Time, only Time - part1

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again and looked at the photo maximized on his desktop. Half scared half troubled he minimized the photo in a rush and with a quiet sigh of regret, then he switched back to the other window on his desktop and continued working on the plan.
This was not happening, this was not supposed to happen, not to him, not now, no he could not afford such distraction, one which might only end in him losing every thing he had for the time; which was not his life, but - he took another stolen glance at the photo - her!
Yes, she was all which lit up his days and painted them as colorfully as possible. With her, he has been giving and getting a lot, something he’d never experienced before. Every second to pass with her or to think about her was filled with this giving and getting. It felt as if they had this indescribable urge for equilibrium, to become balanced with each other. When he thought about it visually, it felt as if they have been too eager to become one. Had he been a woman he could claim to be already pregnant with her, that much of her he was already carrying in him and he knew that was odd. It was not usual of a man to be able to contain so much of woman, or maybe he just didn’t know much about men and women and how much of each other they could bear. Maybe he was surrounded with false and fake - if not wrong - examples.
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. He had to stop thinking about her, he had to stop drugging himself up with the prettiest photo of the world on his desktop. He tried to convince himself to closing the window with the argument that this photo was taken when they did not eve know each other. It was in vane. The photo was still as much of her as could be expected on a collection of pixels. And it looked too damn pretty. He had never paid any attention to her beauty, he was somehow unaware of it, for every time he was in her presence or thinking about her, he was so drawn away by every thing else that he had no time left to think or remark how she looked like. But now, this photo - now that he had a chance to forbidden himself to look at it - was way pretty. Yes, it WAS her.
He had to go back to his work, this was just too important to be neglected, it was fatal, he kept telling himself. He turned the music up to turn his thoughts down and help him concentrate, yet he realized to his misfortune that this was her music and not his.
Why should he be listening to her music when he had such great collection of his own ? Was he being possessed by anything which would eventually lead to her? What was he trying to achieve? Why was he doing this to himself.
He had to go back to work. This was getting him nowhere. As he started working he found out that he was doing the two parallel: completing the complicated plan and thinking about her. To his surprise, the former was way easier than the second one and the risk of any possible mistake he would make was way lower and the consequences les dangerous.
He could hear his boss’s voice telling him that every second he miscalculated would cost him his men which were not easily replaced. He felt the desire to make a mistake, a great one. Grinning at the idea just like a child who’s intending a malice which he knows is strictly forbidden he changed some of the joints and laughed at the idea of what would be coming out.
He thought he’d give a million to anyone who could hold such a junk together and not collapse or explode. With a satisfied smile he saved it in a private folder and went back to seriously working. How did he get here? How had he become who he was now? Why did he want such a job in the first place? It was not what you’d find in the yellow pages, and no job agency would tell you that you are specifically qualified for a career as … he thought what he could call himself. It was hard to find a word for it. He worked together with fine and compatible technicians and engineers, doctors and psychologists, economists and sociologists and with crazy and greedy politicians and world leaders.
His job was actually to help use the three other groups in favor of the last one to abuse the rest of the world. How did he ever get there? All he ever wished upon was to be a swimmer. He was actually not a bad swimmer, but never got to fulfill his wish. At this age, he knew that his dream was long gone, even though he swam better than some certain professional swimmers. With the experience he had gained at his job, he knew that such things were not about skills, that it was much more about other factors which have very little to do with swimming itself. Now he was considering which was really harder to accomplish, becoming a professional swimmer or excelling at his profession. The answer was not clear, neither was it simple as yes or no. Maybe being successful at his job - since he could not afford the consequences of failure, he had no other way than success - was to great extent due to his disappointment with having given up his greatest - and maybe only - dream.
Or maybe it was the naïve wish that he might someday get to teach them a lesson, yes he was committing a typical mistake in his family. Once he thought it was a matter of survival but it was mostly the incapability of recognizing that nothing was to be changed this way. They still went on trying what was tried before, each and every one of them believed to have found a new way and they went on making the same old mistakes again and again and again and eventually there was a greater threat with every new day for they were deeper involved in the shit.
Yes, he was involved, he knew it very well. He has been doing this for too long to try to deny it. All these years he had tried to be a hidden weapon against them rather than the master brain to fulfill their intentions, but he was not fooling himself, he was really involved.
Hopelessly he took another look - and not a glance - at the photo: he was involved in both, in his job and in… in this enchanting woman. He was truly enchanted by her and it was time he had admitted it. Maybe he was not in love yet, and he was doing his best not to fall, but he was enchanted with all her charms. He knew he knew her better than lots of those who knew her already since ages, he knew her from inside and still he felt it was not close enough. No, it was not enough, he wanted to get to know her in each and every possible way.
Sometimes he believed that he knew her much more from his hopeless dreams, that he had known her years before he found out that she did really exist. How important this might have been over the time they had known each other, he did not know and maybe he did not care to know. This was really not the issue for him at the moment.
What really mattered was that he completely enjoyed being enchanted by her, a feeling he had never known before; even if he had been in love before, even if he had had women before, he has never ever been enchanted by a woman and she did it so easily, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Sometimes he got the impression that this was working both ways, that she was as much enchanted with him as he was with her, and sometimes he felt himself as her desperate victim. And she never gave him any sign so that he might be able to decide which way it really was.
Staring at her photo he felt like crying. It was already bizarre staring at her photo all day long, but the desire he had to burst into crying was really scary. He tried his best, he felt his eyes getting pleasantly wet, but he could not. He needed the presence of a real good friend to be able to work this out. Maybe it was more about collapsing in arms of a good friend and crying his misfortune out into streming tears. He did not really see it as a misfortune, in face, it was one of the most amazing things he had ever had in his life. Yet he could not get along with the insecurity of not knowing how she felt and how she thought of all this.
But has he not been insecure ever since he could remember? Why was this so different? Has he not got used to feeling insecure? Why should this be working any differently? Why could he not put up his defenses as he had learned through times? What was wrong with this one this time? The fact was that he felt really secure and safe when he was spending time with her, the kind of security no one had ever provided him with - or maybe could not have - even his parents who loved him so much.
He sipped his whisky to get back to work. Why was he drinking whisky? He hated whisky, everyone knew that. He sipped it again to make sure he really hated it and it had not been something he might have made up one day because of any foolish or lifesaving reason. Yes, he did really hate whisky, it was no joke, no pretension. He swallowed the rest as fast as possible in order to avoid the disgusting taste. He automatically filled the glass again, adding as many ice cubes as possible. Sitting at his computer again he looked at the glass thoughtfully. Has he always been drinking whisky while working or was it just this time? He could not remember. It stroke him hard in his stomach. What else was he doing without even mentioning which he could hardly bare ? What kind of a life was he living? How much of it was really his? Up to what extent was he really aware of all what he was doing? How much of it was intentionall? How much of it planned? How much of it was due to his weekness to stand a higher force? A not necessarily stronger one…
He drank with disgust, closed the window with her photo and told himself he had to stick to work, argumenting that such thoughts were of no use at the moment.