There are people you can walk for hours with and never say a word. Pauses. Eye contact and a sense of being completely understood. I rarely wish for lunch to be spent with anyone other than myself. The one time of day when there is nothing but time...to chill...to be...stare at the blue sky or the passersby...wonder about the homeless guy outside.
But what if. What if you had someone who demanded the right stuff? Who wasn't satisfied with what's on the surface...because they say, "There are enough hollow souls--don't you think?"
An edgy sort of intelligence.
The kind that lingers.
A fierceness that plays all the right games...and suffers all the associated pains.
And the solace they find is in their opposite.
We joke about conversion. Glory and rising. There is a seriousness that leaks out. A message. It's not lost, but it's not acknowledged. No sanction granted. I wonder if such slips are a seek and destroy sort of maneuver. An undertone, a challenge, a "everyone has a weak spot".
Am I amused?
Saddened?
Curious?
"Would you stop that!"
Simultaneous laughter.
"When you lunch with someone--you speak. That's what people do."
True. And unfair. This thinking silence.
But it's not hollow. It's ever present.