I knew a guy once who said to a girl, 'Words are too heavy for you'. She didn't quite know what to make of it. She thought of it whole night and in the early hours of the morning asked him, 'Are you in love with me?' Having said to her all there was to say, that words are too heavy for you, he had nothing else to say. So he walked across the city to where she lived, dawn sprawled out across half the orange sky. It isn't important what they said to each other when they met. Words, we know by now, were too heavy, and dawn and city streets of morning sounds performed chaotically a human upheaval.
To do this, to go meet her and change his life in this way, our friend had to leave the library for some time. He lived in that old, dusty library, and walked through a wide road dotted with slums on his way to a little room where he had some books and clothes; a little home of unease. He had to leave the half-eaten books for some time, and feel the lightness of love, for that is what she chose to call it. I say for some time because I know he would return to his routine of library and city slums soon. But that day when words became too heavy for her he had to leave the floating pages of lonely summers and walk away. It is okay to walk away sometimes. Even edifying.
While he walked, and watched the slums come to day, he wondered whether his exhilaration could be felt in poverty. His lightness could be tied down to the unending clanking of buckets. He didn't remember reading anything about this in the library. To turn from quiet dignity to the smell of urine and unwashed lives, to make a desolate routine of learning and modesty, he had isolated himself. The inadequate pleasure of solitude in a crowd of noise. Now he chose to raise his head to a different feeling, one of not glaring at material inequality and succumbing to a chimera of desire.
But perhaps they were not so different. After all, routine was itself a light thing. And when he said words were too heavy for her, he was tying her down to sound of dawn.
To do this, to go meet her and change his life in this way, our friend had to leave the library for some time. He lived in that old, dusty library, and walked through a wide road dotted with slums on his way to a little room where he had some books and clothes; a little home of unease. He had to leave the half-eaten books for some time, and feel the lightness of love, for that is what she chose to call it. I say for some time because I know he would return to his routine of library and city slums soon. But that day when words became too heavy for her he had to leave the floating pages of lonely summers and walk away. It is okay to walk away sometimes. Even edifying.
While he walked, and watched the slums come to day, he wondered whether his exhilaration could be felt in poverty. His lightness could be tied down to the unending clanking of buckets. He didn't remember reading anything about this in the library. To turn from quiet dignity to the smell of urine and unwashed lives, to make a desolate routine of learning and modesty, he had isolated himself. The inadequate pleasure of solitude in a crowd of noise. Now he chose to raise his head to a different feeling, one of not glaring at material inequality and succumbing to a chimera of desire.
But perhaps they were not so different. After all, routine was itself a light thing. And when he said words were too heavy for her, he was tying her down to sound of dawn.
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