The room was dark except for a faint hint of light coming from underneath the bed. Smoke and ash filled the air, clouding the streams of a stale French vanilla scent still lingering in the corners.

The two people exhaled smoke in unison. The shadow of the young woman, who was fair faced and light weight, occupied the wall. She was idle in her movements, sitting up and staring at the ceiling, occasionally inhaling. The young man, on the other hand, lay engulfed in the darkness, idle as well, except for a steady twirling of his fingertips around a strand of the young woman’s hair.



“Cosmology: the study of the creation and eventual fate of the universe.”

“I never had much interest in the sciences,” the young woman said, sighing.

The young man rolled over and traced the edges of her spine. “You annihilate me, you know,” he said. “I used to dream about empty spaces, and every day I woke up thinking Jesus himself spent the night whispering the secrets of the cosmos in my left ear. I resented it. I never remembered anything.”

The young woman, leaning back, stared at the young man. She lifted his hand into hers and touched his fingertips. “It’s all here,” she said, carefully tracing each line of his right palm. “Your head and your heart. The secrets of the universe- trapped in the linings of your skin. I can read it all.”

“The head is not more native to the heart,” he said, absently. “The world has been unkind to me. You’ve blinded me. Everybody has ruined me.”

Silence filled the spaces between the two people.

“Sometimes I imagine the world as an accident,” she said. “I imagine it all to be a big mistake, the flowers, the birds, myself - everything.”

“You are a dream, lavender. A god damn dream. I couldn’t smoke you away if I tried.”