We met by chance on a
Sunday
at the town aquarium.
He stood aloof in the octopus exhibit,
gazing at their writhing tentacles, and looking
inscrutably pained. He turned to me and said,
“They regard themselves as aliens
in their own world, a condition
with which I am somewhat familiar.”
I fell in love right there.
He came over to drink
vodka
Gimlets on my porch swing,
and read to me from “Entropy”.
At first he was a bit standoffish,
but when we finally did make love,
he whispered, “Random chance
seems to have operated in our favor.”
He moved in on Tuesday.
When we fought,
he would squint at me with his satanic eyes
then say something unarguably rational,
without rancor, without
smashing plates. That was the thing about Spock:
he could be always be trusted
not to smash things, not to shove his fists
through the drywall in a rage, or fly
into a temper on the freeway.
He just dealt with things. For a while, it was bliss.
Then his unflappable
demeanor began to try my nerves,
at which time he observed, “It is curious
how often you humans manage to obtain
that which you do not want.”
On Friday, he said he
was leaving,
not just me, but the planet. “Nowhere
am I more desperately needed
as among a shipload of illogical humans.”
When I threw myself onto
the futon and sobbed,
he stroked my hand and said, “You may find that having
is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not
logical, but it is often true.”
When I bellowed that
he was a cold-hearted
bastard, he looked away. “I am what I am,
and if there are self-made
purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine
can be no worse than someone else's.”
And when I shattered
all the plates and screamed
that he was throwing away a beautiful thing,
he just shrugged. “It has always been easier
to destroy than to create.”
Then he packed his belt
and tunic, and walked out.Spock's been gone awhile now.
I still wear his Command
badge on my bathrobe.
At night, I fumble for it, and hear
his sonorous voice: “Logic is the beginning
of wisdom; not the end.”
