In the wake of a particularly defeating attempt at wiping the muck of pessimism off of my once beautiful rose-tinted glasses, I was discovered by a man who held out his palm and told me to take hold. Sitting on a piano bench in a cramped little room where students have probably worked their fingers to dust, we came to understand each other in the way that two very lost and unbalanced individuals do. There was a sense between the pair of us that we might be able to relax now that we saw there were others just like us bobbing along out there.
We talked with each other for some very intimate hours and it felt so real that I could not believe I had been so concerned about my loneliness at all. He mimicked my hurt in all the right ways and I really thought that I could see myself in him. To be sure, though, I made certain to tell him how I was and all of the things that I would very much like to avoid in the future. I was very delicate at this point in my life and I wanted to preserve myself before anything could happen to make my condition worse. He gave me his word that he understood and that he would abide by my wishes. We would move together, gently and kindly. I did not need much more than someone to believe in. He told me that he saw a way to someplace better and we would get there side by side.
Together, we made our way to a sliver of a side street. He walked with confidence in the dark, striding under street lamps while I tore my knees to shreds crawling alongside him. I thought that if I could keep pace, we could get each other onto the main road which might take us to a nice little bakery where we could stop to replenish ourselves and rest our legs. I thought, He must be in much better shape than I am, the way he can move like that. How embarrassing that I am dripping in sweat and having to wipe the blood off of my hands and knees when I stop to catch my breath. How weak he must think I am!
At some point, I came to the realization that I was, in fact, allowing myself to be led down a treacherous path by a stranger I knew only by name. He would sometimes tell me to wait and then dart in and out of houses with glowing windows covered by thin curtains along the way but I didn’t mind because that gave me a chance to take a break without being seen. I was just glad to not be alone, even when I was stuck out there rubbing my hands together and pacing back and forth. Now and then, I would wonder about those houses and their inhabitants, but I knew better than to ask. I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid of the honesty or the half-hearted lie, so I decided that no answer at all beat them both in the end. And anyway, this was a stranger who owed no real explanations to me.
The man had a shield that he carried with him most nights. It was very big and he called it gold and he made a point of showing it to me so that I could see that I would be safe standing behind him. Every once in a while, his golden shield would slip a little and he would turn slightly to check if I saw before quickly righting himself. I averted my gaze with burning cheeks so that I would not embarrass him. I understood that it was a laborious walk and both of us were carrying heavy loads. I did think that it was funny that his looked like that while mine was a muddied old canvas bag full of an assortment of blades and broken glass and misshapen cannonballs, but it was really none of my business. He was helping me.
But what would he be doing on that path, anyway with a thing like that? It began to feel as though he were there by choice while I was sentenced to it. He had a shield. I had a sack of horrors. It felt like such a personal question to affront him with, so I decided again to leave it be and point my eyes down at the ground.
After a good long while of the two of us artlessly trekking, I turned back to see if I could get another glimpse of that room with the piano where I met the stranger. It was so long ago at that point that I had a hard time conjuring up what it was that had made me want to trust that we could escape together. I couldn’t find the place where we decided that he would lead the way and I would follow, as opposed to us walking side by side. I couldn’t find any daylight back there to light the way either, and there was none ahead of us. It was as though we existed in an eternal cover of darkness and I did not know this man outside of that space. I did not know him under the sun. I became skeptical.
With a horrible sinking feeling, I looked up to find that I was stranded once again. This time, I was surprised to find that this rather upset me. I wanted to keep moving. I was tired of waiting on this man. I no longer needed these breaks as my body had adapted to the weight over the long months that we had spent back here. I was strong enough to keep walking all the way into the morning and next afternoon. I glanced once at the place I knew he dashed into and then I dropped my shoulders down and began to run all on my own. It was the most bizarre thing. I was doing it, just like that. It turned out that I did not need any help at all; nobody was out to get me.
