Cassiopeia

I lay on a park bench under a moonless sky, listening to an orchestra of chirping crickets. The petrichor from the first rain of the season provided a scented backdrop to their performance. I tried to listen but couldn’t understand their language. Their taste differed greatly from mine. In the absence of a meaningful distraction, I settled for counting the stars in the constellations that watched over me: nine in Leo, seven in the Great Bear, eight in Orion, and five in...

“Hey, stranger,” someone whispered in my ear. “What are you looking at?”

“You,” I replied and pointed at Cassiopeia. 

She traced my finger to the five stars forming a W in the sky. I shifted to my side to face her, who was sitting on a mat, carefully laid out on a drier patch of the grass. She was too lost in the endless canvass to look at me. She hadn’t aged a day. 

A year ago, I had the privilege of attending a guest lecture by a certain Professor Cassie Miller. In her presentation, she elaborated upon the importance of astronomy and celestial navigation for ancient civilizations. She spoke at length about constellations and how they were used by people all over the world -- from the Greeks and the Indians all the way to the Polynesians -- to guide them in naval exploration. One of the most interesting things to note, she pointed out, was that in many cultures, all of this knowledge was preserved in the form of oral traditions and were passed down for generations. 

It could have been just another lecture in the never-ending stream of weekly seminars, but the way she spoke made her stand out from everyone else. She was so captivating in her voice that I didn’t even realize when she stopped speaking and the lecture ended. Oh, how I wished I could listen to her for just five more minutes. But like all good things, the evening had to come to an end too.

“What?” she asked after a while. The wonder of the heavens would have lasted a little bit longer had I not been staring at her. 

“I didn’t think you’d show up,” I said and reached to caress her cheek. She melted into my palm and said, “Promises are eternal, Will.”

A faint smile took over my lips. She was here. Despite the forces that be, in spite of all that had happened, she was here. A million things could go wrong in the world tomorrow but I would take comfort in knowing that I could spend this moment with her. 

“Here, come on up,” I invited her to sit beside me. She gladly took me up on the offer and snuggled into me as I propped myself against the backrest. The mechanical creature of artificial light and excess alcohol went about the night in the distance.

“How have you been? How is your leg?”

“I am getting by. The doctor recommended using a cane,” I said, although the lack of the instrument clearly reflected my stance on his recommendation.

“I am so sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “But I don’t want to talk about it. Everyone else does it enough for me.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Okay,” I whispered back.

Two weeks after the lecture, our paths crossed again on a jogging trail. I wasn’t a morning person but the idea of watching the sunrise was too good to miss. There was a spot uphill that offered the best view, so I decided to make camp before people came and any hope of relative privacy was lost.  

And she was the first person to pay me a visit. With her hair tied in a braid, a few strands sticking on her forehead with sweat, she asked me for some water. She tried to explain how she had to take a detour but the rest was lost to the need of her lungs. I nodded and handed her a bottle of water from my bag. That could have been just that -- me handing a stranger some water -- however, I couldn’t help but wonder where I remembered her from. 

“I’m sorry, this is out of place,” I began, “but I think I have seen you somewhere before.”

She looked at me from behind the bottle, as if expecting me to continue. Then a lightbulb went off in my head.“Aren’t you Professor Miller?”

“Yes, I am. Pardon me, I don’t recognize you.”

“I transferred here a month ago. William March, department of English.”

“Cassie Miller, Anthropology,” she said and shook my hand.

That was our formal introduction to each other. Two professors with subjects that had almost nothing to do with each other, meeting on a jogging trail by chance. In the conversation that followed, before her friends found her and encouraged her to go for one more mile, she asked if I’d be interested in a tour of her department, an offer that I gladly accepted.

A cold breeze passed us by and a shiver ran through her body. “Is it just me or is it getting a bit chilly?” she asked. I rubbed her arms and planted a kiss on her forehead. “No, it’s definitely getting colder. Maybe we should go home.”

She looked up at me and said, “Do you still have some of our wine?”

“Casa Rossa, just you like you prefer.”

“You remembered,” she said, a look of nostalgia in her eyes.

“Of course I did.”

She wrapped herself around and gave me a squeeze before slipping out of my reach. With her fingers trailing my wrist, she pulled me towards her, and I willingly followed suit. The mat had already become one with the wind and was nowhere to be seen. One less thing to worry about.

