No title - Charlotte Ottenberg

“When two worlds collide” would be an inaccurate metaphor. When two worlds catch a glimpse of each other, they wink, and suddenly they fall into two-part harmony. It wasn’t “we finish each other’s sentences.” It was that suddenly there was no need to talk. Conversation was just a way to mull over this meeting of souls, like passing a polished stone between your two hands. Back and forth, back and forth. 

No thought need be put into what to say next. I knew that the words would just move on, like a river, always traveling, slowly carving deeper. Starting as a trickle and slowly growing, carving into stone, eroding soil, filling to the brim with rain, taking water from all around, turning into a whole entity. A landform that is penciled and printed into maps, given a name. Suddenly the sum of every word spoken is an entity. A foundation. A river or a rock, something that supports. Life or weight or a whole cliff face. Waterfall. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Two humans who exchange words somehow create feeling, understanding, memory, everlasting wisps of truths and experience which live in corners of the sky or underneath old furniture. When place and time coincide for moments, then never again. 

How compelling, this connection between two souls. A rock could be dislodged from the very bottom and all of a sudden it could all come crashing down. The water would touch surfaces it had never touched before, it would tumble over jagged edges and silt would swirl in the movement and upheaval. I would cry from the uncomfort and the change, an offering of water. To wash my vision, delineate the heartache, beating a bit harder and squeezing with every pulse, getting stronger with every moment without me even realizing. Change sneaks up on you. Time heals, time breeds wisdom, time carves out the river’s path. The oldest rivers are the most winding.