you pour the water —
Perhaps it is better for them to engage in these half-truths with one another. These half-truths that are folded into lies. They give each other just enough to promise that it’s not a complete falsehood. Just enough to be believable, but they soften it. They pretend his tragedy is fun, even though the discuss the tragedy itself. They pretend she is making sense when she can barely keep her emotions straight.
And perhaps that is the way it is meant to be.
Perhaps it is the only way things can be.
So she doesn’t call out the strangeness of their interaction or question him when he smiles and lies with his eyes about the game he plays. And she smiles in return when he tells her that what she is saying makes sense. Even if what he says makes sense, in its own way. “We do,” she affirms and then questions herself again. Did the night choose her? Did the darkness? Or did she chase after it? Did it matter which was the pursuer in the end? Or was the only thing that mattered the end result. Who she was.
She smiles, rolling a delicate shoulder and glancing up to confirm that it was indeed still night and that they had several hours to go before he would have to play his game once more.
“So what would you like to do?”
A gentle question spoken from a gentle mouth.
“We have some time left.”
— I would haul the stones
