Transmission

It was apparent she was trying to impart

something without words. A flood of

broken images swarmed like an angry hive,

eating my senses bit by bit.

It was aggressive, rapid, annoying, colorful,

and intense. Something I could hear

and see simultaneously. I was confused.

This was new to me.

Was she implanting these images in my head?

I didn’t understand, so I looked back at her.

She smiled, but only her eyes held the answer.

Then something changed.

The images reversed dynamically—slowing,

deepening—like she was adjusting an

invisible control. The colors melded, and the

shapes of objects transformed into

something bordering dangerously close to

memory.

Not mine.

Hers.

Or maybe the right word was ours.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

Hot and painful is the pressure behind

my eyes. My mind’s veneer is cracking.

What—

What was happening?

My mouth works the question

out.

It falls,

abandoned,

never to be asked.

She stepped in,

spirit shrapnel.

She is not touching me,

but I feel her in the air.

My pulse

shifts like the spiral of the

slideshow images.

The whip cracks.

The kaleidoscope of chaos

leaves only one single

stranded thought.

A strange sensation.

I feel her pressure.

I see her waiting.

I am almost comprehending

these riddles.

What is it?

I can

hear strange echoes,

like déjà vu.

Am I dreaming

about these disconcerting

illusions?

Something came together,

And I wondered how she

knew my sick mind, the

delusion I suffer, the

emptiness I feel

everywhere.

This was a form of

communication, but the process

was wildly, chaotically unfinished.

The compelling thin string

tugging me forward did the

most unexpected disservice

to me.

It let me go.

It dropped

the draw, and the

images held the

thoughts locked

like a question

I didn’t deserve

nor ever asked.

She blinked slowly,

and for the first time,

some nuance in her

inner workings changed.

The smile stayed.

The eyes stayed.

The intensity

the smoldering fire

like a dam in the distance,

just creaked and released

a tiny trickle

of her enigmatic energy.

That was the first time I really felt it

the odd isolation, the absence

where the pressure used to be.

A silence so complete it felt like sound

had been removed from the world

rather than momentarily paused.

In a quiet sort of dread, I anticipated

the images—or one of the images,

or multiple images—I was quite sure

We were building toward a revelation.

She was clearly deep in her thoughts,

and so was I, internally consumed

by multiple recurring thoughts of her.

The images sashaying in multiple locations

the world inside us, the world that was

surely more important

than the world that was confused,

overwhelmed.

The world… I could see more than I could

fingertips tapping across the glass.

Then it occurred to me: the images moved

in sequence.

In thoughts.

In some predetermined route.

In a line.

In single brilliant concepts.

She asked me to return this,

and for some unknowable reason

all the puzzling pieces of memories

the collection of moments I called

memories, the faded memories of

myself

I knew existed.

I had asked for this.

And to her

The answer was

always easy.

There is language

much more powerful

than words—one we all

can learn when we truly

feel connected to another.

Love is the only true language,

she seemed to say with a sly

smile and a soft giggle.