He awoke with a start. The dreams he’d had were many and extremely vivid, as had been the case with all his dreams since entering this last phase of life. As if his mind was now preparing him for the final transition, the graduation ceremony, as it were, from what had so long been home for him. All of it, once so critical and so momentous, and now, so fleeting and insubstantial. Like a dream itself, nearing that awakening to the dream that holds all dreams within itself as brief flashes of joy, pain, wonder, and endless drudgery. Life cascading into life and on into new life, as passageways open to hallways that lead on to tunnels that, then, loop back around again, bringing him back to the start each time with new revelation, new perspective, with which to see it all fresh and vibrantly new, as yet again, the journey awaits.

Of course, as he lay there - his head resting against the pillow - he was oblivious to such a pattern. To any patterns of any sort. She was dying, and all he knew was that she'd finally admitted that she loved him, that she'd always loved him, and that she still loves him after all these long years. He'd so often played the maudlin fool, with those hideously syrupy confessional letters he'd written - each serially ending their life-long commitment to each other; so many times she'd broken his heart with her absentminded disregard for his brittle ego. Even through the long string of romantic partners that each of them had gathered over the years, only to leave twisting in a cold black wind once the novelty had worn off. Again and again, it had been the two of them, staggering back to the center with harrowing tales of duplicity and transgression on the part of those villains who’d sinned against them by accepting their crippled affections. As if the two of them had contracted a study on the limits of human emotional endurance, and were required to periodically meet and assess the carnage before launching into further field work.

He smiled as he looked to her, lying next to him in her tiny fetal curl. Her hair was still thick and flowing, even as its deep rich ebony had been supplanted by a December's clean, fresh blanket of white. She was still beautiful. Her skin, as soft as he'd always imagined it might be. Her amber eyes, still as fresh and aware as they'd been the first time he noticed their flashing brilliance, finally emerged from beneath the unruly mop that had hidden her from the world until the age of fifteen, when at last he'd seen her for the first time ever – as if he hadn't grown right next door to her since his earliest memory – and realized that this would be the only one who could ever matter to him from that moment on. Her tiny, delicate frame, curled into him, so perfectly formed into him as they whispered their love for each other just a few hours before. It was all so perfect, and so worth the many years of miscue and disastrous serendipity that brought them both, finally, to this moment of inevitable rendezvous.

He reached to touch her hair, and suddenly noticed the faint tone that had replaced the incessant beep, beep, beep of the night before. A wave of anguish washed over him, as he allowed his hand to move along her perfect cheek and rest against the smooth flow of her neck. She was ice cold.

He allowed a tear to roll down from the corner of his eye to tickle his ear as it made its way to the pillow that had so recently cradled his head during his life's most perfect moment. The defeat was absolute, and he bowed to the masterful irony of it all as he lifted to turn off the monitor. It was hospice, and when the staff finished their rounds, they’d be in to clean the room. No cause for emergency in any case. People came here to die. They didn’t come here to be saved from death.

He lay back down and pulled her to him once again. He lifted her arm to lay across his chest as she'd done just a few hours before. He pressed her head to the same part of his shoulder where she'd told him of her regret that they’d never married. Of how she’d suffered in his absence, even as she'd willfully denied her own longing for his presence, his touch – his love in her life. He felt her tears once again as that beautiful moment came back to him as more than a dream. More than a vision of what would never again be for him. More real than the cold, dim room that held the last lost chance for happiness in his life. A life filled beyond capacity with lost chances for anything resembling happiness, or even contentment. And this, the final loss.

He settled back and allowed his mind to wander through his life with her. Each smile, each perplexing glance, each momentary yes followed by the inevitable no, as she played fox to his clumsy hound through meadow and thicket, over miles of forest and open field. She - always pulling up just enough to allow him vicinity, while denying him capture, and always – always – denying him the failure he'd need to call off the hunt. A fox in love with the chase - in desperate need of the one hapless hound that faithfully gave her that chase - running both through the lives of so many innocent passers-by.

His quieting mind lingered briefly over the women he'd given away to aloneness, and, in some cases, to blistering grief, on her behalf. As if they'd been only a series of meals to sustain his pursuit of the one who would soon, once again, draw him through life with such relentless dedication. And yet, if the chase is truly own by the fox and the hound, then they’d wed through that chase long ago, and had remained faithful to one another until the very end, with all other lovers merely streams, barns and fences littering the landscape as the pursuit unfolded from year to year.

