Arranged Marriage

_ All the lives gone before forever exist within our realm; indeed it's the only place they do.

_ Why don't you just tell me that there's tile on the floor?

_ It's a wood floor; a finely-sanded wood floor, mind you, speckled with paint and finished in polyurethane. There are no tiles.

_ I suppose that is why you don't tell me there's tile on the floor. Howsaboy?

_ Fansomethingtastic. Whatever. However. Whatever... my goodness... I, my very good friend, am fine; and I don't mind telling you that I've broken a sweat in telling you.

_ Telling me, telling me... I love being told. What do you think of arranged marriages?

_ I don't think of them; I don't think of three quarters of the stuff you ask me about.

_ Arranged marriages... I'm not so sure that it isn't the way to go.

_ Aren't you divorced?

_ I'm not talking about me; I'm not swimming in Balboa's ocean. Face to face nobody knows nothing. It's just holes looking at other holes, seeing everything but the hole. We flounder; we don't have to.

_ Can you imagine the abject horror on the part of some poor, unsuspecting woman should she, unannounced, come face to face with you as her intended? Can you imagine?

_ I've turned people down.

_ Right.

_ Arranged marriage - me and everything else... me and every moment that has come my way - married. The totality of the experience is contingent upon the attentiveness of the enjoyer. We are part and parcel of a marriage ongoing. One bride with infinite husbands; one husband with infinite brides; one bride with one husband. Marriage - we. Oui?

_ Me? No. Nyet.

_ We... The hallway down which you are about to walk... What is behind you? Is there more behind you then there is in front of you? What is and what isn't... Do we recognize what is through what isn't? Can one walk down a hallway alone?

_ I...

_ Do we recognize the face that we have never seen before because of what isn't; because of all the faces we've seen before? Shouldn't all these strange faces terrify us? Are we all married and don't know it?

_ I'm...

_ The intimacy we continually ignore embraces us on all sides. Infinite intimacy ever in attendance, and yet we turn away. The arranged marriage of I and the colorings of time; a cascade, ever-changing, ever-moving, always here. The bride and the groom, together they merge, leaving others to wonder. One is the bride; one is the groom. Together - a new 'one'; indivisible, but it can be forgotten. Re-member... constant remembrance.... that's the key. The bride... how beautiful.... We're quite childish; quite stupid, slow and dull.

_ A lovely couple.

_ There are no couples, only one. A bride of infinite form dancing for her rapt husband. Staggeringly beautiful, now and forever. Dancing while others cautiously walk. To recognize the marriage you are in...

_ I was really just hoping to have a cup of chai; a couple of laughs... You know... I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel.

_ No, but you are going to die.

_ A thought... a fish in a strange aquarium; swimming.

_ Yes, fish swimming; an arranged marriage. Chai?

_ Coffee, black... in a white mug; an arranged marriage.

                                                                      *****^*****

... Symmetry is one word I would have spelled differently - I

... Elope.


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