Absurdist Fantasies

It was cloudy the day she arrived to Foresta. Of course, it would be. Caroline knew that she still missed her home and loathed running away like she had, but this was supposed to be a new start. An unscarred beginning forged from the death she herself had wrought.

Maybe it would rain. She hoped it would. The breeze smelled heavy and she could let the world's silence surround her instead of her own unnatural wall. She hadn't brought much- her only bag was on its way to her new accomodations via an overpaid taxi driver.

Caroline headed towards the weeping willow, unsure why she had strayed into the meadow to begin with. Her light blue skirt caught on the grasses... not that she minded. There was nobody out here to impress, no call to put up a mask for the benefit of others.

A droplet hit the side of her face and she sighed. Catharsis.

Tobias had been reading and, more importantly, napping. He enjoyed going to the meadow to distress, especially after having dealt with the full moon. When he meditated, stretching out his long limbs, not bothering to worry about how his shirt rode up reviling a pale concave stomach and a thick trail of hair. He could never find clothing that fit properly. He was far too thin to shop at Big and Tall specialty shops. His long, charcoal black hair got caught in the wind and fell over his face. He breathed deeply. It was one of the few times he didn’t need a cigarette. But on that last inhale he caught a familiar scent. One he hadn’t smelt in a long time…it seemed like years.

Tobias sat up, the folds of his shirt falling to his waistband and squinted in the direction toward the willow tree. He removed his reading glasses, blinking into the uncomfortable light that only a storm could bring. His brow furrowed. “Caroline?” he muttered, mouth a gape. He felt her name vibrate out of his throat. Had he whispered it, like a lost poem suddenly remembered, or had he called to her?

The meadow's grass and the murmur of the wind created enough movement for her not to notice the familiar figure sitting up out of the grass.

But he was kind of hard to miss, given that he wasn't bending with the breeze like the plants around them. Caroline halted in her place, his name stuck in her throat like a rock.

Was she imagining this? Why would Tobias be here, of all the places he could have been at? The coincidence was enough to make her feel slightly ill.

The drizzle began to grow heavier as she regarded him, making no apparent effort to move. Was life really so cruel as to dangle such reminders in front of her so soon after she had uprooted herself? Her name drifted past her ears, but she wasn't sure... wasn't sure that this was real.

We are tragedians, you see? We follow directions. There is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily, the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means.

The line from Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead drifted through her head before she began to approach the man she hoped was not really there. If he was, then surely there was no such thing as free choice. Fate had slapped her soundly across the face again.

She finally whispered, "Tobias... is that really... you?"

... we are now held within un-, sub- or super-natural forces...

Tobias stood, whipping of the back of his trousers with large square hands. His lip trembled slightly, before he set his stubble jaw. The last time he had seen Caroline, he looked much healthier than he did now, and he had quit smoking for her entirely, but once the divide happened the habit grew once more. “Caroline,” he said again. Unsure if he was happy and relieved that she was still alright, or embarrassed that they were facing each other once more. He didn’t know what to say. His eyes searched the sky, his tongue searched for words. “You’re here,” was the only thing he could come up with.

His hands found his way through his hair, and to the cigarette tucked behind his ear. He lit the cigarette and twisted his nose ring nervously. He offered her a smile. He looked at her. He looked through her. She was still beautiful, so fresh in his memory. He could still feel the softness of her hair and the roughness of her skin. “How are things?” he asked, cupping the cigarette so it wouldn’t get wet and snuff out from the drizzle.

"I am." It was still hard to speak. God, she had enough to think about without past flames showing up to haunt her!

It certainly did not help that she didn't know how to answer him. It wasn't like she was going to recount how she ended up here, or why she had come in the first place. So she simply said, "Different." She halfheartedly tried to return his smile, then sighed when it wouldn't come. To hide her own disappointment, she turned away and looked at the willow instead.

"And you?" Why the Hell was it like this? Oh, right. Because things were always, and would forever be, awkward when it came to her feelings about Tobias. She searched for something to say, but only came out with, "I see you've started smoking again..."

D*****, this isn't what I wanted to say! Quick, try to save the conversation!

She turned, blurted, "We're the opposite of people!", and began running towards the willow as the downpour truly began. Heat stung her cheeks as mortification took over from mere awkwardness.


Great... not only do I sound stupid and awkward, but crazy to boot.