He thought of her string of lovers, and how he'd always been the chink in their armor; the knave beneath the petticoat as their ignorance of who she was and why she was such an enigma bonded the two of them against each and every one who dared enter their circle. Ravishing and maddeningly sensual, she'd wrapped one after another around her life in brief torrents of domesticity, only to shred each of them in her mania for that which only he could provide. That forever freshness of tortured devotion. The madness of an unrequited love drenched in a passion denied through circumstance; certainly not through disinterest. As an eternal Juliet to his Romeo, she lived lost forever to the brutality of fate, even as the tragedy of it all was allowed to play again and again. And all the while she'd staged each scene and directed every action.

And he, in his blinded love, played his part with heartbreaking sincerity over and over and over again. Thoughtlessly accepting the failure that had been written into the script long before, as if it were a torturous revelation each time it rolled back around again to achieve that same familiar despair that she'd coaxed from him the last time. And the time before that. And the time before that.

He felt his thoughts begin to slide into new areas of wander, as the comfort of holding her swept through his frail, aged body and lifted the weight of the last 87 years slightly. He contemplated the whole of life, and the value of existence. What had been lost, versus what had been gained in his own life. Had anything been lost or gained? Had any of it accounted for anything at all? He'd only succeeded in one thing; in loving her until she was no more.

- continued

The Chase continued -

In the whole of a person's existence, was that enough? Was anything ever enough, or was it all irrelevant anyway? In this last evaluation, he struggled to come to a moment of epiphany. That struggle ceased as a blinding flash shut off all thought.

“So what did you think?”

“You were terrible.”

“Terrible? What about you? Can you say 'stalker'?”

“Yeah, right. Stalker, my ass. You loved it.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. It was wonderful. You were so handsome and hopelessly vulnerable. So much more endearing than the last time. God, you were such a bastard that last time.”

“Was I? I don't remember.”

“Don't give me that. You know perfectly well what a jerk you were. All that money. And me, with nothing at all. I was so vulnerable, and you took complete advantage of that situation.”

“…ha. You have no idea. I look forward to reprising that role in the future. That was a hell of a ride.”

“Not with me, you won't. I'm never going through that again. Never.”

“So tell me, dear. Is that why you ran me through such pain this last time? To get back at me for how I treated you when I was in the driver seat?”

“Now sweetheart, you know how this works. I have no idea - as I make my way through these little vignettes - about anything other than what's directly in front of me. I’m no different than you. I’m surprised you’d even suggest such a thing.”

“It just makes me wonder, that's all. There was no reason for the weird stuff you put me through this time. Even you have to admit that we both suffered as a result.”

“….yeah. I don't know what to say.”

“I devoted my whole life to you this time. Damn, it still hurts a little.”

“I feel it too. I…..I just don't know….”

“Can we take a break and just hang out for a while? I need to recover a little. There's a lot I still have to process about this last one. So much that still doesn't add up.”

“I'm okay with that. Maybe we can talk. It's been a while since we talked about any of these sessions.”

“I'd like that.”

“So, you did know that I loved you. Right?”

“Only at the very end.”

“Really? Not before then?”

“No. Never before then. Only that last talk we had in your hospice room. Only then.”

“God, I'm so sorry. I loved you so much the whole time.”

“…yeah. That's what you told me.”

“Being alive is brutal. So much that screws with you. It's easy to get lost. I'm so sorry I was so lost.”

“It's over. We're here, and we're together again. That's all that matters. Maybe we'll learn something from it.”

“I think it'll be good to take a break and see what we can make of all of it. Not just this last one, but all of them. They each had their drama. They all have something to offer.”

“I'm glad I love you. I'm glad that we exist together.”

“Me too. At least something makes sense to me.”

“Speaking of…I may have a few apologies to make to a few of the others. I ran some women through terrible places while waiting for you to pop your head up again.”

“ugh. Don't remind me. This time it's not going to be so easy to laugh it off. I left a lot of damage in my wake too. I wonder if any of them are still here or if they've already taken on new scenarios?”

“One way to find out. Are you ready to make a showing and get it over with, or do you need a moment?”

“Sweetie, can we just hang back for a while. I missed you terribly, and I need a little time with you before we start working back into anyone else's good graces. Would you mind if we just hid out for a while?”

“Of course not. You just come in here and fold into me. We'll set our barriers to meld as one, and take some time. Maybe everyone will have gone back in by the time we emerge again, and we won't have anything to apologize for after all.”

“I love loving you.”

“I love being loved by you. C'mere, slide in. I feel a good long rest drifting in.”

Winner.

Second line...