Madly in Love

Wyatt Fissile's face looked respectable. He was neither wooingly handsome nor embarrassingly ugly. He looked you directly in the eye without a flash of disdain, but, to the annoyance of many young women, also without a look of endearment. It was a steady gaze and there was nothing presumptuous about it. He was merely looking. There was no twinkle of intelligence in his eye, nor was there that annoying look of ignorance you sometimes see in the vain. His eyes were respectable, nothing more. He parted his black hair to one side and kept it a certain length by regularly visiting the barber shop. It was neither too clean nor too messy. It was there for shade in the summer and to keep his head warm during the winter, nothing more. If you looked at him, his hair would escape your notice entirely. His hair was respectable. Wyatt rarely smiled but never frowned. His lips weren't pursed or grim-looking and they didn't open to reveal flashy white teeth. His lips simply were, just like the rest of his face: an indescribable construction of flesh. Wyatt's face could only be described by what didn't describe it. The whole face was neither refreshing nor depressing.

Wyatt decided to be this sort of person when he became CEO of a very powerful company. This was in the beginning, before the company collapsed into ruin. As the youngest man to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Wyatt was treated coolly by the board of directors but with admiration by his employees. This he didn't like. To start, he gave many conference speeches to the press, his lower employees, and to the board. To his agitation, Wyatt realized that he was liked by some people very much and by others little, so one night he grappled onto a word that would change his life forever: "respectable." Respectable seemed to slip between those nasty terms used by the board and the ridiculous terms of praise used by admirers and the press. His admirers were as useless as his detractors. They were mostly moochers or well-wishers who really didn't mean it. His detractors were either jealous or simply too dimwitted to see the brilliance of his economic endeavor. So, with no one to be intimately associated with, he meditated on respectability, imagining with all his might how a respectable person looked and spoke. It worked for the majority of his twenties and even into his thirties.

Life is constantly inconstant. Wyatt should have known better than to think he would be a certain person till the end of his days. At the age of thirty-six, he knew many things, especially things about economic change: The slowing and quickening beat of the economic heart - the only heart he knew. His ability to perceive fluctuation before it fluctuated was his claim to fame and fortune. But fortune didn't concern Wyatt, for in his opinion opulence could not be respected; outrageous luxury being associated with too many disreputable people. With fame and power, Wyatt should have enjoyed the sexual advantages of a bachelor. He refrained from such "complications," however, not in order to respect a moral code, but in order to remain respectable. The only women in his life were necessities: the secretary, his maid, and the dentist. This is where Wyatt's immense intellect failed him and where the change took place. He didn't know how to be intimate with people, especially with women. He considered it respectable to treat everyone the same, which is why he had only acquaintances and no friends, but more importantly it was why women found him neither hot nor cold. He knew he couldn't possibly be intimate with everyone, so he was intimate with no one.

Poor Wyatt. Cupid chuckles when he sees his target's back turned; he hovers behind the unsuspecting victim and delivers a close range shot. A pain hurts more when it's unexpected and a pleasure is more pleasurable when it's unlooked for. Love can inflict both pain and pleasure at the same time, which is enough trouble to sort through if one sees it coming, but when love catches you unawares it's a throw up. You may as well toss your hands in the air. Try pulling out an arrow that has pierced your back. It will remain there forever unless you ask for help, or, if you're like Wyatt who never asked for help, you may rip open your chest, reach in, and pull it through - something even the bravest shy from. Love, as the greatest power, deserves respect. Of all people, Wyatt should have respected love. It comes as no surprise then that Wyatt's new beautiful secretary would initiate Wyatt's collapse along with the collapse of his company.

"She must be moved," Wyatt would say to no one in particular. "I can't keep her there...she's too close...she's right outside my door...I can't focus on a damn thing. I'm sick of this." He would run through these thoughts again and again while pacing his office. After months of saying this, Wyatt's brain considered these things by default. He felt better when he thought about "relieving" her from her post and doing her the favor of giving an excellent recommendation to another firm, but he didn't actually know her or pay attention to her work. They occasionally spoke, but only over the intercom and he curtly. "It wouldn't be respectable to give a recommendation like that, so I better keep her until I have something to note. Yes, it's only right and respectable to do that. I refuse to compromise myself for this girl." But he knew deep down that for her to be any place other than outside his door would be madness.

He dreaded the morning when he was forced to pass through the anteroom and put on his respectable look. That's what it became: a mask. He tried arriving earlier every day and then realized with an unusual chuckle that she arrived at five o'clock. On her second day there, she stood up and smiled, waiting for the hello and introduction that didn't occur on the first day. He nearly ran by.

"You're not running from anything are you?" she asked with genuine concern, flashing a glance towards the elevator as if something evil lurked there.

"I prefer to think of myself as running to something," Wyatt replied as he rushed by without making eye contact.

Gradually his respectable look turned into a look of dismay. Wyatt felt trapped. His soul felt horribly foreign. The mirror reflected someone he didn't recognize. His face looked a little more etched and chiseled as if the Sculptor thought his face needed more work. He watched a clip of himself shaking hands with a fellow potentate on the news - his shoulders were droopier than before, or were they always that way and for some reason he now cared? His mind was continually racing a miserable track. He would do anything to get off! The more he ran this track the shorter it became, until eventually only the secretary's pretty face flashed by over and over.

"I must have you as my wife, effective immediately," he finally said with an air of madness about him. He said it as soon as the elevator opened.

"Excuse me?" the secretary said with her pretty smile.

"Yes. Look at me," he approached her and gazed into her eyes for the first time, "I will do whatever you ask of me. I will purchase whatever you wish; go wherever you desire to go, and be whoever you want me to be. But this! This," he said with his eyes darting all about, "must end. I either have you or I...I die."

The secretary looked at the ring on her finger.

"I know. But so what! I've thought about it and I'll give him more money than he can count. Look, I will bow down before you and beg. Beg!"

The secretary rose quietly from her seat, entered the elevator, and left, never to be seen by Wyatt Fissile again.