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What Is This Book About?

Two friends will become lovers. A relationship revealed in the words exchanged back and forth through a cellular, glass divide.

In this digital age of courtship, their story grows from the giddy joy of «What if?» to the finale of «What next?» and everything in-between.

Love is never easy, and the question of distance is ever-present. Shown in all its vulnerability, its bumps and bruises, their tale unfolds for all to see.

Will love prevail?

FOREWORD 

Stories continue. They never truly end. Theirs was no different to any other. After all, it had played out through the centuries already, sometimes remembered, ofttimes not. 

Theirs was a tale formed from a poetic love, one still with gaps to fill. A few well-chosen words were required. Love deserves that, don’t you think? Love deserves a chance to reveal itself fully in all its radiant splen dour and occasional grime. 

Excerpt from «The Poetry of Pronouns, Too»

PART I 

ARRIVALS 

There is the anticipation of ‘what is’ about to happen and the fear of ‘what could’ happen. It’s all in the mind. 

Was there ever any doubt?

SHE – FIRST CLASS 

I didn’t have much to do but sit while the pilot flew the plane. I was exhausted and anxious having expelled so much energy in the anticipation of meeting my destiny in the flesh. Six months leading up to this moment that was sure to change many lives forever. I shifted uncomfortably in my leather seat. 

Honestly, I felt like a fish out of water as I wiggled. Could the wealthy people smell the fraud on me? Imagine a redneck prairie girl pretending to be refined among the well-to-do. I was nothing but a paper-plate imposter among fine china. Like everything with this journey though, my upgraded first-class ticket was simply the proof. The first of many signs that things were falling into place, so I could fall into his arms effortlessly. 

‘Would you like some champagne, Madame?’ 

I turned down the fancy beverage and asked for a cranberry juice. The steward looked at me oddly. Oh no, I was already found out, a ruse hiding alongside the rich! My cranberry juice cocktail in a champagne glass arrived. I had a mind to ask for a straw but kept my mouth shut. 

I sipped and pondered; how did it all happen? I hated travel 3

ing, especially flying. Having grown up in an airpark, I was used to seeing Cessnas dive toward the earth, crashing and burning like meteorites breaching the atmosphere. Yet there I was volun tarily, cutting through the sky in a steel bullet. All to see those cobalt eyes in person. 

‘Your main course, Madame.’ 

I sliced into my salmon whilst cutting to the chase of my thoughts about ‘us.’ I was never an expert at attachment. I’d discussed my fear of commitment many times with my thera pist. I heard her voice echoing in my head over the loud drone of the jet engines. 

‘You’ve spent your life picking men you know you can leave without being phased. You’re a specialist at slipping away from commitment so you can outrun love. So, what are your thoughts? Why are you flying five thousand miles straight to it? What does it mean for you?’ 

What did it mean? Why was I willing to test my bodily limits to travel? Why was I being so accountable with the heart of a man? This was never my way. Not until I decided to build a friendship, then to love him, to go out on a wing and a prayer. Not until I decided to say those three simple words that have been uttered in every language spoken by humankind since the beginning of existence. 

‘I love you.’ 

The truth was, he was different. He was everything. My anchor in the squall of a turbulent mind. My voice of calm and of reason. My laughter. My growth as a human being. The person who knew me inside and out and stayed. Despite the obstacles of this adoration, I knew I owed it to the both of us to follow through. It was my duty since setting the wheels in motion. 

He was worth it. I’d overcome every one of my fears to be in his life, until it was ‘our’ life together. 

Bing! 

‘The captain has turned on the fasten your seatbelt sign. We 4

are now descending into Heathrow Airport. We hope you enjoy your time in Britain.’ 

Above all things, even the clouds. I trusted my love for him enough to believe I’d enjoy my time in Britain, as we soared towards the future. 

HE – ANTICIPATION 

Oh, the anticipation! 

Two-hundred miles of driving with only one thing on my mind: Don’t be late! 

To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is inexcusable. The old saying flicked through my mind over and over. I’d worked it out to the second. Even fitted in a super fluous motorway break. No turn was overlooked. Other than unavoidable disasters I wouldn’t be late. I couldn’t be late. 

The truth? I was pushing it. 

A new route. A journey into the deep south territories a Yorkshireman dreads. So many cars. So many delays. The minutes became hours. The miles became legend. Heathrow approached like a tortoise on a treadmill; the same old questions and worries resurfaced. 

We were desperate to meet. To be together. Yet she was so unwell. What had I done? 

When you care for someone so intensely, you should put their wellbeing before all else. But had I? My four-and-a-half hour drive was nothing to what she’d gone through. What she went through every day. Should I have just said: No. 

I turned into the multistorey car park with only thirty minutes to spare. Thirty minutes almost totally absorbed by struggling to park. Damn you! Damn you all to Hell! 

Accordingly, I ran. 

My eyes flicked straight to the inbound flights: Close. I posi tioned myself in good view of every doorway and looked again: Landed. 

There were no nerves, which for a man who lived on them was really saying something. I’d never been nervous around her. Everything had always slotted into place, easy as a heart behind a ribcage. Every word went understood. Every look was recipro cated. It had always been so easy. If I could just get to her, this would be the same. 

Time passed. 

People came and went. 

Where was she? 

Oh, God! What had I done? 

My phone sprang into action and there she was, gaunt, spec tral, defeated. 

