Playing the Field: Quantum
He loved her dearly. All he was, was in relation to her. He was always approaching her, side-stepping her, or receding, only to circle back around and revolve his life around her.
She was beautiful. She was stunning compared to the women who surrounded her. When it came to her beauty versus those who were her competition, she ran circles around them. They paled in comparison, popping in and out of the background.
She was brilliant. She thought faster than the rest and understood more deeply and more profoundly. Her ideas reshaped the ideas of the others who danced around them to formulate their own.
He loved her beauty and brilliance and found her moving.
She was kind. She was giving to all who crossed her path and her own path pursued those in need. She was attracted to and approached those who cried for help, aided them, and then moved on. She was always in motion. To follow her was to join her in her journey of kindness, even when racing behind her; even when nearly colliding with her when she walked more slowly carrying a particularly weighty and wanting person. Following her was sometimes difficult and unrewarding, but it is what made her...her.
He loved her dearly. He loved her for her beauty, her brilliance, and her kindness, and he found her moving.
She was compassionate. She surveilled all she saw. Those who suffered slings and arrows on their paths were overtaken by her sympathy, buoyed back into the mainstream where they would resume their functional pace and continue to matter.
He loved her for her beauty, her brilliance, her kindness, and her compassion, and he found her moving. She never ceased and so never ceased to move him.
She was nurturing. She adopted all those she overtook on their journeys and even all those wandering aimlessly. She gave them direction and purpose. Entire fields of those who shimmied impotently were nursed by her into a momentum. All whom she fostered, sustained, and coddled, mattered.
He loved her for her beauty, her brilliance, her kindness, her compassion, and her nurturing, and he found her moving. Forever moving. And exhausting.
She was passionate. Everyone and everything she approached she overtook with unrestrained verve and ardor. All who encountered her were powerfully motivated. All inherited her vigor and then struck others the same way.
He loved her for her beauty, brilliance, kindness, compassion, nurturing, and her passion. He found her moving, always. And he compared himself to her. How could he not? Her properties became his properties, and he hoped the sum surpassed the addition of the parts.
She was agile. She could out-race, out-pace, out-maneuver, out-strategize, out-wit, and out-survive all the others in the field of also-rans. Whereas the others populated the comparative, she was the superlative. Their shortcomings pointed out her superiorities. To them, she was slippery, elusive, fleeting, untouchable, but real enough for them.
He loved her dearly. He loved her beauty, brilliance, kindness, compassion, nurturing, passion, and her agility. She moved him deeply, but into the deep end, enough for him to cry for help sometimes, gasping for breath.
He found her loving, and she loved everyone she met and interacted with.
And he loved her for her loving, even though she loved all the same. Perhaps the same as him? He appreciated her beauty, praised her brilliance, warmed to her kindness, was inspired by her compassion, cheered her nurturing, embraced her passion, and marveled at her agility. Just like everyone else who jockeyed for position, who played the field. She leveled the field, then rose above it.
All those who were, compared themselves to her and by those comparisons, saw where they fit. And by those comparisons, had a reason to be. She filled the vacuum.
He loved her for her beauty, brilliance, kindness, compassion, nurturing, passion, and agility. He loved her for all of these properties, and it was by these properties, as he loved her dearly, that he defined himself. But her beauty became over-familiar; her brilliance demeaned him; her kindness became burdensome; her compassion was non-discretionary; her nurturing became too exhausting; he found her passion a conflagration that left him in cinders; he found her agility undefeatable; and he found her love too inclusive of all and too exclusive of him.
So he moved on, but she remained.
When he simply stopped--to reconsider--she was gone.