“Shall we?” Cassie asked. I’d have done anything she asked me in that moment, so linking my arms with hers wasn’t even a question. We playfully bumped our shoulders, laughing like children in a playground, and sauntered down the road to our apartment.

I never cared enough to find out who laid the plans for the city, but I was always bothered about why someone would establish a cemetery between a park and residential societies. I didn’t believe in ghosts or the dead coming back to life for a night, but the very nature of the grounds bode an unsettling nervousness for anyone who’d pass it by, especially in the night. To add the cherry on top, it had mostly been abandoned years ago. The graves had fallen out of favor with the harsh weather that didn’t treat anyone with kindness. As we walked along the road, the air grew colder and colder, pulling us closer towards each other. A spark of creativity lit a poem.

“

The dead howl in the blowing wind

Pleading to be left alone

The coffin they were laid in

Is now cracked with hope

They have bid their time

And their beloved calls their name

If only time stopped for a moment

Could they rest in the comfort of their lover’s arm

”

“It sounds sad,” she said, coming to a halt. “But hopeful at the same time.”

“Do you like it?”

“A bit rusty, but I like it.”

“Rusty?” I said, acting as if was offended.

“You are romanticizing a graveyard, dear. You need a living muse. And who better than me?”

“Who better than you,” I admitted.

The Saturday after our first meeting I decided to check if her offer still stood. In the echoing hallway of the deserted building -- as everyone had gone home -- I saw her sketching the layout of an ancient citadel from memory. 

“It’s quite impressive,” I said, still standing away but close enough to know what I was talking about. 

She looked at me and our chance encounter must have clicked in her memory, as the reaction on her face changed from one of unfamiliarity to one of faint recognition. “Professor March, how have you been?”

“Very well, thank you. How about you?”

“Likewise.”

“Pleased to know that.” I took a closer look at the drawing and said, “Lost in the architectural marvel that is Machu Picchu?”

“Precisely,” she said. “The Incans deliberately built it on fault lines to have access to fractured stones. And we don’t even know how they got those stones up there.”

“Wheels?”

“Unh-uh. They never developed a practical use for it due to…” she trailed away. “I hope I am not boring you.”

“Quite the opposite, Professor Miller. I’d like to know more.”

That was the beginning of our friendship. A simple session that was meant to be a tour stretched into another and yet another. As the days turned into weeks and then into months, we developed an unconscious habit of looking each other up just to continue our conversation from the day before. We didn't even realize when our conversations changed from the strictly professional to the semi-personal to the intimate. 

One day, when we were relaying our childhood stories -- how she had a scar on her knee from a bicycle accident and how I had broken my wrist in twelfth grade after slipping on a wet floor -- I asked her a question.

“Cassie, tell me, would you like to go for coffee sometime?”

“Mr. March, are you asking me on a date?”

It had taken a lot of courage and going back and forth in my head that when she clarified my question, I completely froze. My face flushed with anxiety and potential embarrassment if she said no, to say nothing of the possibility of her getting offended. She eyed me suspiciously as if to see if I was serious. I, on the other hand, was growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. You could practically cut the tension with a knife, and so she did, bursting into laughter when she could no longer hold her poker face.

“You should have seen yourself,” she said, rejoicing in my uneasiness. I didn’t mind her reaction, I could listen to her laugh for eternity. I sighed out of relief, safe in the knowledge that my boldness hadn’t cost me our friendship. When her laughter subsided, she looked into my eyes and said, “I’d love to go on a date with you.”

We were barely half a mile away from the apartment when a drizzle embraced the asphalt with a soft patter. The wind sprayed us with droplets of moisture, wetting our clothes and our hair. She gently pulled her hand away from mine and extended her arms, welcoming the blessings of the gods and twirled. She was living a memory, lost in a moment of pure and uninterrupted happiness. 

A few minutes later, when she saw me admiring her from beneath a street light, she came to a graceful halt. With slow splashy steps, she closed the distance between us. 

“What now?”

Her hand slowly made its way to caress my face. Another went behind to hold the back of my head. I watched her as she held me in her gaze, waiting for me to make up my mind. The light which shone above us embellished her the same way the sun had when it had risen on the horizon on that jogging trail. Its radiance had peeked through the canopy of the woods and in that brief moment, I could clearly see the freckles dotting her face. I hadn’t thought much of it then, but with each passing moment I had spent with her, it had become clear beyond doubt that I had fallen in love with the most brilliant and beautiful woman in my life.

