Dog-faced demons surround the circumferance of my sanctuary... this is the book of the servant of the gods

I walk home, thinking of the various and indescribable things that may be happening as I safely take each step. I count my heart-beats, because I do not know how else to occupy my thoughts. Heart-beats are better than the thoughts that keep flashing across my vision.

I support her, I truly do. Her ability to speak for the underdog necessitates what she is currently doing, and though I do not think it her responsibility, the distinction she has as a verbal advocate for any cause that needs to be told- in short, her duties as a journalist- allows her to give power to those that require aid.

Still, what of the delicate touch of her hand on my cheek? What of the loving eyes that stare deeply into mine? Are those eyes shocked and appalled by what they are seeing? Are her hands dirty and bloodstained?

She came to me one day and asked if I would still love her, even after she made a foolish decision. I had no choice but to tell her the truth: I loved her unconditionally and uncontrollably. It was not a matter of my permission. I did not tell myself to love her, and I could not tell myself to stop loving her, no matter what she would do.

I watched her leave, beautiful in her glow- that special glow that only she had ever managed to show me. I had seen beautiful women in my day, but none that glow as she does, and none that ever will. The look she gives me, at once vulnerable and strong, at once intelligent and naive, those eyes... what are they seeing now?

The news has become more than a mere fascination. The issues present, though they might be distant in physicality, are nearer to me than the people I meet on the streets. I am not here. I am with her, dodging bullets and risking abduction. I fear to look over my shoulder, for I am of a visible foreign culture, and in this land, being visibly an outsider is cause enough for a beheading. This happens though my head will never be attacked. I fear even though the car pulling around the corner will never be for me, the driver more than likely has no firearm, and there is no mission that will make me its martyr.

Communication is weak at best. It is not a 'hello' she wishes to transmit from this violent land, but tales from normality. She wants to show the side that does not carry guns, that abhors violence and wishes to be freed from its tyrannical clutches. But she is my love, my wife, my life... and her heartbeats are my own, and as hers are risked, so are mine.

My heart does not beat alone like this. She was adamant that I did not follow. Her arguments were too cold, too true: why create a bigger group of visible foreigners that would be easier to attack, to separate, to use against each other? Why risk two heads needlessly, when only one head was required for the story to be told?

I kick a can. The can is my only vestige of hope. It cares not for me, and it is inconsequential. It will not fire back, it has no religious denomination, it will not fight in the same manner as the crusades. It will not kidnap me and demand that I convert religions publicly. It will not curse me as different, as an insurgent or an infidel. It has no ties to any ancient tradition or culture, and it does not resist the gentle push of my foot.

I am dead. I do not know what to do with myself. Work has been a constant game of fighting against distraction. I pummel away at my keyboard, not knowing what I am seeing on the monitor. Luckily, my occupation has become automatic. I search out errors in code with precision and automation, not registering in my consciousness what my subconscious manages with deft ability.

I contemplate what it means to crusade. I think about the other side, the violent side. I cannot help it, though they are my enemy, though I hate them. I think about what drives them, how a person can feel that conversion is the only source of salvation. I wonder what it must feel like to think everything is a lie unless it is globally accepted; I stare at my computer screen, aware of how few people that I meet on the street truly understand the world in which I live, my beliefs and philosophies. Am I a failure of my beliefs because I refuse to kill or die for them?

But then again, I know the deeper truth. My heart beats quickly as I imagine what would happen if things went wrong. My life would suddenly be devoid of meaning, and my mind would be incapable of rationality. Revenge would be the only fuel my body and soul would accept. In short, I know in my heart that if anyone ever harmed her, I would make it my life's mission to make them pay, in whatever way my inner animal deemed necessary.

Love has always been an abstract that rarely refuses to kill or die. I know in my heart the feeling of death, of dying a little bit at separation. I know the feeling of being alone with the thought of everything changing, with one little flicker of information.

And just like that, I hear the news. My world collapses as quickly as a supernova. I feel my heart sink into the ground, I cannot hold myself up. There is nothing for me on this world now, and it is all I can do not to implode, to disappear into myself and vanish into the air. I try desperately to breathe. Those around me, my co-workers, know what is happening and can only stare helplessly. One of them attempts to come near me. I curse incoherently and run off.

I want to be alone. So I return home. Though I try not to, the minute I walk through the door, a wave of memories hits me. I cross the threshold of my abode and remember carrying her through the door, smiling and being kissed by a loving partner. As I slam into the entryway, I see a picture of her, smiling back at me. I want to cry, curse, explode, destroy... all at the same time.

I can't breathe... I fall on my knees, and the world becomes a blur through my tears. I do not know what this is, this... loneliness. Even when separated, there was always the knowledge that she existed, somewhere, and now...

I manage to eat something. I sit at the table, quietly munching and nibbling slowly at my food. It has no taste, and my throat feels too swollen to eat anything. Is that my heart? I contemplate doing something I cannot do... it would be so easy to take a few pills, down it with a bottle of vodka. But I know that I cannot. She died for the sake of others; I cannot die for my own selfishness. But I am well aware that I am not alive, either.

