singularity

If you'd find yourself here on my side of town. I'd pray that you'd come to my door.

So there’s the two of us, walking down the street side by side.

It’s just one of those many beautiful parts of the day. Dusk. Sunrises have their own splendor, but the blemishes in the sky we see are merely a prelude to the coming day. They’re just splotches on a canvas that are eventually layered over. When the sun is going down, it’s as if an actor on stage is coloring our ears with his last words before the stage lights go out --before darkness plummets down and that slowly released breath before tumultuous applause takes over.

Dusk somehow feels more intimate. That’s how it felt for me – and maybe for you, too? It’s as if we were the only ones witnessing the sky’s last, brief murmurs before it succumbed to the darkness. But this kind of intimacy is a lie. It’s like being in love. You think that you’re the only one on earth that can possibly understand the euphoria of being in an extraordinary relationship. Too bad everyone else shares that same intimacy, that same euphoria, given the opportunity.

I’d like to think though, that we’re meant to relate with each other in these seemingly personal, individual moments.

Or maybe I should feel cheated that such a personal, profound moment has to be shared with other people. Or maybe knowing that it’s such a common emotion makes it somehow less significant. I don’t know.

Our arms graze naturally as a result of our slightly mismatched gaits. I swear I didn’t mean to brush my arm against yours, but suddenly I have this unexplained impulse to put my hand in yours. To establish that the brief contact we just made can be solidified – made real.

It’s not just the question of whether the feeling will be reciprocated and that the spaces between my fingers will be filled with yours. It’s not even the question of whether you’ll pull me towards you and how there will be some unformed question in my eyes met by an unformed answer in yours.

I want so much more than that. Because people too often cheapen what those three words really mean. I don’t want something just in that moment. I want some sort of promise that I mean more than what has come before--that nothing before can even compare; that I mean more than anything that exists now—that no one now can even compare; and that I mean more than anything that will come in the future – that no one in the future will ever compare.

But how is that even possible? To ask that of you now before I’ve even solidified into words my tentative feelings is preposterous. To ask you to give vows of something that is real and lasting would be unfair. Truly, the words could have no more validity than the confessions of a typical middleschooler leaning against a locker, carefully gelled hair falling artfully into his eyes, promising his eternal love to his first girlfriend. To ask for guarantees just isn’t realistic.

I’m stuck between what is rational and what I secretly want.

So I bring my arm closer to my side, tucking my hand into my pocket, hiding away the possibility of that moment. The impulse fades just like the sun that is swallowed up.

And then I get that call. Is it from the cell phone vibrating in my jacket? Some sort of custom-made pager clipped to my belt? Or maybe it’s like Batman – a signal lighting up what has already moved from dusk to night. It doesn’t matter. That’s not important. What’s important is that the world needs saving, and I’m the one to do it.

I’m a superhero after all.

I could dash off into the darkness, without any sort of explanation to you. But this time, inexplicably, I want to turn to you and ask you to come with me.

I’m not Superman. I can’t go through life keeping everything hidden from Lois Lane. Granted, she couldn’t be the smartest person in the world if a pair of glasses kept her from ever guessing that Clark Kent was Superman. But she deserved to know, didn’t she?

We can fly out together to Shanghai, Argentina, or wherever the distress signal is coming from. Save the world – put out fires, defend the indigenous people from the threats of the greedy corporate world, save people from falling bombs or hurled grenades, put criminals behind bars, or get rid of that nuisance called Godzilla once and for all. We could do all of the above.

Then on the way back, we can pick up from where we left off. We can watch the sun rise from the clay shingle rooftops of some cottages in Tuscany. We can lie down on the grass and pretend we’re looking for shooting stars at night. We can have one of those vending machine coffees (some of the good ones) while we wait under an overhang, letting the pouring rain fill our eyes, our ears, our minds. Watch as everything slows down under the torrent.

Or maybe we can go back to that street, walking side by side…Maybe this time hand in hand. Maybe when you reach out to grasp my hand in yours, I’ll actually let you. Or maybe I’ll actually be the one to take yours.

Or maybe, given the opportunity, I’ll still take my hand, my heart, away and hide it away safely.

Because what if love is like a great big star in the sky? When a star dies, it collapses in on itself out of existence. The gravity of what used to be there is so strong that it pulls everything in, becoming a big black hole in the sky. It devours so much that not even light can escape it. A big, dark, empty void. And then what are you left with? If love is so great, why does it have this potential to destroy? Or perhaps the point is that without love, the suffocating emptiness is too vast.

Then again, at the same time, when you’re swallowed up by a black hole – a singularity – scientists say that it has the possibility, the ability, to transport you somewhere completely different. Completely new.

And that could be the beauty of it. Out of the depths of crushing gravity, we can emerge somewhere and somehow different. New. Transfigured.

Honestly though, it’s too much to think about. Death and crushing darkness and promises of forevers and transfigurations and saying “I love you.” I can’t pretend to know nearly half of all the motivations and desires and hopes and realities of the world. I don’t even know if I’m hopelessly romantic or downright skeptic.

So I turn to you and ask if you want to come with me. If you take my outstretched hand at this moment… then we can first worry about saving the world.

And then maybe later we can think about what else this means – your fingers wrapped around mine.