By Ergo Sum

Pasha et Jardin, Resurrected!
Pasha could see words all around him in this restaurant.
He saw words being uttered, propelled into the air like shooting darts, bouncing off of peoples faces, finally falling onto to the floor. Every word fell with a clang -- like a hundred empty vessels hitting the ground in quick succession.

No one really bothered to pick up those words. Everyone had taken up the task of simply spouting more words in the hopes that if enough were produced, there would be a better a chance of someone actually grasping it, and reading it.

Pasha and Jardin always picked up each other’s words. In fact, it was in the perfect trade of unspoken words that they had discovered each other. When they met in person for the first time, the words they had exchanged became the faces they beheld. The meeting was merely an extension of their conversation started long ago.

And today, at this table, the conversation of their life together still continued.

"I know there is a purpose to life," Jardin said,
"and I still feel some remnants of the joy for living I felt as a child. But I am losing it now, Pasha. My life seems to be slipping out of my hands, and trying to hold on to it is hurting me too much."

His face was numb and expressionless. Pasha knew that such stoicism could only mean a pain too profound to bear any physical expression.