Tobias ran after her, also seeking the shelter of the tree. “I didn’t quite catch that last thing you said about the people bit?” he said, shaking water from his hair. He had shrugged off the comment about the smoking. He needed a fix. Bits of mud and grass clung to his bare feet. The sky lit up in a flash then darkened once more. Five beats later came the heavy roll of thunder. He took a hand and passed it over his face, water slid away from his sharp features. He stepped back, distancing himself from her, and secretly mourning the fact that he had left his paper back on the hilltop. He imagined the pages wilting in the rain. Smoke curled out of his lips. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he murmured.

Caroline pushed some willow tendrils aside and looked out apprehensively at the storm. Was it safe to be underneath the only tree in the meadow if there was lightning about? She glanced at the tree... no apparent scorch marks, though she wouldn't put it past good ol' Fate to rip her a new one just for making assumptions.

"Nor I you, but there's no way a split like that can leave either side unhurt," she replied earnestly, her coffee-colored eyes averting from the storm to study his face. Water dripped down her face and made her hair curl wildly where it was beginning to dry. A flash of lightning turned her into an unreadable silhouette for a second.

Red colored her cheekbones as she added, "The thing about not being people was from a play. The character who said that was referring to actors. It's a joke, you see, for even those in the play who aren't playing actors ARE actors. They are as much slaves to a script as the Tragedians, but they just don't acknowledge it."

She turned away again, sighing at how strange this must sound. "The main characters don't know where they came from, where they're supposed to go... they just react to cues and try to figure things out as they progress."

Caroline chuckled. "An accurate reflection of Life, I think. 'All the world's a stage and all the men and women are players'. We're just stumbling around in the dark, looking for the script we dropped somewhere."

She knelt down and wrung out her skirt. Tobias already knew about the scars so she didn't feel particularly perturbed that the ones on her calf showed as she did this. Caroline was more annoyed that she had descended into a philosophical rant, so she shrugged and said cooly, "Anyways... how long have you been here? Still interested in History?" She stood up. "I want to hear everything."

Tobias listened to her, mouth hanging ajar. She was so perceptive, so intuitive. He felt incredibly stupid around her. “You’re so smart…” he muttered like a child fascinated by the world unfolding before him. In these moments, he didn’t feel like the prodigy people demanded calling him. He felt less than adequate. He spun his nose ring around a few times, then let his hand fall to his pocket and searched for another smoke. “Well yeah, history’s my thing. But when I came here somebody already had the job. So, I thought ‘hey why not, I have a minor in a psychology from my masters program’….and now I’m the therapist.” He laughed, a heavy bark like life that came deep from his belly. “Ironic isn’t it?”

He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Thanks to his terrifically horrible short-term memory, Tobias had forgotten why she had left him. Or had he left her? Was it his past, the destruction he could cause, that scared her away? He scratched at his ribcage and sighed, having run out of things to say. “Um…I um. I’m gad you’re here.”

Caroline shrugged the smart comment away. She was an English teacher. She was supposed to be able to read between the lines, to pull meanings out of thin air and apply to them to the real world. That was the true value of her subject. Words taught life.

However, she couldn't stifle a chuckle at Tobias's new occupation. "You? Really? Wow. That is ironic." She looked into his eyes and came to a conclusion. "But I think it fits. You, more than most of the people I've ever known, would understand what these kids are going through."

Caroline smiled and nodded. "I wasn't sure at first, but I'm kind of glad that you're here too, Tobias." Thunder punctuated her statement and the willow's branches danced in the rising wind.

Tobias's smoke likewise responded to the currents and her eyes followed its path before returning to his face. She remembered the last time she saw it... their emotional had told her that their moon-wild fling was over long before they'd physically parted ways. That last goodbye had been painful but inevitable.

Caroline always believed she was the one to pull away first. After all, her first compulsion after reliving a nightmare was to run away and she did so, just without physically going anywhere. Nobody had meant to hurt anybody, but it happened and that was that.

Now, standing under a dancing tree in the middle of a storm-swaying field, she felt closer to Tobias than she had in the days before they split. However, she knew that she had issues to deal with before ever trying to play the game. Her heart was steeled against falling for him again.

She'd come here for a beginning, not a revival.

"This storm may take a while to pass," she commented, looking out at the flailing grasses. "But I think I'll wait it out here."

“I’ll wait with you,” Tobias muttered. He sat on his heals and lit another cigarette, cupping it like a convict, so that the only thing visible was the pale blue smoke rising up out from between his fingers. It was easier to stay low to the damp grass. Due to his size his head was dangerously close to knocking against a low hanging branch. The ends of the willow branches tickled and stung his face, so he moved closer to the trunk and leaned against it. He didn’t mind the rain, and didn’t mind being caught in it or walking through it, but if Caroline was here, he wanted to wait it out with her. He wanted her to feel comfortable and at ease. He shook his head until the bangs fell away from his face.

