Cold Love That Burns

This is the revised version of the story that had submitted a while ago for Short Story Competition.

Cold Love That Burns

They were talking in the park, sitting at the bench by the big cedar tree, protected by it from the warm afternoon sun which was supposed to be well behind the thick gray clouds in this month of December. Many things were not in the right place and time they were supposed to be and the man felt he himself was one of those. The woman sitting beside him was not good to him at all and he was still there wishing to be noticed.

"You better go and have some sleep."

"I'm a bad sleeper."

"You're lying," said the woman. Her voice was very soft, mingled with a low, lovely rustling that would make you think twice before you understood what you just heard. And when you finally understood what you heard, she would be gone and you would have to follow her like a poor, destitute puppy.

"I'm not. Please stop that. Stop the torture. It's no good for both of us."

"No. It's bad only for you. And I want to keep on doing what I'm doing for I like it that way. I like it that way because I don't see why I'm here."

"Can't we just speak?"

"That's what I'm doing?"

"Can't you just speak and stop torturing?"

"No. That's what I'm good at."

The woman looked out at the city lying low before her hazel eyes with long eyebrows that sometimes he thought sank right into his heart in a way that he could not find a moment without her vision in his mind for many hours to come. Hazel eyes that looked beautifully and enigmatically. Eyes that might either burn and make something new out of the ashes of you or send you into realms of despair and sorrow for the rest of your life. Deep. Meaningful. Touching deeply and meaningfully. Or burning thoroughly and beautifully. So beautifully that you would want to be born and burnt again.

"I can't quit it just as I can't quit breathing," she said.

"What made you think that I am a bad writer?"

"If you were a good writer, your imagination would help you find the true love like a bee flying from one flower to another to finally create something sweet. One flower does not make anything sweet enough."

"I have my imagination," the man objected. "But I also have my passion. Imagination and passion go hand in hand in a writer's mind. That's how a good writer is able to see things differently and deeply."

"Maybe you should let your imagination imagine freely. There're options out there."

"You are my options."

"Please don't make it plural. It's not correct. As a writer, you should be firm about your grammar."

"Thou art my options," the man insisted.

She looked sad now. "This makes you more grammatically incorrect."

"I know. I love to be grammatically incorrect when I am talking to you."

"You shouldn't. When you called me and asked me to meet you in the park, I thought you would be a good man and make things better and smoother for both of us. I didn't expect you to be grammatically incorrect."

"I love to be so."

"That's the reason why you deserve torture."

"I wish you would just try," said the man.

A soft breeze came from the east, swept the dead leaves on the narrow tracks in the park and finally touched gently on the hair of the woman, which was blazing under the sunlight, waving them toward the man, and carried the odor of the fall, the dead leaves and of many other things into his lustful nostrils.

"I did," said the woman. "But it didn't help. You should be courageous to face it and find another direction for yourself. This would make me happier than I am with you. I want you to be such."

"I tried. I tried a million times."

"Please, try again. Try until you forget me and find someone else."

"There's no someone else. There is you. And you are not here only. You're everywhere." Now he was speaking in ecstasy. “Everywhere I look," he went on, speaking more quickly. "Every song I hear. Every fruit I taste. Every silk I feel. Every rose I smell. You're immanent in every creation. God places something from you in everything he creates and only I can see that. You're in it. You cannot see it. But you are in it. You're a lovely fish swimming deep in the ocean and still unaware of it. Let me show you the ocean."

Now he was almost breathless and red in the face from the killing instinct that she was becoming more and more disappointed and disinterested.

"I know I wouldn't be happy to be with you," she said. "I don't want to know where I am. I don't want to know which ocean I'm swimming in. I don't need it. I don't want to love you. I wish I had never known you."

The man raised his hand and his eyes met hers. She didn't turn her eyes off him. They kept silent for a while. He looked for something to say to give an end to this burning silence. "Shall we take a walk?" he said finally and then felt very clumsy.

