How He Knew the Words

He was, as an intellectual would say, academically inclined within varied topics of conversation. She was, as an intellectual would say, less so. He could name you one-hundred-seventy-three countries out of a setlist of one-hundred-ninety-five upon sudden request, their capital cities included. He could recite federal laws as if they comprised his weekly shopping list and could tell you intricate details of specific attacks that occurred during the World Wars. When asked how his reply was always simple; 

“Live by the words, they possess a symphony of knowledge.” 

No one understood what he possibly could have meant by this, but he truly lived by the words. She did less so. She could name you only a few countries from her continent and lacked all perceivable understanding of government and righteous law. She had minimal opinions regarding the World Wars and seemed to only shadow his knowledge of great superiority. When asked how her reply was always simple;

“Time is much too scarce to know of the words, for the true symphony is the sound of a beating heart.”

No one understood what she could have possibly meant by this, but she truly lived her words. The academically inclined boy and the less so girl became known for their vast differences and fell in love. A love so true and pure, it outlived any other matrimonial bond. He lived by his words; she lived her words. But every night she would lie in bed next to him and wonder how he could know the words; how could he possess knowledge superior to any other whilst she could speak of no more than the unimportant?

“You taught me the words,” he would say in an honest tone. “The words of which I speak have been gifted to my soul by you only. I wish desperately you could notice what you have given me, what you have so loving instilled within myself. You mustn’t dwell, for words mean none when I gaze upon you.”

She gave him purpose, a reason to say the words, but he did so in such a deeply intimate way, she became self-conscious of what she lacked. He ensured her consistently, but she knew her words were limited, as was her time. Her motto of not letting the words control her being was now untrue, a great lie as her morals were in question.     

“I have no words, and my time is running thin,” she would desperately plea to him. He would hold her tight and whisper his sweet nothings into her ear, dragging his hand over her amber locks that bundled at the nape and wisped across her forehead in a way of which he adored. They were at their peak, and she knew he would only prosper whilst she could further dwindle afar. 

On a night of which he read in his private study, she grasped her neck, an undying hold, and paused other movements. Her fingers cut deep into her throat and she deprived herself of the oxygen needed to survive any longer as her body stilled. She lacked the words compared to him, and once upon a time she never paid heed to such facts, but through that time, she fevered his opinions and grew sicker within herself, taking her breath away. 

He lived his words; she died for a motive the same.

He found her gone, a windless corpse of once hope. Kneeling by her bruised neck, he tucked her amber curls behind her pleasant ear and sang a melody she adored; a melody she used to adore. His voice broke with tears threatening to escape the barrier of his eyelids. 

“You’re foolish,” he whispered through choked sobs, yet her silent lips made no reply. He had worshipped her, bowed to her, but she was no longer. 

Not but a few weeks past, he had seen himself become weak. When he thought his skin was steel, others saw only how he had corroded. When he had made it clear he would never allow any more into his heart, others saw a sorrowful being filled with denial and unalloyed culpability. He sat, poised, amongst his deathbed, but unsure of whether to go further.

After mourning her end for months too many, the academically inclined boy became strong; a bulletproof sheath that encased his interior. He had gotten past the state of depression, through the phase where he had thought of joining her in ending his life, and now was his time for repair. 

He focused so entirely on rebuilding his exterior to refuse the entry of others, that he had forgotten to live by the words. A symphony of knowledge he was no longer as his truest of inspirations had so carelessly vanished. 

All would ask, far past concernment, whether he could ever be the same once more; a joyously intelligent man with hope. He would never reply. Speechlessness was an understatement for what he was experiencing. This was an abduction of all verbal expression; the arrest of his freedom to speak. No one understood why he simply would not answer, but they did not know her as personally as he had, hence, they could not have known his suffering. 

Years later, as his life was coming to an inevitable cease, he had yet to speak of anything since her passing. He stayed locked in his home and made contact with none. Others had forgotten he had ever existed, something he wished would happen with his memories of her. But upon a final reflection, he realized forgetting her was to forget his life as well. She was, as an intellectual would say, the unbroken definition of who he was and who he will ever be.

With only her on his mind, in the most delightful of ways, he recollects the pleasant points and inhales one concluding breath; releasing that breath with the whisper of words on his lips.

“See you soon.”

As the eleventh hour turned noon, he lost his pulse. The academically inclined boy and the less so girl had experienced their lives fully and were ready to meet once more. They had fallen entranced by each other’s simple habits, loved and laughed in a way no other could relate and went through a life they could be gratified with as a lesson was learned throughout it. 

They had taken each other’s breath away, and from then on, words did not matter.