The Cycle

Field of Dreams

The sweet seritonal scents registered before anything else. Every caressing gust of wind brought with it a fresh seductive fragrance.

The sun shone down, bathing the neon grass in warmth. The heat danced along my skin, sending rolling waves of life through me. Days like this were the type of days families should picnic, I mused as I basked in the warm rays.

I leaned back and felt the soft fabric of a cover against my palm. When I saw the blanket that I was lying on my heart immediately began to quicken.

Under me, embroidered in the dark hue of the familiar cover, were stars, planets, and other celestial bodies. The planets were orbiting, the stars twinkled luminously, and every once in a while a comet would zoom across the dark night sky. But none of these things, as amazing as they were, are what made my heart speed up.

The blanket reminded me of passion-fueled kisses and old horror movies. Meatball marinaras and salty original flavored chips. It reminded me of Carter and the best date I’d ever been on.

I don’t know how long I sat and stared at the vast textile galaxy beneath me or pondered on its mysterious devices, but when I looked up, the entire scene around me had changed.

The radiant sun had receded over the horizon and the sky was now a mirror of the one depicted under me. A dark firmament loomed above me, blazing stars scattered across its scope. The sight of it struck me with an intense feeling of admiration. No matter how detailed, magical even, the blanket beneath me was, it could never replicate an actual night sky perfectly. There were subtle things that just couldn’t be captured.

The deepness of space, deeper than all of the oceans of the world combined, deeper than the depths of the innumerable poets and authors that sought to capture the magic of the night sky with words and literary devices. The inexplicable ambiguous feeling that just a second’s glance could bring, that you and all your problems, in the grand scheme of things, were minute and unimportant. Tiny bubbles in a cosmic kiddie pool.

Qualities like these were the ones that could never be transferred onto paper or fabric. And they were also the things that made it so perfect. Some things were never meant to be understood or influenced, only appreciated as they were swept away in the overwhelming feelings that it inspired.

I stopped my stargazing long enough to realize that I wasn’t alone anymore. Perhaps I’d never been.

Sitting inches away from me with his long dark denim covered legs stretched out was Carter. The white buttons of his black button-up gleamed in the moonlight as he leaned back on one hand and peered into the heavens. He turned his attention towards me, his eyes now sparkling in the same light and reflecting the same spark as his buttons. I looked into them and everything else faded away.

 The galaxy above me and the one below. The field of grass and the scents of summer. My reflections and inhibitions. Gone.

Suddenly, I wasn’t me anymore. My body acted of its own volition and I floated above, watching incorporeally.

Birdlike, I watched as I got up and moved slowly, my brunette curls swaying subtly in the dull breeze, and maneuvered over to him like a positively charged magnet naturally drawn to its negative counterpart. I straddled him, my skirt leaving my legs slightly pallid legs exposed on either side of him, and my arms locked together around his neck. He held me at my waist and I could see for the first time how delicate I looked in his touch. Then with uncharacteristic passion and emotion for someone who seemed so fragile I leaned forward and crashed my lips onto his.