At that moment, the man leaped out at me from behind a tree. He scared me so terribly that I wanted to yell at him, but he laughed as he set his shield down between us and told me that he was so glad to have caught up with me. He was worried? No, something else. Before I could ask any questions, he told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands. As he laid an object into my cold, hard palms, he said to me, “A gift. For a friend.” Interesting word choice, I thought. I opened my eyes to find a little gold locket. Inside, there was a tiny picture of the stranger sitting atop a horse. A little thrown, I laughed and started to make my way down the path again, this time with him following behind. What would you call the relationship between two people who meet only to walk and walk and discuss the trail behind them? He was stepping on the backs of my shoes.
I supposed that it was nice enough to have a friend. I did already have plenty of those but they did not walk on this path with me (they were on their own different legs of the journey) so it was nice to have one to talk to here and there. Against my better judgement, we began to talk to each other instead of our traditional silence. He made his way up to walk next to me, carrying that shield next to his side so that it would bump against my hip every so often. It was annoying and it left bruises, but this was a friend and I knew better than to critique one’s burden-carrying style. I could grit my teeth for the sake of his comfort. The locket bounced against my chest and turned the skin on my neck a greenish color, but I pretended not to notice. I had begun to feel an affection for this man and so I wanted with every fiber of my being to protect him in the same way I thought he was protecting me.
One of these nights, I began to share an important detail about myself that I felt I could discuss with the man now that we had walked so far together. As I opened my mouth, I heard his shield clatter against the ground and then I felt his face crush against mine. My eyes wide open while we stood there, his closed while he breathed into my face and told me how lovely I was. Uncertain, I tried to go with it because it seemed to make enough sense. It was a rational decision to let this play out. I had found myself really beginning to care for him and I wanted to keep him walking with me. The timing was not ideal, but I was playing the long game at this point, so I took all of the factors into consideration and let myself melt into it as much as I could. I was working very hard to shake off the thoughts that I was about to share with him moments before so that he would not think that I was not into it. He stepped away from me after a minute of this fumbling and he said to me, “I feel like the physical chemistry just isn’t there.” He pointed his finger at my face as he did it. It was my fault, I ruined his moment with my confusion and meticulous thought.
He patted me on the back, called me a friend, and then walked into the house directly behind me. I watched him go, rubbing the locket between my fingers and breathing very hard. If I had any steam left in me at all, I would have caught him before he made it to the door and demanded that he speak to me like a person, like a real friend at least, if not like someone he had lived in the nighttime with, but I didn’t, so I turned myself back to the path and readied myself for the walk. I felt a pang in my finger and looked down to find that the gold was flaking off of the locket in pathetic little chips. I pulled it off and went to leave it right there on the ground when I saw that he had left his shield down there as well. It was dented from the times it had bumped into my hip. I left the locket sitting in one of the little dent pockets and I stepped very gently over the objects and went on my way.
It was all very disconcerting in total honesty. I was a bit shaken after that night and for a little while I checked behind trees and bushes just to be sure that he would not leap out at me again and force me to look at him in all his glory. I was also saddened at the knowledge that it was only me again and that it would have to always be only me. I should not be upset with him for the way that things wound up, but there is a betrayal in that sleight of hand. Just because we never belonged to one another in standard terms does not mean either of us was undeserving of dignity and respect. There is only so much that you can do during the dead of night with a person before you must call it what it is: a common relationship. If I were actually considered a friend in his eyes, my heart breaks for the people that he loves. I treat complete strangers with more consideration and gentleness than what he has shown me after those long months. The longer I thought about it, the more angry I felt myself become. Could he not see the weight of the bag that I was already dragging behind me? If he cared at all, he would have left me alone. He would have never touched me in the first place. He would have walked with me in the daytime with his hands in his pockets.
This is what we do to ourselves all the time though. Because you are so desperate for a way out, you rationalize with yourself and talk down your moral compass. You make the stubborn choice to believe that the man with the cheap hand has an honest word. You follow him out the door and under the moon because he is strong and he is bigger than your broken little stature and he tells you that he is good as gold.
Good as gold is not gold, though. It is something close. It is something trying very hard to be gold. But it will fail the acid test and you will be horrified that you could not tell the difference for so long.