02 May Quarantine and Chill: Chapter Seven.

This is a Science-Fiction Story and a complete work of fiction, meant entirely for entertainment. I write these stories as writing practice.

Even amidst a potentially cosmic abyss, I was still able to find my woman’s booty and gave it a little love tap. I could feel her smile through the darkness as my voice reverberated through the scene, “Woman, once again, you have underestimated me.” I reached into my pocket and grabbed a pamphlet of matches. I struck a match and several hundred candles lit up on the floor. We were in what appeared to be a sole room. There were no doors, windows or exits, but in the middle of the room there were two chairs that were facing each other. From a distance, they appeared to be entirely sculpted from earthly granite.

Being a person that tries to quickly recognize patterns, I realized that the candles weren’t strategically placed. Their organization was randomized.

I found that to be odd because with everything in life, there is always some sort of conceivable pattern that can be deciphered, even amongst disorder, or even chaos. However, in this particular circumstance, the candles were notably itemized, yet completely random. Even the distance between the chairs appeared to have fallen into place, rather than measured.

People often create patterns without even realizing it, or without any sort of cognitive intent, this was not the case of this particular scene. I was one hundred percent sure of that. I’ve made it a life-long mission of mine to be a supreme observer, so the confidence in my observation stemmed from that discipline. 

Her tone of voice was melancholy, yet unfathomed by the sudden altered dimension, “You are quite the romantic…” as she grabbed the matches and carefully tucked them within her bra. She continued to say, “We might need these later.” She took a step forward and one of the candles next to her dwindled its ember. I grabbed her arm and said, “Wait.”

I reached down and picked up the candle. I examined it closely. Within the wax of the candle, the string that governs the burning of the wax was coiled as cursive writing. I could see that it threaded the words: Approach with caution.

I’ve never seen a candle molded with such a meticulous way of speaking. Every candle that I have ever seen always has the same structure. The string always follows the same rules; the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. It’s what makes a candle burn evenly and thus, maximizes its longevity. It was clear that the purpose of these candles were not to just simply illuminate.

I used my foot to move one of the other candles to the spot of the candle that I removed. Almost all of the candles went dim, except for a few of them that highlighted a path towards the chairs.

I triumphantly looked at her as I said, “And you said that I was dumb.” She didn’t acknowledge my puzzle-solving skills as she condescendingly replied, “I’m sure most people probably would have eventually figured that out.”

I ignored her comment, but noticed that perspiration started to form around her temple and upper lip. I found that to be unusual. The only other time that I had seen her do that, was when I saw her read the first poem that I had ever written to her.

All parameters are equally important when it comes to interpreting observation.

I reached into my shirt pocket, handed her my handkerchief and said, “Why you sweating then?”

She took the handkerchief and tied it around her neck like women used to do as fashion statements back in the day. I then took her hand and started walking us along the highlighted path. The chairs only appeared to be fifteen feet away, but for some reason, as we walked, it felt like we were walking for miles.

I hypothesized, to myself, that this is the type of strain that time dilation has on the sense of distance; the parallel effects were apparent. It could have been a few minutes or a few hours, but we eventually confronted both of the chairs.

I looked at her and asked her a very simple question, “When was the first time that I made you feel loved?”

She was heavily surprised by my question, “Uh… that’s a weird question. I don’t remember the exact date.”

I scratched my beard, as I philosophically pondered my response. After a few moments I ushered her to take a seat in the chair on the right.

She took a seat in the chair and I walked over and sat down in the chair on the left. Nothing immediately happened, much to my disdained surprise.

She sulked for a brief moment and then said, “Why? When was the first time that I made you feel loved?”

I looked down at the candles between us, then looked up at her with beaming eyesight and said, “Your answer should have been every day.”

She then sexily untied the handkerchief around her neck and threw it over to me. I didn’t try to catch it so it fell upon one of the lit candles.  Rather than incinerating, it magically turned into a piece of parchment paper. The scripted words were not of any sort of type of language that I have ever encountered before. It looked more like brail punctuation, however, the sequences were not similar.

I picked up the piece of parchment paper and tried to correlate any sense of a recognizable pattern. My mind became slightly fatigued and frustrated so I threw the parchment up in the air.

Upon that moment, it all clicked. I realized that we should trace the candles like constellations.

Perhaps that is where we’d find answers to continuing the dream-like journey that we found ourselves in.

*To Be Continued In Chapter Eight*