Day Twenty Six : Sempiternal - Rabbit Hole

Sempiternal 

Definition 

: of never-ending duration : eternal

Despite their similarities, sempiternal and eternal come from different roots. Sempiternal is derived
from the Late Latin sempiternalis and ultimately from semper, Latin for "always."

Alice, at least, got to the end of her rabbit hole. Currently, in comparison with the situation I now found
myself in, this seemed inordinately unfair. A great injustice on the part of the universe. 

I know the vast multitude of the great public masses always say ridiculously unimaginative, tepid
things like ‘be careful what you wish for’ but really. It wasn’t even my wish in the first place!

Things like this are exactly why I don't do blind dates. Except on this one, super special occasion,
purely because my very, very best friend asked for a favour, which they only do once every blue moon
or when it snows in hell. So of course I said yes. 

I am deeply, deeply regretting that now. And also my unintentional pun. 

A first it had seemed to go fine. The restaurant was a bland, chain italian. Decent enough food,
affordable wine, interior decorating that balanced on the fine line between ‘authentic’ and ‘cheese-fest’.
Admittedly, this one seemed to be veering towards the ‘cheese-fest’ side of the line (they’d plunked
cheap candles in wax covered wine bottles on every table - with the ‘authentic melted wax’ from the
hundreds of candles that had theoretically burned down and melted artistically down the side of the
bottle previously looking somewhat identical for every one) but it was generic enough not to affront
anyone’s taste and ruin the date before it even began. 

The girl my friend introduced to seemed perfectly pleasant. So pleasant in fact that she also came off
the same way the restaurant did - trying so hard to be non-offensive that you completely lost sight of
the actual personality of the place underneath all the pleasantries. Her character was almost
impossible to get a grasp of, so strictly did she confine herself to the rules of social niceties. 

However, as I said, a pleasant girl and nothing occurred during the date to raise any warning signs or
make me uncomfortable, (I once had a date that lasted less than twenty minutes after the guy i was
on a date with asked how secure my property was as his ex-girlfriend wasn’t quite over him and could
be ‘a little extreme’) and so I readily agreed to a second date. 

We met the following weekend to attend an antiques fair, an unusual second date - in my opinion you
only attended antiques fairs together if one or both of you were in the antiquing business, or if you
were an older, much established, couple with money in the bank looking to invest in some pieces for
their final home. For a second date, to me it seemed a little off but what did I know? Different strokes
for different folks and all that. Besides, I'm sure she mentioned that she was into art or something,
maybe crafting so who was I to diss her hobby?

Then the red flags started to raise their ugly banners. 

For starters, she immediately hooked her arm through mine and clung on tight. Well, ok, some people
are pretty touchy feely. I mean, yeah, I didn’t think we were at the invasion of personal space stage yet
and she could have asked me first, but ok.

Then she started calling me darling. Hmm, ok, i call people darling a lot too (usually to hide the fact that I
have completely forgotten their name) so not a big deal. Although, I would never call a person I was
romantically interested in until a) they felt the same way or b) we’d been officially dating for an
established amount of time (say at least six months).

The biggest alarm bells started ringing when she began pointing at random crap and gushing
enthusiastically ‘darling, don’t you think that would look fabulous in the hallway?”

“What hallway?” I asked, confused. My flat didn’t have a hallway, not unless you counted the meter
square boxed area, just before you walked up the stairs to my flat. “Your hallways?” I hazarded.

She giggled. “Silly, our hallway.”

“We don’t own a property.” I said cautiously. “We don’t even live together.”

“Not yet!” And she giggled again.

Ok, clearly the woman I met at the restaurant in the previous date was either her saner identical twin or
a clever ruse to lull potential mates into a false sense of security at the normality of their date, thus
procuring a second one.

That’s it, i was out of here. 

Just as I was thinking of a suitable medical emergency that would extract myself from this rapidly
declining date, she hauled me across the street to look at a table covered in various knick knacks.
Apparently they were all themed after children’s stories. Cute. if you liked that sort of twee, hard nosed
business plan to cash in on nostalgic memories. 

“Isn’t this cute?” My soon to be not-date cooed at a shabby looking brass teapot. At least, I thought it
was a teapot but it looked wildly elongated and stretched out of shape.

“Aladdin’s lamp.” said the appropriately bearded and waistcoated young tramp behind the stall. 

She flashed me a bright and somewhat deranged smile (from the hard stare in her eyes, I was beginning
to suspect she’d caught scent of my escape plan) 

She rubbed the side of the filthy lamp and sung at it, “Genie, oh genie” Her eyes flit over to me slyly,
“I wish my date would love no other.’

My mouth hung open at the sheer audacity of what she said. 

“Bit-” was all I managed to get out before the ground opened up beneath me and swallowed me whole. 

****

After an indeterminable period of falling through absolute nothingness, I'd had plenty of time to consider
what had happened. 

Clearly, the genie had done its best to fulfill the wish. The idiot girl had clearly meant that she wished
I would love no one but her. However, at no point in that wish had she specified that.

