Once there was a boy. He was a lonely boy, who never really seemed to connect with the rest of the world. This disconnect troubled his family, who worried about him but didn’t know how to reach him.
The boy was smart. The boy did very well in school. The boy excelled at music. In the summertime he raced bicycles and in the winter he raced on downhill skis. He didn’t win all the time, but often enough that people payed attention.
The boy never really seemed to be attached to the rest of the universe, which spun on (as it will) with or without him. This bothered many people, but it never really bothered the boy, who knew nothing else.
There was another boy. Like the other boy, this boy was smart, and did well in school. Like the other boy, this boy was lonely, and disconnected from the rest of the world.
This boy was not a skier, nor a cyclist. He was a gifted guitarist, and artist – good enough that people payed attention. But to this boy, the most of the outside world always seemed to be spinning on a different axis than him. This didn’t bother him, since he never really knew anything different.
Once there was a girl. She was smart, and did well in school. She was pretty, outgoing, and sociable. She did well in sports, field hockey and basketball being her favorites.
To others, she seemed a model teenage girl. She got into trouble, like all teenagers do, but she never got into serious trouble, and had always given thought to the consequences before getting involved. But she sometimes felt, at the edges of her mind, that she was not truly attached to much that existed outside her.
The girl knew both boys, though she knew they didn’t know each other. She often believed that she was one of the few things either of them connected with.
The girl also felt deeply connected to both of them. She loved them, and was deeply in love with both of them, though she doubted in her secret heart whether anything would come of that – she’d never be able to choose. They both fascinated her, their differences as individuals, and their striking similarities.
Late at night, when the snow would fall and muffle the sounds of the city outside her bedroom window, she would lie awake and wonder what would happen if the two boys ever met. Would they see themselves in the other, or would they pass each other, like ships in the night, barely a ripple of effect on the other?
Eventually she would close her eyes, and drift off to sleep with one final thought. Either way, she would always be the sea in between.
He was pretty cool