I won’t go into the farce at Heathrow. How they lost one of her bags. How there was absolutely no one to help. How one of the world’s major airports could be so ridiculously understaffed. How it baffled the mind. How I ran hither and thither for assistance, like some demented mouse in search of cheese. The reason I said to just leave the bag. That I’d get it back for her one way or the other. How when I saw her doubled over from the stress and the strain of the journey and the horrendous arrival, it almost broke my heart. No, we won’t go into that. Just this. 

She saw me. I saw her. There was only one thing to do. One thing she needed right then, at that time, at that moment. We embraced like the long-lost lovers we were. I took her in my arms and squeezed, gave as much of myself to her as I could. And though our journeys had wiped both of us out, wrapped 

together like the two peas in a pod we were, there was one stark reality: We were meant to be. I could have shouted it to the world. 

This was the first time we’d met face to literal face, yet it felt like we’d held each other forever. From then on, my every flicker of energy would be channeled into make sure we would. 

PART II 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS 

They say one’s first reaction is the one that sticks. A first impression, whether right or wrong, will take some changing. How they hoped those first impressions never changed. Why? Because Christmas had just moved to October.

SHE – INNATE UNDERSTANDINGS 

Once upon a time there lived a lonely man with a wire cage inside of him. He was terribly frightful of the light, so he remained in the shadows of his own cocoon. He moved only a little, surrounded by the confines of his chrysalis. A larva inside a translucent shell, he watched the world around him. 

Every time the man thought of doing something out of the ordinary, the butterflies that took up residence inside his chest would flap their thin paper wings into a frenzy. Flit and flutter, a delicate rampaging display, raging against where a heart should beat. He’d began to perspire and grow dizzy during these times. A shaky hand would make its way to his temple, where his finger would mimic what those little flying insects were doing in his torso. It bobbed and batted on his forehead until his brow throbbed and his guts ached. The only remedy was a bit of elixir to make the butterflies dormant again, all the while knowing they were laying their eggs on those rib cage wires. Another batch of Lepidoptera would soon take flight if he wasn’t careful, so he was. Too careful, until… 

The man still had to get out for fresh air every once and awhile. He chose to explore the world before most of the world 

awoke. He walked along the marshy paths by the bogs and wetlands. The fellow delighted in the amphibious symphonies that played in the throats of the toads as they performed for crickets. He was friendly with the owls and the foxes too; the creatures respected his reverent observations. They knew he was a bit of a swamp bug too, this man with a belly full of butterflies. 

He stood still on the embankment and thought about his life, ‘oh, how he wanted someone to know him.’ A friend or even better, a lover that would cradle him when the fanning insect wings made him feel faint. 

Did he dare ask? He closed his eyes and sent a wish up into the ether on the backs of the lightning bugs. 

‘Mother Nature, please send me someone who will love me. I’m so tired of being lonely.’ 

Around and around those lightning bugs spun, a cyclone of effulgent fog and force. It whipped the weeping willows into an upturn as all the swamp life gathered their voices together to seal the spell. A thunderous proclamation for the butterfly man. 

He saw her materialize above the reeds like a dream, eyes glowing like the luminescence in which she came. Her ebon hair licked against the moonlight, as the bog breezes gently kissed her cloud-like, nymph body. She was splendid, like all the wild in the world had divided into a million atoms to mold her. As for clothes she had none, not a queen’s wardrobe would be fine enough to cup the curves of her. The only accessory to grace her was a necklace made of polished sediment stones. The charm dangling at the bottom of that piece of jewelry was a single agate key. 

It danced on her clavicle and mingled with the gentle inhala tion of sacred air that filled her lungs with life. 

Now, normally the butterfly beau would have been crawling out of his skin. Seeing an out of the ordinary enigma didn’t happen in the bog, at least not on the nights he visited. Yet the 

butterflies in his belly slept, they must’ve not noticed the beauty that stood before him. 

‘You called for me?’ 

Her voice was like silk spilling down from reams on tailor’s shelves. It cascaded into languid puddles that collected in his ears and lingered on his skin. 

‘I wished for you. I long for someone to open up to. I’m so lonely.’ What was this?! An answer to her question, and in the boldest tone. Not a stammer locked up his tongue, not a timid falter to be had. He felt certain, confident, and unabashedly opti mistic for the first time in his life. 

She smiled at him, her eyes folding into rainbows as she put only millimeters between them. He felt her moist sugar mouth teasing his beard, as she spoke against his chin. 

‘Do you trust me?’ 

He affirmed it with a nod alone, as she came forward and kissed him deeply. Knowing it was only she that could be the answer to his lifelong prayers to be seen and heard and loved. 

She stepped back, hands around her own throat to unfasten the necklace that dangled there. Without breaking his gaze, she plunged the agate key into the place where the butterflies existed. With marksman precision she turned the lock and opened the door to his wire cage chest. 

They were all set free, as was he. Monarchs, Viceroys, Tiger Swallowtails, and the Creamy Marble-wings flew out of the man’s middle in a gleeful display of grandeur and relief. The swamp creatures cheered as the insects pirouetted across the water. Butterflies and lightening bugs intermingled in the euphoria of innate understanding.

«The Poetry of Pronouns, Too» is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardcover.

Author Biography

Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals Series and Britannia Unleashed. He is the co-author of The Poetry of Pronouns Books 1 & 2. Richard has been featured in Daily Science Fiction, Love Letters To Poe, and Starspun Lit. He feels privileged to have appeared in many more. Richard lives to write.

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