Moments in Love

Lava was a modern walled city. It had long lost its walls, but its florid green belt disguised a complex network of trenches, tunnels and forts that linked emplacements in the surrounding mountains. Together, these systems would ensure Vekllei would never again have to tolerate occupation by a foreign power. Lava was on the outskirts of Vekllei’s great capital city, and much of its cityscape was dispersed, affording residents a slower pace of life.

Above Lava’s commercial heart were its terraced hills, and from up there you could see the canal ferries wind their way through the city. At the edge of a terraced park sits a bench full of memories.

Although Tzipora looked the same as ever, she was 20 now. Cobian was nearly 18, and considering more sincerely her future. She cared about what other people thought of her. To that end they were always worlds apart. Tzipora was driven by a self-sustaining obsessive intuition, not the advice of her peers. Her imitation of ordinary teen-age life was usually misguided and clumsy. She had never made a good teenager — a good much of anything, really. But she was a very good Tzipora.

Even now, Tzipora didn’t really think of herself as a homosexual, in the same way she didn’t consider herself a girl who wore glasses despite the near-sighted prescription specs she kept in her purse. After all, as she liked to say, there was nothing sexy about her — a good Catholic education and a miracle prepubescence saw to that. In the prejudice of the time, that’s what it meant to be a homosexual, at least to her. So this relationship — whatever it was — was not really that. She could avoid public judgement and her own ongoing prejudices if she simply pretended like her sincere feelings for Cobian did not amount to homosexuality.

Tzipora was a funny person, capable of great emotional maturity and immaturity depending on her environs. With Baron, she was serious and independent. With Cobian, she was energetic and overeager. Cobian was in no such turmoil about her preference of partner, and unlike Tzipora she was becoming an adult woman capable of exploring a serious, adult relationship. She would grow older and older, and Tzipora would stay there, same as ever. They both knew it was coming. Tzipora was not a child, but she was also not exactly an adult either — she was Tzipora, and she would be Tzipora for as long as she lived, much as she was now.

Tzipora didn’t generally talk about her feelings, but Cobian was very good at it. They travelled to the terraced park from Lola, and found the bench they’d visited years prior as junior high school students. Back then they’d seen a film at the State Cinema in town and walked for a while after, just talking about it. They’d ended up here, as night fell, and talked until the early morning. Maybe it was a date; maybe it was their first date — what constituted a date with Tzipora? Their relationship was much the same as it had ever been, just with the knowledge they loved each other. But what a revelation that had been. Tzipora had cried when she told her. Tzipora did not cry about much but gestures of affection always overwhelmed her.

Today they sat on that bench again and talked, and they talked for a long while. What will you study? What will we do? What will Tzipora do for the rest of her life — is she destined to drift from person to person, parasitically enjoying their friendship until they aged out of her reach? Where would Cobian live? What would Tzipora like to do for a living? Will they always be friends, and love each other?

Yes, they both agreed, they would always be friends, and they would always love each other.