Welcome! To the Edge!

"Will you take my hand?" I asked her.

"Yes!" she replied enthusiastically.

But even as she said it, I knew she was lying. Lying just to make me happy. Her eyes were elsewhere, looking at a group of her friends playing in the fields. It was wrong, horridly wrong of me to expect this of her. She's totally different from me. She's doesn't belong on the edge. She makes her house and her family in the heart of the country. A safe beautiful place. My house is a bedroll on the edge of the line. She would never be comfortable there. Even as I knwe this, I felt immeasureable pain in my heart. She was so beautiful and so full of life. If I could just take a small vial of her essence and carry it with me everywhere so that I'd always be happy. I hugged her. Held her tight one last time. Kissed her. Kissed her on her cheek, Her warm, soft cheek against my lips. I breathed her scent one last time. Looked into her eyes. In my mind, I took her hands off my hips, and mine off hers. The love strings snapped. We each withdrew our own strands into our heart. Then I let her go.

She smiled. She understood. She turned around and ran off to play with her friends. She went back to society. She didn't even turn to look back. I would have cried out of sadness, but I didn't. I knew it would never work. But I wouldn't trade what we had while it lasted, for anything in the world. The sunlight shone bright on my face and a gentle breeze blew across the Fields of Love. The road was open. The gate unlocked. The test passed. A new time unravelled. But still, more than ever now, in the absence of any familiarity and hope, I felt an immense loneliness. Welcome, the the edge.