Primary Forces

The irresistible force and the immovable object. They meet in the middle and they clash like breaking glass; they clash like oil meeting water; like sodium, lithium smashed on the ground and exposed to air. Super-novic light flares, it casts shadows that are almost as bright, which cast their own shadows, and their own, and their own – twelve generations and not completely dark.

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Which of them is which?

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Maybe it's she who's the immovable object. She's the one who's always struck me as having such gravity, being so grounded and sure and at peace with herself. She's the dark one, I guess. Not in any of the traditional ways you might think of darkness. Not the stereotypical goth chick; no weeping depressive; not some haunted creature obsessed with things dead and dying.

No, she was always alive.

She worked in the library when I first met her – her, by almost five years, the one I met first. She sat in the light, and wore red in her hair. She stamped the books with prim, proper attention; and she smiled, displaying neat, perfect white teeth.

“Are you Tessa?”

She glanced with one eye at her name-tag.

“We
have a mutual friend, you see. Todd Sanders.”

“Todd,” as if she savoured his name, and as if my mentioning it had somehow explained everything.

You see, she's the still water that runs deep. Economical with her words, choosing each of them with care and filling them full of meaning. She seems to drink in all there is of the world, observing every detail, savouring each flavour, chewing it down to the bone, licking off the juices, breaking into the marrow. She's awash with colour, and yet dark: the black hole that all light and glory pour into; storing such a well of energy inside such a calm, small, spare shell. Weighed down with pure substance.

The immovable object.

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And he: the irresistible force.

Because he poured into her life that way.

It happened like this: all of us sitting around at the park, picnic blankets spread across wet grass. We were a weird lot: drinking morning champagne, listening to a local band playing beneath the elm trees, croissants spread out in front of us beside sandwiches, beside cherry tomatoes and actual cherries, chocolate peanuts, peanut brownies. She: sitting cross-legged and reading a book, looking up every now and then in response to a question or comment - perfectly part of the conversation, following it easily while she followed her book and the music.

And he: prancing along, red-jacketed, slick, slippery; his hair a nearly-white blond and unkempt. Smooth, bright, metrosexual. He had his earphones in, and he came ploughing through our picnic, tripping over her knee.

He rolled to a graceful standstill. “Terribly sorry. Profoundly.” He offered her his hand, offered her his startling, mesmerising eyes. “Ivan,” he introduced himself. Ivan. Yes, yes I'm terrible. “Nice to meet you.”

Toppled wine glasses. Spilled cherries.

“Oh, it's all right...” the voice of somebody thin and insincere, insubstantial: I can't recall a name.

She: looking right up at him. “Are you always so... noticeable?”

“Whenever I can be. I'll need to buy you dinner in recompense for all this.”

“Talatro's. At eight.” Precise. Without pretence, no fluffing around.

“Eight.” It was a promise and a challenge.

And then the skies opened up and rain came down on us like an avalanche. Because there's nothing he does or is that is less than dramatic. Not a drizzle, a downpour. He couldn't leave us with any other impression.

So he: the force of nature. The one who comes crashing through, all show and colour and flashing lights. Not be ignored. Not to be waylaid or cast aside. Accompanied by drumbeats and twenty-piece orchestras. He lives life as if he's afraid it might escape him, rounding up every experience, corralling it, teaching it how to dance. A flash of fire, warmth, intensity – he with the diamond eyes.

Irresistible force.

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Or is she the irresistible force? Because she knows herself inside and out. Because behind that quiet facade there is determination in full force. Her self-contained will knows no prospect of being thwarted. When she sets her mind to something, it becomes hers. And she may work towards it in slow, steady, glacial steps; incremental, measured, and yet... it's he who should stay out of her way, would be wise stand aside. Because she does flow like a glacier, she carves her way in the world, and she leaves behind a scar. Everything about her that holds her weighed and anchored, becomes momentum when she moves. Silent until she strikes.

And did he know that, setting out?

And when she knew that she wanted to be a writer; well, it was that that she became. Locked away for the hours it took, immovable over those months, but when she emerged: what a butterfly! She unfurled her glorious wings; she pursued publishers, editors, agents. She was silk and velvet. Obstacles were torn away, caught in some hot tornado, dumped hours away, out of her way.

She reads to him.

He listens.

Irresistible force.

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And is he the immovable object?

Well, there's a darkness to him as well. It's not as obvious as hers, it's camouflaged amidst all his bright lights. You don't see it at first, you have to get very close, you have to listen, you have to watch without blinking.

You can't be absorbed in so much else you don't see it.

So she, welcoming him in. Her dark gravity against his flaring heat. That's what they seem to the outside. But he sits there, in her gravity well, a mote of white light, and he swirls deeper and deeper into her life. His shiny new apartment: that's where they live now. I see her out walking, in the red and lace-tipped dress her bought her. Her hair is different: a little bit longer, a slightly wilder style. Gone is the grace and tranquillity that could have conjured up a 1950s secretary: this woman seems modern, infused with subtle colours. She walks with the same quiet confidence, but there's a spring in her step that wasn't once there.

She comes to meet him at the end of the day – at his favourite bar, sliding in beside him, dressed in his gift, running one hand along his shoulder in the way he likes. He turns to smile. He orders her the lemonade-and-brandy he's taught her to like drinking. Her smile twinkles. Her toe slides up his inner leg. He leans back, basking – flowing out of him: the current she sails on. Blue and gold and green, entwine with black and silver, turquoise, crimson.

Embedded. Like a jewel set in gold.

Immovable object?