Lidia: [reading from a piece of paper] "When I awoke this morning, you were still asleep. As I slowly emerged from my slumber, I heard your gentle breathing and through the wisps of hair over your face I saw your closed eyes and I could barely contain my emotion. I wanted to cry out, to wake you up, because you slept so deeply, you almost seemed lifeless. In the half light, the skin of your arms and throat appeared so vibrant, so warm and dry that I longed to press my lips against it, but the thought of disturbing your sleep, of you awake in my arms again, held me back. I preferred you like this, something on one could take from me bacause it was mine alone - - this image of you that would be everlasting. Beyond your face I saw my own reflection in a vision that was pure and deep. I saw you in a dimension that encompassed all the times of my life, all the years to come, even the years past as I was preparing to meet you. That was the little miracle of this waking moment: to feel for the first time that you were and always would be mine and that this night would go on forever with you beside me, - with the warmth of your blood, your thoughts, and your will mixed with mine. At that moment, I realized how much I loved you, Lidia, and the intensity of the emotion was such that tears welled up in my eyes. For I felt that this must never end, that all our lives should be like an echo of this dawn, with you no belonging to me but actually a part of me, something breathing within me that could could ever destroy except the apathy of habit, which is the only threat I see. Then you awoke and with a sleepy smile, kissed me, and I felt there was nothing to fear that we'd always be as we were at that moment, bound by something stronger than time and habit."
