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"With lots of studying being involved," she answered, "and lots of homework, which may drag on for years."
"Why talk of years when a single moment can be an eternity?" I replied. "There is so much to be studied, it may become an eternity."
"Ah, this may also be a study that one never tires of," she replied and stopped the dance. "Of course, we'll never know if we don't start," she added.
"My scientific mind tells me that at forty-percent gravity the floor feels nine times softer," I said in reply. "It also tells me that it is rare that so many elements come together at one time, so that one simply cannot ignore the logic that is unfolding."
"Like what?" she asked.
"A, there is you," I said. "No one could be lovelier to behold. B, we are surrounded by a sea of flowers, a scene that would be hard to match even on Earth. C, we live in a micro-gravity world that makes one as light as an angel with white wings, afloat on a silver-white cloud. D, the whole world that surrounds us is bathed in a lovely pink light, matching the pink of lips, panties, and many other things."
"Ah, but you're wrong on item, D," she said. "There are no panties, pink or otherwise. Why would a girl need them? Why should we emulate you boys, where it's a part of the package? We dance our own dance. We call our own tune, and if it is the heart that sings, then the melodies will always match the melodies of other hearts, and the freer the song becomes, the greater the joy will be."
I agreed with this assessment, and I could see why.
"Actually, you are wrong about the clouds," said Jill a while later. "You are wrong about the micro-gravity too, that you say is making the floor appear nine times softer. I think it is actually nine-and-a-half times softer, and the cloud is pink that I am floating on, and it has the number nine written on it in golden letters."
"Is anything else wrong that I said?" I added a while afterwards.
"Actually no," she said. "No matter how hard I try, I can't think of any complaints. Can you?"
"No!"
"Yes, I do have a complaint," I broke the silence a long time later. "The complaint is against myself."
"Oh?"
"When I took my heart in hand and dared to come after you to say hallow, I wanted to say to you, thank you for being in the world. I failed to say this," I said. "So here it is: Thanks you Jill, for being a part of this universe."
"Oh, I think you have been saying this in more ways than you can imagine," she replied.
"And you too," I added.
"But you are right, we can't say it often enough," she said, and then she said it again with another hug and another kiss.
My love for Natalia was as if it stood centuries apart from my love for Jill, as if each belonged to a different sphere or time. Martin would have called this separation an invalid concept. I realized that. I also realized that my love for each was actually the same in principle, but individual in expression. That glorious spark of an idea took away the division, separation, and any sense of isolation between Natalia and Jill. This wonderful multiplicity in unity quickly became almost a paradox for me that I nearly couldn't figure out, but eventually did. The paradox seemed related to an invalid concept. The concept of separation was invalid, while the concept of an all-embracing individuality was not. Its universality was uniting. We were all human beings and spectacular in our own way.
Nevertheless, a trifle of the old notion remained. The idea of closeness was related to the concept of separation as negation. That concept too, had to be scrapped. The idea came that the concept of closeness can stand on its own as a manifest of our common humanity that we all share, which had rendered our human world so unspeakably rich. The challenge, thus, became one of letting go of even that, and to embrace the truth that there exists no principle for separation which would make this closeness appear special rather than normal and universal. Jill became intertwined with this endlessly challenging project that we had no intention to define a limit for.
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