The Perfect Day. Replay

Running through the fields. Everything blurs. Everything.

I see you between the marigolds. Shape cut.

Why does the sun kiss your smile and not me?

Tell me. I want to know.

How can you favour its destruction and not mine? You do not recoil from its rays... Cower from their touch?

Do you hate me? Is that it?.. Do you dare? I haven't hurt you. Not yet...

I need to know.

We are swallowed in a fire of golden light, wading through a sea of flower heads caught in a shimmer blaze, waining with the breeze. Like the lapping of the sea.

To you nature's bounty pales. All is left in your wake. My worship. I am warmed by the glow of this moment cherished. It's sanctity held in my chest. Locked away. Remembered.

We are alone. No other souls. No one to spoil it but you.

I cannot see your face so I imagine you smiling.

Why do you choose to run? I could never lose you. Not when I have this.

Heavy breath betrayed by the sway. Panting of a runaway. Wayward.

I catch you. Finally. You are mine. Only mine.

Every time, it hurts me so deeply, so profoundly that you cannot bare to look upon me. All the while I in turn am transfixed. Pinned into place. I lay my very being at your feet. Why do you hide still? This is not your beauty, it's fullness my devotion. No. This is your cruelty. Rearing. Yet I am forced to welcome your repulsion, smile at the receipt of such daggers, lap at fountainous wounds. I SAVED YOU! Stole you from the grip of purposeless misery. Why are you not overcome with gratitude? Mirror to feelings mine? I am consumed. Defined... But you... Great betrayer! You couldn't even pretend, could you? Make believe even for a moment. No... You'd rather make me out to be a monster. Overflowing with the vilest cruelty.

Such fear welling in those doe eyes. No room at all for love. Why can't you just let yourself be happy? Let me make you?.. This did not have to be your undoing.

I think you scream here.

I'm glad it's muted. You just didn't listen. Flopped about in hysteria. Gave me no other choice.

I never did like your answers anyway. They reeked of petulance. Spit with ungrateful venom. I could have given you so much. Riches spurned. Now look what you've got. Spoilt that pretty little dress.

I don't want to watch what comes next. What you made me do.

You burst into pixels as the image degrades and I am abandoned.

Gone is your light.

I am left alone. Just a reflection in the monitor. Unchanging.

"Computer, restart simulation." I command. It listens. Why couldn't you just listen?

Playback. Timestamp. 00:00. All of it undone. All that pain. The dapples of red.

With your return to the edge of pasture, I wallow in possibility. Could you have ever been assured of my love? This field the gateway to a million tomorrows. A marigold for each future shared, planted deep under skin. That is the true beauty of this place. Not a maddening goodbye, but a rapturous tribute, to heavens elsewhere... To so many worlds where I am witness to your smile.

Yet I am resigned to the darkness of this one, the solitude of your absence. Visions of other lifetimes shared offer little comfort. If only you would have accepted my love. Not been so assured of your violent innocence, it's impossible purity. Look what your stubbornness has wrought. This wreck of pixels. All I have left.

I watch it play out again. You running. The furrows of your dress. Desperate refuge in the fields. My hands.

All I have now is your memory. You never did give enough... So it will have to do.

"Computer, restart simulation."