Widening

“Over the next few weeks, any time Mira and Annie ran into each other, something widened inside of them. Something was opening in Mira's chest, a portal to Annie and her open chest, which was widening in the direction of Mira. This widening was something that Mira had never felt before, or even known could be. It was like a vagina was stretching for a very large cock, but it was in her chest that this stretching was happen-ing, in the part of her that usually kept love out, that firmly preserved her insides. This was how she normally lived--with that part of her sealed shut. But now it was opening almost too wide, and a similar thing was happening in Annie.

What of the strength of our connections with certain people, and the weakness of our connections with certain other ones?

Seeing Annie for the first time, something in Mira recognized her. It was like their relationship already existed. It wasn't this way with most other people. It was Annie's apparent pre-existence, which seemed impossible to explain, which distinguished her from the rest. And it was strange for Mira to think 

3that, for other people, Annie was Just somcone passing on. he

street, that she was nothing at all.

With a few people in one's life, too much happens emotionally--more than even makes sense to happen, given how little has actually occurred. Such people are deeply ignit ing in a way that others are not. This igniting always happens in the very first instant and it never goes away. No stupidities can destroy the igniting, so even if those two people never meet again, a connection always remains. Mira felt this way about Annie. It wasn't that Mira had met her in some previous life. It was that she was meeting her in this one--and isn't that rare! Why is it so hard to meet in this life?

But the deeper question was: What was one supposed to do with such people? Fuck them, love them, or leave them alone?

Yet they seemed to call out to be acted upon. Mira could feel it.

But this had the potential of making her a nuisance in their life.

What was she supposed to do about the fact that she was experiencing a widening towards Annie? Yet to do something in response to this feeling could easily be embarrassing, because Mira didn't know if Annie felt called to be in Mira's life. Surely not everyone Mira felt called towards could believe their life was about a meeting with her.

On such occasions, it is often the gods who are to blame. They slip into a person like an amoeba, and from within one person, they watch another one--the one they have chosen to watch.

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So from within Annie, the gods were watching Mira, and from within Mira, the gods were watching Annie. It doesn't always happen mutually this way, but in their case it did - the gods just taking notes on humans, to make us better in the next draft of the world. Mira, who knew nothing of this, wondered what the intensity meant: Why Annie of all people on this earth? Why could she not stop thinking about Annie?

Every time they glanced at each other, or thought of each other a little bit, their chests widened more. They noticed hidden things about the other one, without even meaning to. All this seemed to be happening of its own accord, this laying down of a bridge on which things between them could pass; not necessarily sexual things, or even intimate things, but things as yet unknown. A road was being laid, though nothing was yet trav-elling on that road. Some workers were doing it--it was the gods-and it was happening far too quickly! They always worked so fast-so much faster than humans could ever under-stand. Mira felt nervous and confused: nothing of significance had even happened in the few times they had seen each other to account for such a solid road. The experience was painful, like her rib cage was being pried apart, so that worker hands could get at her heart. Then she could no longer deny the fact of this road that was being laid between them, straight into the deepest corner of Mira's chest, normally shuttered, now fung open wide; and if neither was ready to walk on the road quite yet, it was hard to believe they wouldn't soon be walking on it.“