• This hour of the night, the transcendental volumes of the early morning find me; my thoughts scatter languidly and my words ramble on. Is it because I'm comfortable with you? I like to think it so. We're different from the world, yet we find solace in this room, where the fire warms and the crickets sing from beyond our walls. We speak of road trips and the way the winds blow, and of autumnal rhymes and winter's reasons, yet we are set. You live a life that's your own, and I lay watching, waiting, knowing that after venturing from our walls, you find solace in me.

    I applaud you for that, you know. You can escape what we've built, are strong enough to survive the way they tear and torture what we believe. I hide, and sitting here in a room that's now cold, I eagerly await your return. I love it best when the fire is lively, the way it reflects in your eyes, in my mind.

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    You take up an apple and compare it to bees-'How silly', I think, and proclaim forth my theory of the universe and snow globes. Banter that exceeds our original ideals perpetrate our minds. Our nights spend so: warm and close, and loved.

    Yet, there are times when you speak of death. The fire immediately quells, the crickets hush, and the walls pause-quaking, not wanting to hear, and planning to run. That strange light in your eyes- can it be you plan to leave me? But you are old, and tell me so. I can't quite remember life before you, but you came and then so did the fire. I quell what you say, and forget it thus-I force the fire to grow anew, and I settle back down, and start to speak of ghosts and trees-a favorite of yours.

    You soon take your leave, and I eagerly await once more. The fire calms down to a dull roar, and for once I can feel the heat when you are away. Nearly ecstatic, I calm and wait.

    And wait.

    .....

    ...Where are you, my love? I've been waiting past our time. The morning hours are strangely silent, and I worry. Are you gone? I don't want to be alone, and you were always there. could it that you did leave? That death became you, and you fled? But why was this a necessary thing? We were to live forever in the confines of my mind- I let you in and gave you a key, and yet you through it back at my door. Answer me, respond to my questions!

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    All I hear is the fire growing dimmer- the crickets long gone.

    The walls are closing further, love.

    Help me, 'fore all is lost.