There was nothing left to ponder over. I had waited for her for so long and she was right in front of me. It was only a matter of letting go and before I knew it, I leaned in for a kiss. Her breath mingled in mine, melting away the barriers that had separated us for months. I caressed her face, tracing her soft freckled skin, and running a hand through her hair as she played with mine.

In that moment, as we expressed our love for each other in ways that words couldn’t, the world faded into oblivion. The cold wind didn’t matter and time didn’t exist. The rain falling on our faces, drenching us with each passing second was an extension of our own beings. We were not two people losing their individuality. We were one and the same.

Our first date was in a bookstore cafe. She had once told me how she liked the smell of old books and enjoyed the notes that people would leave on the margins. I, on the other hand, had a preference for cleaner pages. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone scribbling over a carefully curated aesthetic. So, to prove her point, she deliberately led me towards an abandoned corner shelf, where we found a few volumes written by an obscure author. As we read through the first few pages, there was no denying that this book would become our obsession.

It was about an immortal couple who would meet once every few decades, share their stories, exchange a few words of wisdom, and grow apart again. It wasn't their decision to leave each other; they would often monologue about a life well spent together. But as fate would have it, they'd find themselves in the crosshairs of history, amid a bloody battle or a violent revolution, often on opposing sides. No matter how hard they tried, how many borders they crossed, or how many societies they integrated into, tragedy would inevitably, unmistakably find them. It was as if time itself had designed a maze to torment the two lovers for millennia.

While the story spanned volumes and covered almost the entire human history, it didn’t have a conventional ending. There was no happily ever after, no grand reunion, no light at the end of the tunnel. All that remained was what had happened in the pages. They had made a promise. A promise to always find their way back to each other. A promise to be held for eternity.

There was no name printed on any of the books, just an alias, M.A. We tried to find the mysterious author online, or at least another set of books, but our search yielded no results. Maybe they once loved someone but couldn’t be with their beloved. Maybe this was their gift to the world, a rare jewel hidden away in an indifferent world, waiting for someone to stumble upon it. Maybe they had seen their fair share of life and didn’t want to be found. In the end, we decided the reason was irrelevant, for there was an undeniable beauty in their decision.

At the end of the saga, months after our first date, and a day before her flight to California, we confessed our love for each other. There was no grand gesture involved nor did we go for a romantic dinner. There was only a verbal declaration. We knelt on the floor of a makeshift altar and with the blessings of the lost author, officiated our bond. The promise of the eternal lovers was our promise now.

When we reached the apartment building, a prior commitment reminded its urgency. I handed her the keys and said, “You go ahead. I need to make a call.” The rain had stopped for the moment but had soaked us enough to warrant a wardrobe change. 

“Can’t that wait until you are nice and warm?”

“Oh, it’ll only be a minute.”

“Okay,” she said, and began to leave. Then she stopped in her tracks, turned around, and asked, “Where would that bottle be?”

“The usual cabinet,” I said and kissed her lightly. A soft smile bloomed on her lips and she entered the elevator.

The next day at the airport, as I read her ticket, I said, “Cassie Miller. Flight 175 to LA. Are you sure you don't want me to come?"

“I can handle my family, Will.”

“No, I understand that. I just didn’t want you to leave so soon.”

“Hey, I’ll be home before you know it,” she reassured me. “Or just look in the sky and I’ll be there.” There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice, mixed with the essence of new love. 

“Do you promise?”

“I promise,” she said, her arms wrapped my neck, and kissed me gently. That was the last time I saw her before I lost her in the throng of passengers. That was also the last time I walked without painkillers.

A few minutes later, when I had sorted out my schedule for the next day, I took the elevator to the fifth floor. As was our tradition, two untouched glasses rested on a carefully laid out table. I looked around for her and found the turquoise coat hanging from the coat stand. One of the bedrooms was closed shut. She must be inside. Satisfied, I changed into warmer clothes and picked a glass on my way to the balcony. I shook the stemware, as they do in movies, and inhaled the aroma of the red wine that was her favorite. 

I called out her name to let her know I was inside, waiting for her by our spot. With a small sip, I looked into the vastness of the heavens. A trembling sigh escaped my soul. Out of all the stars and all the constellations being obscured by the dark clouds, one was shining the brightest of them all. 

It wasn’t a coincidence; I knew it in my heart.

My dearest Cassiopeia was smiling down at me.