If Only

                                    

                                          
 The extravagance of the landscape opened up before them- the hazy night sky with a tremulous burst of color beaming off of the horizon. It shot over the craggy peaks like a bolt of lightning and stopped abruptly right before their feet.
                          
	"The line of light," she murmured. "It's here."
                          
	"Yes, this is it," he replied.
                          
	"All we must do is cross it... Yet it is foolish to have come all this way and fear what shall happen once we do?"
                          
	"Not at all. I found that after everything, I didn't think it was real. Not until we've grasped it with our own eyes."
                          
	"It's beautiful."
                          
	"Utterly unfathomable."
                          
	And it was. Beyond the darkness that encapsulated them, the land with a starless sky, they could only see tranquility. Voluminous golden tranquility in the colors they'd only seen in each other's eyes, tranquility in the mesmerizing crimson cliffs, in the miniscule details in the evening blades of grass. Tranquility in the elegant leaves spiraling up the necks of the stark white trees, the ones that looked like yellow raindrops fluttering in the breeze. Tranquility in the wildflowers that danced like ballerinas in satin gowns and whispered sweet words into the wind.
                          
	A world of hope. A world of joy. Of desire. An untouchable scape extending into the distance.
                          
	It was a world of burning.
                          
	They had each pictured this land. Wondered to what degree it was like heaven.
                          
	The girl envisioned ivy tendrils stretching to the corners of the universe like snakes with vibrant yellow eyes. She'd pictured plains of drifting red. Of flames licking at the ground and birds with wings of steel like magnificent angels. And when she crossed the line, she would only be left to the mercy of such a consuming burning that made of the roughage itself. She was a pioneer into the furnace.
                          
	She expected pain, an invisible fuel that had color but no mass. She expected a ripple of red on her skin, for it to fold and crease like the petals of a flower. A wondrous scream would echo from her mouth, the most blissful pain she'd ever encountered. A horrifyingly glorious end of the only blackened ash that would decorate the hills. The silhouettes of everything that the world could be but never was and never would be again.
                          
	And yet when he looked into the same view, he viewed it not as fire, but as the cool light of an early morning. Of a field in full bloom. A flourishing crop. A plentiful harvest. A sharp contrast to everything in his memory. He'd envisioned a plain of tall grass like wheat that shimmered in the sun. He could picture the two of them breaching the line. Of them laying in the field and staring up at the sky. Its pale blue would reflect down on them like the oceans in their irises. They'd watch as wisps of silk floated above them. As they waved a soft goodbye before treading the air with the lightness of their feet.
                          
	The boy would point up at the shapes these wisps made in the heavens and boast of a world they never thought could exist. Space where only the two of them existed- nothing more, nothing less. A million days in one. Together forever, and never apart. Nothing to bind her mind to the nothingness of the great mass of society. Nothing to create those thin creases of a frown on her face. Nothing to etch a single wrinkle on her quickly aged forehead. They could live the youth that never cried out to them and willed them to come along. The youth that they still contained, though it was merely a sliver.
                          
	But he knew it would never be a reality. It was heaven on earth. Not until a city of pearls descended onto the surface of the planet and declared that it was everything he'd ever sought. Instead, he knew that once he crossed the line, he would be gone. He pictured that they would dissolve like sugar in water, creating a sweet concoction. A destiny that was meant to be fulfilled. He pictured this dissolving to be like a burst of fractals into the air. One second. One moment. It would touch their skin and they would be no more. Only glittering blossoms riding along the waves. Feathers fluttering to the ground.
                          
	He took her hand in his.
                          
	"Are you ready?" he breathed.
                          
	"No. Are you?"
                          
	"No."
                          
	A moment of silence.
                          
	"I wish things could've been different."
                          
	"I know."
                          
	"Life is too short." Her last words.
                          
	"If only." His last words.
                          
	And they took a step across the line. They stepped into the sunshine, beating down on them. And it was not like either of them had imagined. It was neither heaven nor hell coaxing them, but a different world altogether. He saw everything beyond their wall of darkness, beyond the dark shadows covering the cities from light. He saw life, true life, and love. He saw a future that may have been had. And she saw that very meadow with a cabin and a tall tree with a swing dangling from it. It was torn, broken.
                          
	When the light touched their skin, everything was gone. No pain. No delight. Just warmth and a light so powerful and mellow that it radiated from their very essence and erased existence. It was a tunnel of white, where they were left only with their thoughts that were no longer thoughts.
                          
	And they thought the same thing.
                          
	If only.