Realm of Comfort (Or perhaps the finding of one?)

A Story by Alejandro Manuel Espinoza

One of the first things you learn is how to be patient.

I still don’t know if I’ve overcome the anxiety just yet. Of course, yeah, I’ve waited quite a bit, but with her, the waiting never becomes ‘enough’, there’s just more of it that you topple over. The only trouble with the waiting is that you have to try very hard not to wake her up. Let her sleep.

I can’t help but watch her, her chest falling and rising, breathing subtly. Dream of someone long enough and they become part of your dream world. It’s strange, really, the feeling when you’re both together, holding each other. You think “I’m in a dream now…” Even now, I sometimes don’t even feel the need to sleep. Like, this is rest. This is relaxation. This is my body being rejuvenated, cleaned, sanctioned by energy; watching her sleep. Watching her live. Watching her be.

For a moment that stretches across eternity and spills into death, my heart quickens, and my soul shivers in the cold. Anxiety.

“Hey.”

She whispers. 

I don’t say anything immediately, because I don’t know what to say. Flurries of vivid color occupy my mind in some strange animated way, and then, before I take another breath of oxygen, she laces her hand into mine. 

Her touch is the best kind of asphyxiation. Take away the constant involuntary muscle movements, and the worry and masturbation at life, and you’ve suffocated, in the best kind of way. It’s the ceasing of your life support, and then, you’ve astronomically projected yourself above cloud nine. You’re dead, in the best kind of way.

“Are you going to come lay down with me?”

Truthfully, I’m tired. But I don’t want to cease my alertness for a moment. Perhaps as dawn approaches rapidly, and it passes into the next day, I’ll hold onto her tight. Then I’ll know. I’ll know that she’s already entered this day. She’s started her Tuesday, and she’s here in my arms. There’s no reason she should disappear. As the day begins, that how it will end, right?

I slide under the blanket and she turns over to face me. Her eyes are unanimously beautiful. 

“You’re very cute.”

Is all I can say. 

“You really think so?”

She asks me, hopeful and somewhat pleased. I don’t answer immediately because I don’t know what to say. It’s hard to be funny and say, no, gross, when she’s there, smiling, eyes glossy behind a focused mirror. 

You can’t not love her.

Not when she speaks and you can almost taste liquid sugar in the air. Not when she’s three inches from your face, bottom lips behind her teeth, smiling. My hand wants to spasm and slap her hard on her pretty face. Then I’ll calmly tell her, that’s how cute you are.

“Of course.”

Her body is close to mine, parallel, intertwined, gently spirited. My lips press onto hers, and she quivers through her teeth, her nose exhausting air gently. I stay awake long enough to tell her that I love her, and hold on to her tightly, and watch the clock as it passes twelve. 

I think to myself, as her hand reaches across my back, that there’s no place quite as tranquil as this. Throw away the Bedlam. Throw away the dysentery of life. This doesn’t exist in God – and not in Nirvana. She’s your religion, and she’s who you have faith in. You believe she’s there, and she’s your ecstasy. This feeling doesn’t even exist in those hospitals. 

I can almost hear them say, ‘More morphine, please’. 

It’s a controlled high, mostly. A vivid, unrestrained, constant flow of brain chemicals. Maybe, just maybe, there something there you can’t duplicate. It’s something that exists nowhere. I mean this in the best possible way. 

She falls asleep again. I want to wake her up, to hear her voice. Love, they say, is patient. It’s a load of shit. 

Love learns to exist within all or most emotions, it seems. It’s almost like that bacteria that survives within extreme temperatures. When the world around us is all burnt up and crispy, I guess we’ll thrive among the bacteria. You’re anaerobic when you love someone. In the best possible way. 

I fall asleep to the rhythm of her breathing.