Racing Hearts Go!

For the Love of Two Suns

Bethany stood on the dry-stone footbridge and stared down at her open palms where two rose heads lay - their petals open in offering. She'd been given both that day - two colours - two Valentines and two proposals. And with those proposals, her heart and mind were torn in two. How could she ever choose between yellow and orange, for both brought sunshine into her life.

Could she live without the vibrant, sunny, Sally - who was a constant pleasure, who brought her hope in every sunrise? Even when ink, black clouds wrote depression across the skies, Sally's yellow glow, made rich the landscape of Bethany's life. Time shared together was like slicing a lemon and tasting life's zest - sharing in that sparkling exuberance. Might her days be permanently stormy without her?

Or might Melissa's mellow nature bath her life in sublime tranquillity. Soothing out the days' aches as the sun drops into a wash of orange squash. Bethany knew that having Melissa in her sunsets would be a satiation of her dreams, and she would know calm - and she would know contentment.

But here on the bridge, with the dancing river beneath, Bethany felt none of those things. Her thoughts were not soothed by the plip and plop of the river as it wound its way around island rocks and grassy outcrops. In her hands, the roses had been de-flowered, their petal hearts, velvet between her fingertips, fragile without their core.

Instinctively Bethany let her indecisions tumble, the petals cascading through the air to settle uneasily on the water's shifting surface. Sunrise and sunset mingled - shape-shifting on the ripples as the river carried them towards their fate.

Bethany considered this. Their fate or hers? Surely they were one and the same thing? Without hesitation she ran from the bridge, following the river bank as she chased the floating procession - convinced now, that whichever colour petal, passed first under the bridge, in the distance, would be the one that dictated her future.

The bridge loomed quickly, but as she ran atop of it, and looked down to receive the river's decision, she saw that both yellow and orange petals slipped across the finishing line in unison. A draw, she thought, disappointed that the race hadn't given her the conclusion she wished for, or had it? Watching the petals disappear into the shadow of the arch, she realised the hopelessness of her situation. She could never choose between her sunrise and her sunset, for one could not exist without the other.