Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story

An excerpt, from the diary of Erik Michael Gan, originally dated 18th December 2010: 

You met her when you were both eighteen and although the discourse of love often takes a familiar and structured form, you were inclined to believe that life privileged the both of you over the multitude of human connections that flit around for space. You walk in silence along the platform toward the train, the warm glow of the sun on both your backs and you tug on the sleeve of her sweater when you realize that her steps are more brisk than yours. She takes pictures of you as you walk and as much as she can see that you are trying to avoid being captured through the lens of her polaroid, she also knows that you are in love with this moment. You walk until you find yourselves at a bridge and by then the day is slowly dissolving into night, streetlights flicker on and you marvel at each other in the gaze of this soft orangey light. It is then that she takes your hand and leads you gently across the bridge, there are stirrings of a metaphorical significance that this subtle gesture elicits but time has frozen for you and you are unable to look past the girl with the curious hair as she guides you across the water. You stop in the middle and look across the rippling tide, you stop as she tiptoes ever so slightly and places a graze of a kiss on your right cheek, you stop as she whispers in your ear and traces a gesture on your neck. The night grows into itself and the silence is comfort, the silence is golden. You walk until you come to a gate and it is then that a farewell is slowly drawn out before she traces another gesture, this time on your mouth before a door closes between two doting smiles and you accept that it is time to go. The contextualization of time begins its workings and the minutes become more apparent as you trudge back across the park, the bridge, and the moment solidifies itself in your mind as you realize that you have lived a thousand nights in one.


-


An excerpt, from the journal of Gillian Leigh, originally dated 18th December 2010: 

I met him when we were both eighteen and the more thought I devote to the discourse of love, the more I think that every love story is a ghost story. A spectrum of light hangs in the sky, pale but unmissable as rain comes down on the both of us, seeping into our clothes and into our skin as we laugh and run for shade. Underneath the cover of a Greyhound station we shiver and huddle together as he takes out a camera from his bag but I tell him to put it away because moments should be lived and not frozen in the hope of some futile permanence. We walk through the puddles in silence until we come to a bridge and he beckons to me before taking off at full speed across the water, only stopping when he realizes that I haven't followed after him. The trace of a hand. The way the water looks as it ripples when the tide comes in. The glare from the streetlights above us which bathe both our faces in a pale white light. There are many things that I remember about this particular moment which will be soon archived in time. The significance is an undertone. And the tone has so suddenly and violently shifted. He calls out for me and I see his mouth open and close without sound. I see the smile leave his face as a sharp tinge of worry colors his features. He walks back towards me and tries to hold my hand but it is limp and lifeless by my side. He bends ever so slightly to whisper in my ear and with the tip of my index finger I trace a word into his neck. There is more silence, but this silence is not the silence of comfort. It is a subtle disquiet that layers upon itself until my eardrums hurt and I'm almost tempted to say something, anything, but I refrain. The park, the gate, the front door. Images that pass in a blur, spaces which are lost in time but gestures which remain forever frozen. The goodbye is quick and affectless for it is only when the door shuts between two faces which kiss but feel nothing that the cost of the day can be properly calculated. What turns have led us here? What roads have been taken to leave us so hopelessly stranded? The thoughts can be deferred but the dread hints only at bleaker beginnings. Even now, what once were whole dreams have almost certainly been rendered completely irredeemable.