"Karen."



"Hmm?"



"Karen."



"What?"



"Karen."



"What, damnit?"



Lying on the bean bag in the center of the room, I watch her focus snap away from the glowing screen as the word that she knows more intimately than any other kidnaps her attention.



Our pupils meet. Her irises contract and expand in the changing light of the room's rotating lamp. The psychological pressure that accompanies the stare amazes me. Her eyes jitter as her focus switches between both of mine. My consciousness and hers, looking upon each other, are conscious of each other directly, and for a moment this is almost too much for me to handle. I feel my eyes almost swivel away. The action's potential to occur seems to climb to a climax it can't quite reach before falling. I continue to stare in the captivation that superseded the brief will to look elsewhere.



"Wh-..." she starts. The way her voice trails off is telling of a sense that something is happening. Her eyebrows relax and her gaze shifts into deliberate attention. The relentless streams of predictive questions racing to babble out of her defy themselves and relent anyway. The concept of time takes the entire rest of the external world with it as it melts away. Two internal worlds suspending themselves in mutual acknowledgment remain, gazing out into each other.