Peppermint Love

The world looks nice from above. All the messed up things, all the challenges, everything you fight with everyday seems so small if you just raise your point of view to a higher level.
   From above, you can see the world’s order; when people and places shrink down to miniature figures, the structure of your life becomes visible and you realize what’s really happening around you every time you’re just too busy to start thinking. And maybe, you can even see a way out of the terrible mess that your life has become.

So now, let’s start thinking about what has brought me up here: Lilly.
   I first saw her like two years ago at a tiny café, I was there with a friend of mine, drinking coffee whilst talking about... Well, I don’t know... Stuff. School, teachers, upcoming tests and (more important) upcoming holidays. She just walked by in the bright sunshine, her hair blowing in a mild summer breeze, some strands crisscrossing her face. My friend snapped his fingers in front of my face:
   “Hey, where are you?!” I blinked, and then she was gone.

We met a few weeks later at a party. Actually, at the end of a party, since I was just watching her after I found out that she was there, too. I was just observing who she talked to and, of course, what she was chatting about – I wanted to do everything right, when I finally spoke to her. But most times I ended up glimpsing at her rosy lips, when she was nipping her drink, and her red-varnished fingernails, when she ran her fingers through her long brown hair. The way she danced losing herself in the beat, in the middle of the crowd, but ignoring everyone made me smile. When the party came close to being over, I finally managed to get myself addressing her:
   “Hey Lilly! That’s your name, isn’t it?”
   Of course it was, for it was the one thing I remembered after following her the whole night. She was sitting on a chair next to the door and watched people leaving the house.
   “Yes, it is”, she smiled. “What’s your’s?”
   “Christopher”, I said without mumbling too much. I attempted to return the smile.
   “So, Christopher, how did you like the party?” For a second, I was paralyzed. She had asked me a question! How was I supposed to respond? I didn’t even see much of the party itself.
   “Nice music”, I responded rather monosyllabically. Not good... Make it funny... Think up something humorous. “...though the food was horrible” She laughed. A real laugh, not an artificial one.
   “You’re absolutely right! I mean, did you taste those strawberry muffins? They tasted like pepper!” Actually, I had not tasted any muffins at all, but I started laughing, too.
   “Oh, hey, that’s my father”, she said, looking through the door at a small ford. “He’s picking me up, I must go now... Nice to meet you, Christopher! Hope, we meet again and finish our talk! Bye!”
   She smiled at me, and before I could say something like good bye, too, she turned around and ran away with light steps that caused a sound like the ticking of a clock, just faster.

And we met again, a lot of times. Eventually, I stopped being completely struck by her beauty and learned something about her life: She had a little brother and lived down at the river. Her family had just moved in there a month ago, so she was still adjusting to her new home. She liked animals, though she never had a pet, and singing, which she did really excessively, maybe to compensate her lack of pets... She liked laughing, especially about me and my pet-deficit-psychology; and I liked her laughter and begged her to sing again in order to not become depressive over wanting a cat or a dog.
   It was at the small café: We kissed for the first time. Neither of us expected our little celebration of Lilly’s last exams for this year to turn out like this and I, for my part, couldn’t even believe it hours later, alone in my bed. It was like the moment I saw Lilly at this very same café: I was sitting there, talking to a friend, suspecting nothing and suddenly something happened, suddenly something stepped into my life and I had the hugest endorphin-rush ever. It’s good to know that, at relevant moments, your instincts take control over your actions. All you need to do then is to stand beside your body and enjoy the sweet taste of soft lips and the feeling of being close to each other.
   Nothing is comparable to a true love’s first kiss, and nothing will ever be comparable to Lilly’s and my first kiss. I’d never felt, and never will feel as happy as I was at that day in that café.

So, after all, we were – sort of – a couple. Crazy if one thinks about it, isn’t it? I asked her out several times: cinema, restaurant, or just to the river next to her house. She sung, I laughed and we both agreed that dating after actually becoming a couple is way more fun than the other way around. There’s nothing like making fun of two strangers that are on their first date and are totally uncertain of how to behave in front of a person they’ve just known for about a week.
   We went to parties on Saturday evenings and stayed in bed on Sunday mornings. We kissed a lot. At the last day of summer, we were sitting at the bank of the river. The sun was close to going down and sent orange rays through the purple sky. A cold breeze made us come closer to each other. I put my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder. Far away, a lonely stork was flying southwards. It was a perfect moment.
   “I love you”, I whispered.
   “I love you, too”, she smiled. “I thought you’d never say that.”
   We laughed. I kissed her. It was a perfect moment.

I could have known the inevitability of the following from the first day on, but I didn’t. I could have seen that, just as every life comes to an end, every relationship, even the best ones to the people you love, must come to an end, too. But I didn’t. I was blinded by the one and only love of my life and thought we were invincible. But that’s not true. No one can escape his fate. It might be the best of days or the worst when destiny rips off some part of you.
   The day that life tears us apart had to come. Lilly is gone.

The air gets chilly up here. The small places down below have retold the story of my life so far. Do you remember? I told you up here you might see a solution for your problems. And now I see my solution just as clear and solid as the unsteady chair beneath my feet and the rope surrounding my throat and neck like a collar. The only way out is to kick away the boundaries of your everyday life, just like this chair for example, and fall down in time and space just limited by gravity and a simple Hangman’s knot. Isn’t it?

There might be another possibility. I could remove the rope and just step down, come back to normal. I could go out and try to find her, make her mine again. I see a meadow, flooded by sunlight, some flowers sprinkled on the soft grass like colorful sparks in a green ocean. On a small hill like a tiny island, a heart-leave willow, slightly blowing in the same breeze that touched her hair years ago at the street in front of the café. And, in the willows dappled shade, Lilly, singing like she did when she was still with me.
   O môr henion i-dhû / Ely siriar, êl síla / Ai! Aniron Undomiel! Tiro! Êl eria e môr. /I lîr en êl luitha uren. / Ai! Aniron…
   It’s an old elfish song from The Lord Of The Rings about longing for the Evenstar. For a minute, I just listen to her angelic voice and the ancient sound of the long forgotten language. It’s so beautiful, and yet so far away. I start running towards Lilly. I jump over a little creek, outrun a butterfly that’s headed to the willow, too. I rush past a buzzing swarm of bees… I jump over a little creek, outrun a butterfly. I rush past a buzzing swarm of bees… A little creek, a butterfly, a swarm of bees… I slow down and stand still for a second. In the distance, Lilly is still singing under the willow. I turn around: The edge of the wood is just a few meters behind me. With all my running, I didn’t get any closer to her.
   I try to scream: “Lilly! I’m over here!”
   No reaction. Just the hauntingly beautiful melody.

Standing on my chair, I realize that trying to live at this meadow and always attempting to reach Lilly is no possibility. I would never be able to reconquer her. All I would do is just lying to myself. She is gone. Forever. Everything else is just illusion, imagination, epiphany from another world. Of course, a better world, without pain and anger. A world way to good for me, out of my league. And, after all, a world I can’t reach because I’m still bound to this one. Bound by the rope around my neck, and only carried by an old, rickety chair.
   I should go away, too. Who would miss me here? It’s just a small step to get to the end of my sorrows. It’s so easy…

So let’s go.