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Dirk watched the little thingy on the screen as he waited for the page to load. It was spinning around, spinning around. He was beyond impatience, and past the point of anger. He had given into the sadness of his situation, this temporary purgatory of his, and was transcending to a level of serenity so often sought and so often left unfulfilled.

He accepted his state of perpetual longing, seemed to have been lulled into it by that little spinning thing. Entranced by its peculiar repetition, how it would go in and out, in and out, Dirk had seen something ingenious in it. How it displayed a subtle, lyrical rhythm suggested a routine more complex than one would have originally thought. He brought himself closer to the screen, made his pupils contract into tiny, investigative pinholes. He squinted his eyes and did his best not to blink.

The thing spun, of course. It went in and out, as usual. Its cycle would overlap, begin again, and then again and again and again. It did what was expected of it, naturally, as was expected. What, earlier, had been a source of frustration for Dirk, was now the subject of extreme scrutiny and fascination. His eyes strained, his mind stilled, he was seeing the thing. It was changing, its pattern shifting slightly every sixth cycle, would expand once, twice, three times until contracting to its original size. Dirk imagined it was a breathing thing, saw life in it.

His eyes were irritated now and the white screen became a grey halo as he continued to focus all of his attention. There was something else, he knew, another secret embedded in the little snake on the screen. He got closer. His forehead touched the screen, his vision blurred. The snake distorted, started showing its true patterns. It moved organically now, broke the cycle of steady, circuitous movement. It zigged, zagged, wound and coiled. Always its head met its tail, never broke connection for even the most infinitesimal of moments. It began where it ended, and never really ended. It was beginning and beginning, always beginning.

His forehead was getting hot. His nose too. He began to sweat. Something happened then, something magnificent, something beautiful. Like cells dividing, the snake became two. A pair of twins, spinning and spinning, breathing in and breathing out, dancing around each other like songbirds. They even hummed a soft little hiss, distant but omnipresent. The song massaged Dirk’s brain, lulled him even further.

The snakes continued to dance, joining each other for a moment only to depart again a moment later. They drifted apart, floating away as if they never even knew each other, then they would crash back together as if two souls were meeting again for the first time in ages.

Then Dirk saw the best thing of all. When they met, they would conjoin, with one head eating the others tail, and vice versa. They were two things, originally from one thing, existing separately yet completely in oneness.

And then Dirk saw the saddest thing of all. When they separated, they were spiralling, lost things. Hopeless, he thought. He dreaded the time they were apart, wanted nothing but to see them returned. Sweat dripped down his face, tears welled in his eyes. Their drift began to falter, their trajectory curved. Dirk could see what was about to happen and was filled with anticipation, nervous to assume the outcome would be the one that he wished for. They had made their pivots and were facing each other now. They sat frozen for a moment, or was it two moments?

Dirk began to panic, began to lose faith in the world. His serenity was a bowl of water held up by two pillars, and right now they were too far apart to do any good. If the bowl fell it would shatter and Dirk’s whole being would flood out of him and he would be nothing. He focused harder than he ever had before. He looked past the two snakes, beyond the white screen, and closed his eyes. He saw a new thing there, behind his eyelids. It was a room.

He stepped out into the void that was the room, saw that the walls behind him were pink and curved and that they disappeared into the darkness. He put another foot forward, and then another. He walked until he saw no discernable wall behind him and nothing, still, in front of him.

He continued forward. He heard that sound again, the song of the two snakes, an echoing hiss. He saw only blackness for a long time, and then in that blackness a shape barely discernible revealed itself. It was the ghost of the first snake, burned so deep into Dirk’s vision that he was still seeing it. It was spinning as it had in life, going in and out, overlapping, beginning and beginning. And then the ghost separated, was reunited with its ghost partner. They danced as they had in life, wild and free. The hissing became higher pitched, a kind of a whine. Dirk thought it was heavenly and wouldn’t want to hear anything else. He saw them spiral away, but he wasn’t worried, for he knew they would return and be happier than they ever had been before. He knew this was the way their lives were lived, and he accepted that, finding joy even in their separation. The world was coming back to him then. Dirk opened his eyes and saw the two snakes conjoined again, taking only what they gave and giving what was asked. Dirk eyes were full of water. 

And then… 

… just like that they snapped back together. The snake had disappeared, had become an unassuming little thing again, a point of frustration, a metaphor for life in solitude, going on and on and never breaking the cycle, never ending, until…  

… an unceremonious bloop. The thingy disappeared for good, was replaced by a box with five words, “Your Session has Timed Out.” Dirk wailed. A soft wail that only just creaked out of him. A single tear rolled down onto his cheek as he reloaded the page. But then… 

… Dirk smiled, and his watery eyes became bright. He looked out the window and saw two little birds chasing each other through a tree. He had a thought then that he was happy, truly happy, and that whatever he was looking up could wait. And so it did.