It wasn’t that he was daydreaming. He really just wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for years. He performed all that was needed of him without being involved in any of it. Wooden and robotic, he slogged through the few activities that he allowed for himself like he was walking in deep snow. He didn’t see color anymore, or hear music. He could no longer smell fresh bread. He ate bland food and wore cheap, coarse clothes. He would trudge resentfully from his tiny dismal apartment to his factory job every day. There he would stand unblinkingly for hours, for the meal break he’d sit in the same spot and mechanically chew a morsel from his pocket. At the end of the shift he’d trudge back to his hovel only to stare at the blank walls.
Before she’d left he’d been a vibrant man. Literally dancing to his inner music all his waking hours. Laughing in his sleep the way some people talk. After she was gone there was no joy in him. It’s not that she’d “left him.” She’d never been his to begin with. He’d always known that. She was an elemental entity, a force of nature. Passing away into her own future the way one season cedes it’s rule to the next. There’s no sense to cursing the summer for passing, it had never given a promise to stay. He wasn’t really in mourning either. He’d had his moment in the warmth and he’d reveled in it. Now he waited for his end, neither impatiently nor with anger.
Sometimes he’d look to that box and it would transport him back to their time. That box... Carved ivory and jade, from India. They’d found it together in a garage sale. The ivory had dimmed and the jade had grown dusty and the seller thought it was just wood and green rocks. They realized that they’d discovered something ancient and precious when they got it home and started to clean it. Intricate carvings of mythical beings with magical toys, most with clearly sexual intent. An elaborate story of sexual and romantic discovery proceeded around the outside. A graphic notebook of the Karma Sutra. They’d tried to mimic all the sexual positions on the box. They’d accomplished most of them, though some required better physical condition than either of them had. Others clearly required magical abilities. That box, and the one thing inside it, were the aggregate total of all the beauty and joy that was possible while a soul was still imprisoned in human form.
The one thing inside it was the only remnant he had of her presence. The only way he could be sure their time wasn’t merely a dream. He’d look upon it rarely, touch it almost never. It was there for him as an icon, a relic of transcendent love and sacred unity. They’d been basking in the glow of their daylong lovemaking when something changed. Subtle shifts in the breeze brought him to look into her eyes. She’d reached across him and caressed the box, then kissed him. A long languid loving kiss. Then she’d gotten dressed and left. He knew she’d never be back.
He’d lain there hours on hours, perhaps even days. He couldn’t be sure. Eventually a cool gust of air with a hint of rain caused him to turn away from the window. That’s when he saw the pair of panties she’d left behind. Just a tiny single bit of lace, laid out folded on the pillow. She’d left them intentionally. Oddly, nothing else retained a hint of her. The sheets she’d slept on, the places she’d sat, even people. No one seemed to remember her quite exactly. She’d passed through all things like a pleasant thought in the middle of a busy day. She’d left only this, and only for him.
Now he looked at them, he touched them. He was taken outside his tedious existence and brought into the presence of the divine. Her aroma, her touch, the tinkling bells of her laughter and the music of her voice. Her skin like flawless Chinese porcelain. Her hair so blonde it could blind you. Her eyes, what could he say about her eyes... The turning of the cosmos and the lyres of the ages there in those human, mischievous eyes. He brought the box onto his lap and lifted the panties to his cheek. His breath caught in his throat and his pulse doubled.
He was taken away from his dismal squalor and he was there with her, in the temple of their love, in the meadows of their frolic, buoyed in the water of their union. A simple bit of silk lace took him all these places and more. He was with her, and his soul was completed. He achieved an eternal moment of ecstasy.
Then he died.