The woman rose to her feet and her slender body stood gracely against the redness of the sun now going down on the western horizon, setting the high mountains alight. She looked too beautiful to be true. The man kept gazing at her and she didn't mind it. As she ignored her, she looked more and more magnificent, and he felt weaker and fragile.

They walked along the narrow path leading into the woods that now rose darkly and sullenly in front of them. The solitary of the breaking evening reminded him of the imminence of separation.

"What are you looking for?"

"Nothing," he answered. Then he thought and added quickly. "Well, actually, I was looking for hope."

"Hope in my face?"

"Where else should I look for hope?"

"Any place but my face. If you could find it in someone else's face, I would love you more. I would love and never be with you. Isn't it better than never to be loved? Please find it and I promise I will begin loving you."

"Do you think it would still be love?"

"Of course, it would. Love isn't being there. Love is 'being' only. I could still love you. I'd love you more than I hate you now."

The man shivered and put his hands into his pockets. The weather was not cold; he was shivering inside. Maybe, he was burning inside and outside was chilling cold. He did not know for sure.

"Won't you tell something?" the woman asked.

"All I know is that I love you," he said and now his voice had lost its delicateness. "That's all I know. I wish you had been merciful. But you are not. If I could hate you, I would. But I am like a moth. I know I would be burnt to death if I swung myself into the fire and I do so. I burn myself. And I'm not as lucky as those moths even if I am like them. They are tiny and they die quickly. They throw themselves into the fire and, for a split second, parch to death. Then they become simple black dots on the table. But I can't die in your fire. I feel the pain of my broken heart but still keep living like a half-mended toy car. Do you see what you're doing to me?"

They were now standing near the first stubby trees of the woods. There was a soft breeze blowing steadily from the south. The nature was silent. The creatures of the earth were preparing to close the doors of the day. The darkness had already settled in the depths of the woods. The sun was behind the mountains, still sending its purple lights up into the sky. But its fierceness had long since died down.

"Thank you," said the woman, catching the trace of defeat in the man's voice. "I knew you would understand me. You're a good man."

"Are you going?"

"I have to. It's getting dark. I don't want to be late."

"Late? Late for what?"

"Nothing. Just late. Just want to go."

She took one step toward the man and kissed him on the cheek. Then she quickly drew away from him, turned back and walked off into the twilight of the waning day. Suddenly, the man felt very cold.

* * *

The body of the man was found by a police who happened to walk to his office through the park in that freezing morning of December. He was curled on the stony ground like a puppy cuddling up in his mother's bosom. His right hand was holding a picture. It was impossible to see the content of the picture as the man's fingers, green with veins, had clutched it tightly.

The man's face was not an extraordinary one but under the thin blanket of snow, it looked beautiful. There were tiny ice droplets in the curls of his brown beard and you would think he had decorated himself with diamonds for a fancy wedding party.

The officer called an ambulance and it was soon found out that the man had been dead for at least three hours. It was a big nuisance for the police officer to be required to draw a report on the death of a man that he wished he hadn't ever seen.

"A very bad day to be dead," he said to his partner, sitting on a chair in his bureau.

"Any day is bad to be dead," said the skinny partner and they both laughed happily at the rhyme in the sentence.

“Poor man."

“What did you learn about this poor man?"

"Nothing out of ordinary. Clearly he's not from the town. He seems to have spent some three hours sitting on the bench in that icy night. Then he dragged himself toward the woods."

"Toward the woods?"

“Yeah. He was sort of crazy and you don't know what crosses these crazy people's minds. Maybe he wanted to make a big fire there in the woods to get warm. I mean a 'real' big fire."

They laughed again.

"And what the hell is that picture he held?"

The officer scratched his head. "A woman. A beautiful woman. I suspect if they ever saw each other. Maybe he just took it out of the wallet of a man he ripped off. Damn! I don't care who she is. He is dead and she is no one."

"She might be his lover."

"Oh, come on! Who'd like to be with a man of this kind? Who'd love and give him a picture of hers? "

"I don't know," said the skinny partner. “And I don't want to know."