And in the dark of night, in the still quiet 3:00am dark, with nothing but the alarm clock to comfort me, she gave me the empty joy of her love.  And it could have been so much more than scrap-book entries, than mindless head games, than the worrisome attribute of unfaithfulness.  It could have been so much more than the joy and sorrow, the blood and tears, the madness.  It could have been wonderful.  It could have induced spasms of music from the choirs of angels, prodding their ponderous muse with a fifty thousand volt spike.  It could have spoken of the wind, the ageless timeless wonder of the earth, the victories of heroes and the heartache of saints.  It should have been more than the still air of a back road in the middle of the fertile valley of my youth.  It should have been more than the over-amplified shadow of the ego, a backlit horrorshow of self-gratification, of selfishness.  It should have spoken more than a whisper on the edge of every bad poem and song of love lost.  Chintz and tar, mirrors and sand.

And I lay there, barren and wanting, the wash of dreams still clinging to the surface of my skin, washing my flesh, leaving it oiled.  I lay there, awake with the knowledge of the future, the script mapped, the awareness so harsh and sudden that I nearly cried out.  The beating of my heart, hammering away at me, urging me to realize, urging thought and scripture, philosophy and music.  Urging me to hear the message buried in the chests of every man, the dead words of poets.  The dry humorless laugh of lawyers, the bored stamina of clergy, the wisdom in old words.  There were reasons, there were answers, there were a million different questions floating like cobwebs through the air, catching on everything and indelibly marking it all, a chalk line snapped against the slate humanity.  Cut here, on this ragged line, plowed deep into a furrow, the breaking points defined, the route and path of this cataclysm etched onto the surface of every life.

I lay there, incapable of moving.  I was doomed, you see.  Forsaken.  Trapped.

Love had this whole plan mapped from the start.  My genes defined it.