It was my birthday. It had always been an arbitrary day for me. It was nearly one score that no one had made an attempt to make that day about me. Let alone a grandiose gesture, it was always plagued with feeble attempts at acknowledgement. For those who had surrounded me previously, my relationship was always utilitarian. A line of credit in terms of their time that was tossed my way. It served a purpose.

For the first time, I wanted to celebrate it with someone. Someone who celebrated my life. Someone who was happy that I had in fact been conceived and lived a life that led to a point that strings intersected twisting our paths together. All I had wanted that day was to hold Penny’s hand and take a walk. Roam aimlessly across nondescript streets as the spaces between my fingers were filled perfectly by hers.

But, jaded obligations had prevented it. I had decided that if I was going to be away from her, I didn’t want to remember that day. I walked into the ridiculously opulent brasserie to find peace at the bottom of the barrel. I hit the ground running. Alcohol coursing through my veins in an attempt to numb the pain of disunited lovers. I was three quarters of the way to hit the nadir and I was staring into an abyss in my mind when something in my peripheral vision caught my eye pulling me back to Earth. I looked up and saw her. Doe like eyes, ruby lips. Standing in front of me in a bronze dress that flowed gracefully from her shoulders to her ankles was my goddess.

My heart did a complete one eighty. From the nadir to the zenith the moment I saw her. The entire world now unmuted. Happy conversations and laughter surrounding me. The world had just got brighter for everyone at the table, except one. Call it intuition or premonition or perception, but she knew what Penny was when she saw her. In that very instant where I was experiencing uncontrolled euphoria, the ground beneath her feet shook ominously. She looked down for the first time and saw how deep the ground it had already cracked and how it had started to erode. It was over.

The soiree made its way back home. The alcohol ran freely in everyone’s blood. It had started to feed slowly but surely into an inferno. When the clock struck twelve is when the fire reached critical mass. Exploding waves of incineration across the neighbourhood. Consuming everyone that was there. I stood there with a drink in my hand watching as my world burned. Not a single drop of blood spilled. Not an iota of guilt. For me, the inevitable had arrived.

Neither of us slept that night, the wheels had set into motion. Choices were made. The point of no return had been crossed.

Part 6 – Ephemeral Paradise