"a request"

​by C. Ikpoh

SOCHI: You have not the vaguest conception of that which you ask.
YUME: Do I not? I know you to your core. I know all that you are. If you have misled me during our times together, then I am a fool before the master of all deceit. But I know that I am not. You are as true as the sight which stands before me.
S: There is no peace where I am. No solace or refuge is given. Is that what you want? An eternal pain prodding at you bit-by-bit, until all that is left are the strippings of essentials required to constitute the lowest form of existence known to the universe?
Y: You speak as if you are nothing.
S: I AM nothing. Do you not see?
Y: I see beauty in its entire splendor. Never has there been such a vision of fragility and power co-existing. The things you are capable of are vast in nature. Yes, you can defy righteousness, but you can also define it. You can personify heartlessness, but you can be the embodiment of love and passion.
S: These are the words of a mortal. You speak under the impression of the finite. Your fervor is part of what distinguishes you and me. Only a monster would steal that from you. If you truly believe the kind words you speak of me, then you must understand why I cannot grant your request.
Y: Imagine how things would be if you would only embrace my words? Understand, the fervor and passionate impressions I hold are not from the inevitable fate I am facing, but from the indelible print you have left upon my heart. Without you in your fullest capacity in my life, I will be left truly unfulfilled.
S: Are you that selfish that you would sacrifice my sanity and good conscience for your own sense of fulfillment?
Y: Your voice lacks the conviction of a man who holds such words as truth. You do not believe them.
S: You do not know what I believe.
Y: I do, and I also have faith in what you do not. If only you would as well.
S: Faith.
Y: Yes, faith.
S: I have faith. I have faith in what I see every time I close my eyes to the sight of this world: hell. I have faith in the sounds I hear when I close my ears to this world: torture. And I have faith in what I smell when I breathe in the scents of this world: death. You - you see what is painted on the vale. You hear what is audible to your consciousness. You smell the scents of things already known to you. To trade this ignorance for the knowledge I possess is a dire mistake.
Y: In whose eyes? I ask you this because the things you experience have to be of the lonely, most basic form of life within your world. Together, we can erase that path and set forward on a new one. I know this can be so.
S: Tales of the beloved often become tales of the broken hearted under the weight of reality, and neither of our shoulders is broad.

Y: Our shoulders may not be, but our souls are. You and I, we can sustain any burden this life or the next has to offer.
S: You speak as if the future has been foretold to you. How is it you are so sure of the things you say?
Y: Because... true love conquers all. Death, time, all things consequential and inconsequential kneel before it. What we have is true love. Together we shall rule over all things. All you have to do is take me. I promise you this.
S: Your tongue scribes a request of the utmost validity. Your query seeps appeal and desirability. Nevertheless, as a whole it is unfathomable to the caring
heart that beats with love for you and the irreplaceable, precious gift you hold. I cannot, I will not grant your request.
Y: You speak of your heart warmly. If it were not for the morbid pain it causes me with its refusal, I might believe it was so. Alas, your heart is colder than you realize. Maybe when its frigidity is imprinted onto mine, then it will see one akin to itself, and be more welcoming to my request.