Nine days with Stephen

Empty are the hours post-Stephen

Lonely in the afterglow

Still, I'll not yet move on

For to this am I resigned

The next will ne'er sate me

As once he did

I knew of Stephen, but didn't come to know him personally until around ten years ago.  He gave me some tips on writing.  Useful tips.  Though how much and how well I've applied them is quite debatable.

Then we sort of drifted apart for a few years, as guys are wont to do.  Of course I heard things.  He was quite successful.  Me, less successful.  But I knew deep down that that never mattered to Stephen.

When we ran into each other a couple of weeks ago, it was as if we hadn't missed a step.  No, I take that back.  It was even better than before.

He was different somehow, but just as thrilling as ever.  And I realized I had matured in those ten years.  I was more equipped to handle a relationship now, the kind of commitment Stephen required.

And so we began.

Like I so often do with a new relationship, almost immediately I began to neglect friends, writing, and all other aspects of my life.  If there were a free moment to be stolen, I would spend it with him.

It's not that Stephen demands that, not in so many words anyway.  And yet he does, simply by the intensity he himself brings to the relationship.

So that's where I've been.  With Stephen.  I blame him completely.  What with his tales of time travel, the obdurate past, preventing the JFK assassination and such.  Who could resist?  Certainly not me.

As so often is the case with guys like Stephen, after only a week I could feel our time coming to an end.  Our relationship was sort of like an 842-page book, and I was already on page 627.  It was exactly like that, in fact.

Stephen lingered a couple of days more.  Then he was gone.

That love which soars the highest so often burns out the quickest.

There's a sign in front of the elementary school I pass on my way home which says, "Enjoy your summer. Read, read, read!"  Apparently their repetitive marketing/mind-control has worked, as I've been on a reading rampage the past few weeks (see above).  My most recent conquest was Stephen King's "11/22/63."  It's the longest book I've ever read (and it's not even really close).  I always feel a touch of melancholy in the days after finishing a good book.  And yes, I still buy actual books.  I haven't been converted to electronic readers yet.  They already took my cassettes and Polaroids!  I'm hanging on to these as long as I can.