Unbound by Cells

I met Eli in the woods.

*

A few of my friends and I were camping out for the night near a creek when we saw him. He didn't look like he belonged there. His clothes were clean, not dirty like ours were. He looked like he should be sitting at a desk, reading something, not hiking through the forest. My friends thought it was kind of funny that I wanted to talk to him. They kept asking if I thought he was cute or something but they've never understood how I feel about things like that.

They had just decided to head back to our campsite when I walked up to him and introduced myself. He said his name was Eli and that he was looking for someplace in particular. He said he'd gotten lost earlier and hadn't been able to find his way back to his car yet. I pointed out where we had parked ours and invited him to join us for the night.

We talked all night long about everything, from the smallest details of our lives all the way up to our hopes and dreams for the future. We talked about what we liked and didn't like about each other's personalities, what we liked and didn't like about our friends' personalities too, even what we liked and didn't like about our own personalities, including things we'd never told anyone else before.

It was strange being so open with someone you'd just met but at the same time it felt right somehow, more right than anything that had ever happened before in my life up until then. It felt like there was nothing either of us could say that would ever make us shut up or want to walk away from each other. It felt like we were meant to meet each other that night for some greater purpose which neither one of us could really understand yet, although we both knew that someday we would know exactly why it had happened this way and what it meant once everything started falling into place in our lives over time as a result of it.

I don't think either one of us slept much that night but neither one of us minded because we had already made so many new friends in each other anyway so it didn't matter if any one of us got any sleep at all this night because none of us were going anywhere without each other now that we'd finally found each other after searching all throughout life for someone who would understand us this well this fast this easily this perfectly right off the bat with no questions asked whatsoever no matter how hard or how deep they might be or how upset they might make us feel inside, on account of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about us already anyway since they're us just as much as anybody else who knows us also is anyway or will be someday soon enough as far as anyone can tell or predict based on everything that's happened so far so far so far away from here between now and then and back again just as sure as tomorrow is today tomorrow today today today today today today sure enough won't be yesterday yesterday yesterday yesterday yesterday yesterday tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow today today . . .