Also, I somewhat remembered from the fairytale that one of the things that the genie couldn’t grant was
someone else’s heart. They could help you woo them with riches and power, but they couldn’t force
someone to love you. Thank Christ for that.

Instead, he seemed to have reached a compromise. By making me fall down this dark hole from now
until forever, I would never be able to love another. Clever, i give him that.

My blood ran cold at the thought that, had the genie been a particularly malicious one, killing me outright
would have easily fulfilled the terms of the wish. I was sincerely grateful to the genie that he was not. After
all, the turn of events wasn’t really his fault - it was all that stupid girl’s stupid plan.

As if from a great distance, I heard a noise. It was slowly getting closer and closer. I twisted my floating
body around and squinted into the dark. 

Oh no. Please no. 

She gradually came closer and all my worst fears were realised. It was my ex-date. 

Great. So now I was officially in hell. 

She drifted slowly towards me, shrieking her head off, her body curled up into a ball, her fists clenched
and her eyes screwed shut. She looked like a squalling baby. 

With her eyes closed like that, she hadn’t spotted me yet. In fact, if I held my breath and kept quiet, she
might even just drift past me none the wiser that she’d missed me. 

I let out my breath in a deep sigh. Sometimes I hate the fact that I'm not a bad person. 

I reached out and poked her in the ribs. In response she shrieked even louder and started failing her
arms about wildly. She didn’t, however, open her eyes. 

“Oi.” I said sharply, pitching my voice so it would carry over the noise she was making. “What the hell are
you doing here?”

She blinked, squinted at me and then lowered her arms sheepishly. “Looking for you?”

“With your eyes shut?” I asked sarcastically. 

She bristled. “Well, it’s scary in here.”

“How?” I asked. “There’s literally nothing here.”

“It’s still dark.” she mumbled. 

I rolled my eyes. “So why are you here?”

“I said before, to look for you.” she wilted, twisting her fingers and looking away. “To apologise.”

I stared at her. “So, let me get this straight, you condemn me to an eternity of falling through nothingness.
Then, once you start feeling guilty, instead of, say, getting me out of here, you also jump into the hole??”

She flinched. “The genie said the wish couldn’t be cancelled - but I did manage to get him to alter it a
little.”

I snorted. “Great. Thanks. So now I get to continue the shittiest date of my life into infinity. Awesome.
Just awesome.” 

She scowled. “It wasn’t that bad.”

In response, i just gestured at my surroundings. 

“Fine.” she huffed. 

“And that wish you asked for was just the worst.” I snarled. “How could you ever wish that on someone?
I’m already stuck with that particular curse and it is, quite frankly, the worst thing I have ever
experienced. It’s the reason I went on a blind date in the first place.”

“Even compared to this?” she asked disbelievingly. 

“Yes.” I hunched into a ball. 

“So wait.” she asked. “You went on a blind date knowing full well that you were already in love with
someone else? What a shitty thing to do!”

“What was I supposed to do?” I snapped back. “I’ve been in love with them for basically my entire adult
life. They don’t love me and they never will. They’ve made that plenty clear. But i still love them - so how
on earth am I supposed to not be in love with them? Should I just sit and rot at home until I die, still
loving them? (please God no) or do I go out and try to get over them? Of the two options, I much prefer
the latter.”

There was a brief silence. 

“Sorry.” She said sullenly. 

Silence resumed. 

Then.

“Is there really no chance?” She asked. 

“None.”  I said, at this point too worn out with my unrequited love to even be bitter. “You know when you
know you love them, and they also know that you love them, but you both don’t say anything because
you both know your feelings don’t align and they take extra care to reinforce, at all times, what a very
good friend you are.”

“Ouch.”

“Yup.”

“How long have you loved them?”

“‘About ten years now.”

“Ten years! And you’ve never loved anyone else?”

“Nope. I tried. I tried so hard - and I met and dated some really lovely people. But I couldn't stay with
them. I knew that if the one i really loved ever just clicked their fingers, i’d drop them in a heartbeat and
come running. It wasn’t fair on them. They deserved better than that.”

“Don’t you think you deserve better?” she asked softly.

“You know, after all this time, I really do.” I said honestly. “I just can’t seem to achieve it.”

“Well.” she said brightening up. “Maybe this is your lucky day after all!”

“Why?” I said,with a heightened sense of caution.

“Because, didn’t i say i changed the wish?”

Below us, the light was changing, becoming brighter and brighter. 

“What did you do?” I asked frantically, my body becoming heavier as normal gravity began to kick in.”

“Although I couldn't get it quite right.” she said loudly as a rushing, swooping noise began to fill the air
around us - a bit like the noise of a big waterfall, “I managed to change it to ‘ my date will love no other
in this world’

I stared at her in shock. “Do you not realise how much could have gone wrong with that vague wording!”
I shrieked. “Are you trying to get me killed.”

She shrugged. “Lighten up and live a little!” she shouted back.

“Oh you have got to be kidding-!” 

The light surged up and surrounded us, sweeping us away to whatever new world awaited us.