nothing." I shook my head. "Same old headache. This time though, I did remember something though."

She looked with concern and said: "what did you remember?"

"faint bits. You know the road, the lights--- the screams"

She stood up, grabbed me and pulled me up. Wrapping her hands around me she came closer. I could feel her breath "How about you show me your favourite restaurant this time and then later we can have some fun?" She just knicked my lips with hers and pushed me away "Go get yourself ready."

I had met her a year after the accident that took my wife and a good chunk of my memory. She just sat across my table at a café where I was trying to work. It had been a long time since the sight of any girl made my eyes shift. She was looking around and noticed me staring at her. Which surprised her, she came to me and asked: "You can see me?"

With eyes wide open and an absurd question like that, I was confused by the nature of the situation. It didn't take long for me to notice that nobody even gave her beauty a glance. For a beauty like that seldom goes unnoticed. Not giving in to the urge of craziness I said "Pardon."

she was like a girl made just for me. Nobody in the world could see her but me. Her existence for me was justified just because of what my heart felt.

We were at 'The Ranch' a restaurant I loved for some reason. Food wasn't the feature, nor was the price but I liked it more because she was with me. She was looking around stroking the surface of the table with a childish grin on her face.

"You seem excited."

With the same grin in a stuttering voice, she said: "It just... brings back memories."

"Which memories?"

"It's a long story and we don't have enough time for that."

I sighed "Yeah, six hours a week is never going to be enough."

She held my hand tightly "let us just enjoy the moment, I don't want you unhappy when you are with me."

"What about when you are gone?" I said taking her hand to my lips

"For that, I have a great memory to give you after this dinner."

"So this restaurant exists in your world too?"

"No, not anymore. It got burnt down in a kitchen accident some time back."

"I would like to see how it looks."

She looked with a slight disappointment "why would you want to see a decimated version of something when you can see the best version of it."

I shrugged and said, "It has some romanticism to it I guess, watch something destroyed but not actually losing it."

"Are you so willing to see it that you would lose precious time with me? you know it right, if I show you my side of the world my clock moves at twice the speed."

"Yeah right, I wish there was a way for you to be here permanently, together with me." I leaned back a bit and said: "Sometimes it feels like time stops when you are not here… feeling like I am in the underworld justifying my existence by you."

"So you are saying that if I die then we can be together in this world forever?"

she said so looking with queer eyes trying to find the answers in my eyes and I could not look into hers for I had thought of the selfish answer to this problem "I don't know, maybe. But if this does not work I would lose you and I don't want that. I don't want to be greedy and lose what I have."

She looked deeply into me as if my soul was exposed for the moment and I was naked, though the body never felt ashamed in front of her, at that moment I felt so. She took her sweet time and then started laughing "You stupid dummy, I was just messing with you."

____

Both of us were laid in the bed with only some layers of sheets between us, looking into each my eyes and snuggling herself more tightly in sheets she said: "What will happen if you remember everything one day? Will you leave me?"

"Why would I ever do something like that?" I stroked my hands through her hair and said: "What happened in the past can't be changed nor can the fact that you have been there for me more than everyone in my world who had 24 hours every day."

She cried back then in my arms, little did I know what she meant.