The Wall

I have said it before, sang it out in slow lyrics and shouted it in angry prose, and so shall I say it again. Romance is a wall on which one can sit or from which one can fall. I have never said more than that, never contemplated how two people could possibly build a structure steady, yet tall. But now is the time, I believe, to regard that creation.

I have found the answer, I think, or more accurately, NOT found it. The only way to build that wall is to lay it brick by brick, the tempo set only as fast as those two people can haul. For only two can build it. Otherwise, the wall will not hold, and they will fall, two eggs against the dirt, and neither of them shall ever be whole again.

I seem so sure of myself, do I not? But I say I have not found the answer, so let me explain. I'd started my brick laying long ago, setting one stone upon another, lovingly and liberally applying to them a mortar of my own design. Sometimes I walked away, let the weather have at what I'd done, but always I returned, drawn by something I still cannot name. And this time, he started helping me, starting at the other end.

We were well on our way to a proper altar of romance. Sure, the going was slow, a largo beat a minute, but all good things take time. But someone saw our endeavors and thought to help, to speed up our rhythm of labor.

A ton of bricks, that person layed, all at once, on our little wall. The mortar had no time to set and the stones beneath no time to adjust to the additional weight. And now I fear all our work, all our careful hefting and measuring and waiting, was for nothing, our wall broken beneath the pressure of that third person's good intentions.

Well... Isn't it?