Love, the deception of choice and the tyranny of rules - Part one (of two)

As Simran and Raj finally sat down after the big long hug, they were both thinking the same thing. This was going to be awkward. The ride till here had been so much fun, neither one of them got to play grand pianos under the spotlight or run around drunk in bales of hay, but then, that couldn’t be kept up, and now that they were here, it was a slightly different story. A lot would need to be said to move forward, a lot would need to be heard. Raj wondered if he should play his mandolin some more but decided against it.

“Ummmm, how was your journey?” she said, trying to break the ice.

“Good, good . . . I didn’t want to tell you about it, cause you won’t have wanted me to have come all the way just for you so . . . .”

“So you decided to stalk me till I got to a sunflower field?” She regretted that soon as she said it, he was obviously a spoilt brat not used to being spoken like that. As she saw his dimples flex in what was decidedly not a smile she decided to go for the old one two punch “And you do realize mandolins can’t be heard across fields without amplifiers right? We don’t play music in fields anymore”

He really wasn’t used to being spoken to like. He had come with plans of making lion noises and talking about setting up factories, of sweet talking her mother and slow dancing with her but suddenly it all seemed really stupid. She seemed his when he had held her a moment ago, but suddenly, he realized that every time his heart felt that way, it would invariably be corrected and though he could let her be the only person who spoke to her like this. He wondered if his heart could walk that line. Then she said some nice things and he was back to loving what she gave him, something he could truly love, and he wondered if he could let go of that.

He also wondered about the factory and the Ferrari that he was sure would be his. His dad was like the universe, and he was sure he was loved and that he’d want her along on the journey if he was sure about it, but then again. His dad was a little cuckoo and unpredictable, and he definitely didn’t want to be hitchhiking and living in stables with her, that path he’d want her to do nothing with. And what of her dad and her universe that had given her Kuldeep? Surely he would love him too if he’d been chosen, and how narcissistic was he really to want to insert himself in that equation. He still loved playing music to her though, and the beautiful music they could create together if they ever did jam was too promising for either of them to let go.

“So here’s the deal” he finally said, “how about we just treasure this for what it was? And if you ever come to UK and find yourself with a lot of time, drop by and we’ll jam some and try to keep it just about the music without any thoughts of wanting to start a band. Call me if you need a friend, but know that I loved you too much to do that easily. You can talk of music if you want, and I’ll be cautious me and just play in the many clubs that allow it, but know that it’ll be hard and we shall have some more details to work out. But mainly this, we just meet to jam in the UK and the rest is just what is needed to make sure we still connect as musicians”

The sunflowers frowned.
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Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanov looked at each other. They’d been fighting the alien army for what seemed like years. So many skeletons around them, tears shed, glasses shattered, hulks become and unbecome and double agents that weren’t even sure which side they were on. But they’d found each other and they were fighting together. That said something.

As he saw her slay another demon effortlessly, he wondered if she really knew him. The raging green monster that lay hidden, he trusted her to handle better than anyone else. But she hadn’t really seen him yet. And what of the monsters in her, did he know them? Wasn’t she the master of deception, who knew what to be for everyone she met? Wasn’t he everyone? He was sure that wasn’t the case, sure he was more. He was Bruce Banner after all. But surety is a bitch, was Loki mind controlling him right now? Making him walk a path that was doomed to leave him the hulk forever?

 Natasha gazed over with hurt eyes. He wasn’t even fighting, and this was nothing like the parts of the avengers she liked. The quips were fun, the hand to hand combat was interesting and as she sang him the lullabies, she had realized she loved the sound of her own voice. He had done that for her and that made her want to know him. But hulk smash. So she’d heard, she liked challenges though and so here she was. There was something more hidden beneath the surface but how far would she go to find out and would she be invested enough to close down the escape route? Off course not, not yet anyway.

He thought of gamma radiation. He understood it better than anyone in the world maybe, but he also knew that believing that made him stupid. Only a handful of people even knew that it existed and if he ever started to talk about it, he’d be seen as crazy. Craziness is a solo sport.

“Natasha”, he yelled, “we should split up, they’ll be easier to handle alone. I’m going to try and get to high ground”

She wondered if she could do this without him but knew what he was saying made sense. She swung her weapon and barely missed hitting herself with it. “Go” she screamed back, “but tell me the rules of engagement”

“No rules”, he whispered, “the plan is to get high enough where we can define them, but till then, I doubt I’ll be able to get in touch”

“I thought you had my back”, she protested, handing him a flower.

“I know”, he said looking down at the floor as the aliens gave him a moment out of respect . . . . “so did I”

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Two ants went round the merry go round at Disneyland.

“Sorry I didn’t see this before” said one, “seems so obvious now that this was where we were meant to be”

“Well”, said the other, “always told you, you could assume I’d be in for any plan you had, what did you think I meant?”

“I know, I know” said the first, “it’s hard to slay monsters as an ant though, ants are good creatures, good creatures walk paths they’ve committed to and see them through.”

“Well, did you?”

“I guess, in a way”

“You won’t be here if you had though, would you?”

The first ant wondered why he was being mean, why here, why now. Why when she had flooded the colony and strapped herself to a unicorn to get here?

It was the last of his tests, cause he knew the ride only lasted three years and he didn’t really trust happiness. Now that she really was his, did he even want her? Did she? The view sure as hell was spectacular though.

“You do know you can stop testing this now right? I’ve done it all, as have you. Cholera always wins, it’s always the time for love and this was always going to be the path I was going to take.”

“Grasshopper shit, I would have trusted you if you’d shown you knew that. I’m on this ride despite always grudging you the fact that it didn’t seem obvious to you. You better get used to hearing mean things a lot.”

“Really?”

They both smiled, “No”, he said, “this IS the happiest place on Earth, but you sure as hell deserved that one."

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They were just two chess pieces on the board, so they would have liked to believe. Reality was though that they were part of a far greater picture. One with fallen ashtrays and energies exchanged. The rook wanted to control the board though, the queen knew better but went along with the stubbornness. They moved from square to square, mostly on white for a while and then as the squares grew darker, the rook realized that there was a bigger game at play and there were hands above them.

“I’m sorry” he said from the other side of the board where he wasn’t sure he could be heard from, “Fuck making rules, I should just be glad we got taken out of the box and are being played with. There are obviously greater rules at play and I can’t wait to see how the game ends. Just help me believe we’re playing together and I’ll stop trying to step on your square.”

He shut up about his belief that a stalemate was sure to happen anytime soon and that the hands would get bored and they’d be back in the box before long, but he’d go back to hoping that the queen and the rook were destined to be on the same square at some point.

Beyond the hand and the arm and the neck, there was a face, it smiled.