Andrew Galt

By: Dante Lee

            The cloudy depths of her eyes were invisible to the boy, whose eyes, although shimmering back at her, were completely oblivious of the fact of who she was, or rather what she was. Fortunately, neither did she.

            She did not know a lot of things in reality, or rather about reality, for her view of it is much different than mine or yours. There is no vibrancy or detail in the world around her, there is no arousal or interest, only apathy. And the only abnormality to what can barely be called a life to her, is the person for whom she knows it is tethered to, this boy, whose dirty blond hair and freckled face was luminous, diffusing a striking golden hue out of an almost divine aura in contrast to the people around him.

            The girl did not know why she existed, or why her existence had become so fixated on observing someone else’s, but she did not care, because he had made such a life fulfilling, and unfortunately, unchanging. She knew that she existed only because he existed, so she clung to him as if he was life itself. An ephemeral bond strengthened between the boy and the girl as time went on, which predestined them to an unfamiliar, and yet all too well-known fate.

            The girl grew with him, learned with him, loved with him. She eventually learned his name, Andrew Galt, and it became clear that Andrew was distinct from the other husks of humanity surrounding him that the girl only felt pity for. He was clearly intelligent, but was not meant for school. His imagination was simply too complex and boundless for any expectation or rule. So, she sought to it that Andrew would go on to drop out of school, and from that opportunity Andrew started his own business. The girl, of course, would go on to follow behind him, but it seemed, almost, as if their link were fading and a fog was gathering between them. He was avoiding her with every achievement he took upon himself, always moving forward, never looking back to her, with an obnoxiously prideful stride.

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            A dreadful sense that the girl would awake the next morning unable to find Andrew      arose. But in the end, she knew the fate that awaited Andrew would inevitably align their paths again. After all, it’s not like such a figure could simply disappear from the face of the earth.

            Andrew grew restless, with every waking breath stealing a bit of his light just to keep his heart pulsing in time. Every anxious second kept him going, further and further from her, but she was in no rush to halt a man as grand as Andrew Galt.

Besides, his pace had been slowing with his age, and eventually the girl caught up with him, both were old, weary, and back in the same dark dusk they were born in. The girl met her gaze upon Andrew’s eyes, a tired man, who consciously avoided her, but not out of spite, and a man who emanated the dusk he lived amongst, sharing his light, and leaving this dark world they roamed brighter than when they were born in it.

And then he died, for Andrew was life, and she…well, her name doesn’t matter, for she was the death that shrouded over Andrew in the end. Her tears only reminded her, once more, of the fate she was chained to. For Andrew there was mourning, but for death there is no requiem. Only solace, and a despairing revelation that she will weep forever until the next Andrew gleams a worthy light for death’s obsessive lust to follow suit.