Again he scratched at his jaw, stealing glances at the little scars peaking out from her clothing. He shuttered, barely remembering that night. He knew how animal he had been and how dangerous he was. He was even more dangerous now…he could feel himself distancing from the human side of him and wanted desperately to be at a union, until then, he forced himself to do a number of things to be less damaging. Like staying thin, for example, and locking himself up in chains in his office. The wind shifted and the rain started beating against his pants legs, weighing him down. He stood to his full height and examined the sky. It didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon, his book had most definitely been destroyed.

Caroline leaned against the tree, thinking. She found that lately she would fall into deep internal debate about the way things were and her tactics. It never worked. Everytime she seemed to get a grasp on the situation, control would inevitably get yanked from her frail human hands.

Even in her thoughts, she noticed Tobias's shudder. She said wryly, "Penny for your thoughts."

Her clothes were sticking uncomfortably to her skin and she became increasingly cold, but she didn't let on any of this. Another rumble of thunder almost shook the ground with its loudness. Inwardly, she wondered why Tobias had gone back to being too skinny for his own good. Yes, she had noticed. It was hard not to. He had looked healthy last time she saw him.

Tobias raised his brows. “It’s nothing.” The heaviness of his wet shirt started to bother him, so he took it off and rung it out in his hands. The rainwater splashed into the mud forming a small puddle at his feet. So here they were, in an impossibly romantic comedy situation. He wanted to run his fingers through her rich red, wet hair. He wanted to do so many things carnally that the man in him would protest to, but the wolf in him desired to do. He threw on his shirt and looked up at the sky again. Little bits of grey light poked through the heavy rain clouds. “It might be slowing down,” he muttered, brushing back his hair and keeping a proper distance from Caroline.

Caroline's eyes dimmed a little. Yes, it had been somewhat toward for her to ask. It wasn't like she really knew him anymore. Still, the distance hurt a little.

It was like going home only to find your house deserted and all you knew as a child broken and covered in dust. Her eyes watched him as he wrung out his shirt.

She moved to leave the limited shelter of the willow tree and smoothly lied, "Same. Well, it's been good seeing you again, Tobias. I have to go settle in."

Caroline glanced back before leaving and said, just as a distant grumble of thunder marked the storm's exit, "'But, orderly to end where I begun/ Our wills and fates do so contrary run/ that our devices still are overthrown;/ Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.'"

A quote from a play within a play. How very fitting. She withdrew into the dying storm with nothing left to say and everything left to do.

Tobias, pulling on his shirt, ran after her. “Hey!” He called, gasping for breath. He was a shite runner. There was a point where he had been moderately good at it, once he had quit smoking and put on some muscle, but now it was a forced action once more. “Look,” he said stepping in front of her and walking backwards for a ways, so he could face her. “Lets not be all distant like this, alright love?”

Stray bits of water fell down his nose and caressed his angular jaw. The sound of thunder became ever more distant and now the flashing lightning only came have heartedly. He kept his icy blue eyes on Caroline, searching for a sign of regret or a clue of something, anything that showed that she still felt for him. That she was confused and worried like him.

What was her cue? It was so hard to come up with the right things to say nowadays. She didn't want it to be like it was when they had last known each other. Fighting at every turn, whirlwinds of raging emotions and opposite natures.

Yet she found herself withdrawing, creating more distance between them. This wasn't fair, for her or for him. "Perhaps you don't understand how I feel," she found herself saying. "I had made my final bow to my old life, and now I seem to have stepped back onto the stage with a ghost to start off what must be Act Two. I don't want to continue the same play, Tobias! I just want to be a new character, with new lines and no past to haunt me."

Her hands were in fists as she became visibly upset. "And YOU! You act distant, yet say something completely different! I can't be sure what to think anymore because I'm plagued with coincidences and repetitions. And you speak of distance! I run and run and no matter where I go, everything catches up to me." Her voice grew as the wind picked up a little.
"It's all very well for you, Tobias... but for me, it's like you have never changed! You're exactly as you were when I first fell in lov- saw you and I can't..." She stubbornly held back tears at this point, almost losing control entirely, "... I can't... It's the same drama, over and over... I cannot..."

Dammit, she was losing steam. And the wind bit through her sodden clothes like a vicious set of fangs.