FURTHER ENCOUNTERS

Sometimes we have interactions with people that slow time. You hear every word they're saying but your mind seems like it is processing the conversation elsewhere...A continuation of real-life encounters with different people .

Strange

I walked in determined to come out with something living. Little did I know this would be the start of many deaths. Most of the tanks were well above my head containing creatures I had never seen before. He dumped a bag of liquid into one of them. A cloud of blood began to dissipate as they desperately tried to take their share.

"What's gonna turn your day around?" He asked. I laughed, not knowing how to respond. I didn't have a care in the world left but I wasn't ready to ask for that kind of help.

"You tell me" I said candidly.

He turned to look at me but I think he saw straight through my soul. "Ah, I think I have just the thing, come with me." Ten minutes later we're walking to my car, arms full with life, a new home, some supplies and for the first time in a while, hope.

He helped me pack up my car. As I turned to thank him he said, "things are looking up right? Have a good one, Chloe." I never gave him my name, not even a credit card. How did he know?

Tell Me Something I Don't know

"Can I be honest with you? Because I feel like you get it." We sat in an office in the middle of a warehouse. Fans were constantly blowing in the background. This wasn't a perfect office but the essence of hard-work, passion and conflict was always felt. The hard-work and passion was felt through the work done in the office. The conflict was felt by me.

I was in the midst of determining what was genuinely good and genuinely evil about this place. I had felt this feeling of conflict before.

"Sure, go for it" I said, something about him was intriguing. "I'm well aware that this place is like McDonalds. People are coming and going, they're passing through to get onto the next thing. They are on their way to the next rung of the ladder. I'm trying to make peace with this, I have nothing to offer to make people stay but I don't want it to be this way forever. I want people to stay. Do you get that? I want this to be the end goal for people. "

I looked him in the eyes. We had maintained eye contact throughout this but I really looked him in the eyes. I looked for that shift. I looked for that shift that happens when someone tells you something and believe they have won you over. I would not so easily be won over this time as my wounds were still fresh. I let my body feel the whole room, 'come on give me something' I thought to myself. I didn't shiver this time. I looked for the micro-expressions to change as I let the radio silence fill the air.

Nothing.

He meant it. As I scanned him something on my radar refused to let me classify him as genuinely good. He had an inability to see that he was serving the wrong kind and I could not fix that. I sighed, "yeah, I get it." I relaxed in my chair and gave him a smile. I knew something he didn't. I was about to climb the next rung of the ladder.

What is Love?

"So yeah. It's like I gotta learn life all over again. I mean, how do you even ask someone to just hang out and... like talk?"

I don't think he noticed but I really stopped and realized the weight of his situation and it was heavy.

"I mean seriously. Do people like people for more than just their looks? I'm in love with everyone and everything and I can't help but think they aren't listening to me. How do you get them to listen? How do you get them to love you as a person and not just for looks?"

I was really listening to him. He wasn't saying this to be vain. He was so used to being used he didn't know how to be loved for just being him. We were in the middle of the city and secretly I was trying not to trip over the uneven concrete but I was really listening to him.

For the first time in a while I was speechless. I realized that it wouldn't be enough for me to say 'I love you' even if I meant it because to him, in that period of time it would be meaningless. It would be no different than it he read it off of a Hallmark card. What needs to change so that when he hears ' I love you' he feels it in his bones? The kind of 'I love you' that stops time and gives a high stronger and more powerful than any type of drug every single time he hears it?

It couldn't come from me. It would have to be from someone else. But I did love him. I still do enough to hope that one day someone else can tell him that they love him and he will finally understand all that he was asking.

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