I can never be.

I fumble my way upstairs. Each step makes me think of just falling down, cracking my neck. The sound of a cracking bit of wood makes me visualize my own end, and it comes with a wave of satisfaction. I cannot help it, it just comes. The imagination has a way of giving people what they want, even beyond their own conscious desires, and I am face to face with the knowledge that my world has been forever changed.

I fall onto the bed, and cry. My wails explode from my lungs; I begin to hyperventilate. H-h-how can this be?!

I wonder if she sees me, weak and blubbering. I wonder if she sees me as my tears begin to sting my eyes, as my breathing becomes irregular, as I finally accept my fate and drift into the deepest slumber I have had in a long while.

She is there. I can see her. She smiles and dances around me, her hand trailing against me. I go to touch her, to hold her in my hands, to lift her up above me and watch as she laughs, looking down at me. But when I move, she disappears. She turns to smoke and dances around me, a vapor, nothingness.

A loud crash from downstairs wakes me from my sleep. I slowly walk downstairs, expecting the worse. I realize now that I truly want to live, because for a moment I imagine it to be a spy-killer, sent to kidnap the foreigner. I step cautiously, avoiding the steps I know to creak. And as I slip into the living room, I see her. I am awake, or at least in a state of sleepwalking. And I see her, in the living room, standing still.

I approach her. "What is this?" I say to myself, to anyone who is willing to listen. "She can't be real, and yet you torture me with visions of her beauty?" I walk up to her, hoping to touch her, hoping to find resistance to my fingertips. I expect the vapor from my dreams, for her to disintegrate into nothingness. Neither occurs. Instead, she neither resists my touch nor acknowledges it. I connect with no other physical substance, nor do I shake any settling vapors.

She turns around. I look into her eyes and I know that I am not asleep. I do not see the faceless, vague and uncomfortably general face that we meet in dreams. Hers is not an imperfect image but one of the finest of details. This is not my memory conjuring its own database of information. I am reminded of her lips, of her smile, of the glitter in her eye when she sees me. All of these were not my subconscious, but could only have been her beautiful perfection.

With that look, I forgot about pain. I knew only happiness and the purest of bliss. I knew not lust nor loneliness, temptation nor aggravation or any sense of abandonment. All I knew was that, staring at me, my world had returned.

I walked up to her, to touch her. She looked at me, curious. I recognized the look: it was the look she gave when she returned to me from a long time away. It was the look that told me she remembered the details of my face, of my gaze. It was the look only those with devoted love and a purity of affection could ever understand.

I approached her and she began to scream in my face. I thought the scream would strip my flesh from the bones. She screamed again and again, with all of her capacity. I struggled desperately to calm her, and I began to cry from my helplessness. I told her I loved her, told her that I forgave her, told her that we would rebuild in another world, that we would be forever, that our love would never die, but still she continued to scream and scream.

And then I saw her neck begin to bleed. At first I thought I had imagined it, a dark shadow that crossed over her by accident. But it started to drip across her collarbone, and I could do nothing to stop the flow. I tried blocking the blood with a towel, but the towel only became soaked. I cried, I screamed, and her screams began to become bloody and choked. I cursed, I yelled, I committed blasphemy, but nothing, no force of my will, could stop the flow of blood from her gorgeous neck.

I began to shake. The world began to change colors for me, not out of any physical change but I was beginning to panic, I was beginning to lose my mind. I screamed at her to stop, screamed at her that she should never have left in the first place. I cried and tried to stop the blood; I cried and tried to kiss her, but when I did, she vanished, leaving only a high, gurgling sound that could only be the final breath of a human being.

I do not remember what happened next. All I recall is that I began to cry so desperately that I deprived my body of oxygen to the point in which I simply passed out, asleep before I realized what was happening. I was not aware that this was even possible, but in the limits of life you find the strangest of occurrences.

I woke up, and I thought to myself that what I had experienced may have been a dream after all. I almost convinced myself of this, except for the bloody towel that greeted me shortly from my waking-point. The towel had soaked into the hardwood floor to some degree, and the resulting stain was a dark brown. I picked up the towel, and dropped it immediately when I felt its heavy wetness. I looked at my hands, which were covered in blood. My lower lip quivered and I stared for a moment in disbelief.

And now I come to you, attempting to tell my version of the story. You stare at me, and I can tell you do not believe in my story. You think I have certainly lost my mind, and have begun to hallucinate. But I must ask you, does it truly make a difference? She haunts me, whether in reality or in metaphor, and her presence lingers around me. She suffers for each moment that I hold unto her, but I have no choice.

I am much more frightened by the sights I will see, the horrors I will feel and experience, if I give up and abandon her now that she is in another world. I must find this world at all costs, and stop the bleeding.

I must stop the bleeding. I must.