The Third Cup

 The wooden porch made of old teak bears the weight of footsteps that flutter in unmatchable glee. Two lovers and their first house; a little messy, a little kind; testifying as the living witness of amour. 

High school sweethearts, that's what they go by in the small old town of Neverland. Sipping coffee in the afternoons and long walks by moonlit beaches are a daily ritual, almost an unspoken rule never meant to be broken, for defiance would mean denial of the reality they have created for themselves. 

Hasn't been long since the neighbors were greeted by the arrival of a new permanence in their usually unusual boring life. The bustling bistros filled with crackles of laughter and the blossom laden gravel treaded by the young and old have all seemed to take a liking to this honeyed duo. 

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Each sunrise brings a novel season to the pages of their ongoing tale. The unpacked boxes carry portraits of another life, perhaps left behind too far away to go back to. Another fall turned a new leaf in hopes of bringing a changed tomorrow, further ahead of the life foregone. 

The newspapers of yesterday may carry the world with them, but they'll never have the answers to the countless questions of curiosity binding each nook and cranny of the town: why did they come here?

But maybe some questions are better left unanswered, untouched, unfounded. 

No obscure disruption would ever disrupt their mutually agreed upon doses of endearment; to dissent would mean to diverge. What an absurdity in thought. Love isn't in divergence. 

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There accompanies an eeriness in overabundant zeal, especially so for the layman who probably sees the world as nothing more than a cheese in the trap. Yet what exactly do you probe in a lack of outright cynicism. To inquire would equate to putting yourself out on the grill. We do not desire that.

The paranoia paralyses you and yet the beaming rays of faces that teem with joy make you want to take a step back and believe in the possibility that bliss may actually exist after all. 

And so you do, pacing back, wishing on a star that may your faith not be misplaced this once. 

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It is not until you stumble across that one out of the ordinary portrait of the seemingly ordinate couple that you interrogate your senses again. 

We walk down the ringing lanes of the hallway cringing on the fact that 'a cup of coffee?' was the best we could manage. But hey, morbid curiosity precedes formation of rational thought. 

 At one glance, its a tale of a lifetime, one love for the books, legendary. At a deeper gaze, it is wrapped in an air of mystery, fleeting love, momentary. You can not help but notice the odd ordering of the pair of cups in a house for two. 

A home for one may have room for two but an abode for two doesn't keep another room unless there's someone else too.

An extra cup, freshly washed and almost never used. The third leg of the slightly shorter third chair bearing scratches distinct from those of rough fingernails. The desolate looks of telepathy between the two lovers as if all they need to converse are a set of pupils. 

You cannot help but notice the hysterical cracklings that the woman lets out at the sight of the yellow buses. The locked spare room never meant to be spared, and all of the glances of fidgety avoidance masked by exorbitant kindness: all of it extends an evident invite to a mystery seeking to be found. 

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And it never takes long for an ardent explorer to bring unsolicited interference at the mouth of trouble. The walls of teak seemed to carry whispers of secrets too heavy for the couple to carry alone. 

Unburdening their burden as a way of catharsis was perhaps the only excuse, we could give ourselves, for moral justification of something we knew we shouldn't be doing. 

Ten steps to the front, right across the glass diner, half lit from the antique lamp head that hung right above what seemed like a doorway to our answers. 

Were we prepared for what lie ahead? No one would know unless we let ourselves in. 

For a truth too delicate yet powerful enough to ruin an entire perception, it was visibly odd: the absence of protection to hide it away. There were no locks on the door.  

And maybe you'd think we'd have taken the hint, gotten our cue to not proceed further but recall what you read a few sentences back. The verdict being: morbid curiosity precedes formation of rational thought. 

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It wasn't until we opened the chamber of secrets that we realized what we had gotten ourselves into. What lay hidden wasn't an effort to move past an innocent memory, it was a truth too monstrous to face. Perhaps even for the bravest of hearts. 

The creek of the door unveiled the mystery that surrounded them: the haunting lifeless carcass of what could be perceived as the symbol of love that the couple made. The child lay there -- still, unmoving, pale, peaceful, sprawling unnaturally as if a piece of a puzzle no longer a part of the full picture. 

There was something grotesquely captivating in the face of the truth that we stumbled upon. Captivating because what we saw in the loss of that innocent life was not a mere part of the present or the past: it was our future.

Two lovers and their first house; a little messy, a little kind; testifying as the living witness of amour. 

Now that we saw it all, it is the last vision we'll carry. The sight of truth withholding us from the sight of the next dawn. 

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~h.