Roman was a young egotist. And so incredibly temperamental in the most romantic of ways. He was a self-proclaimed, non-sentimental type- plagued by periods of depression or passion, spaced between with tantalizing interludes of intellectualism or devotion. He gripped his romanticism with a fever that overtook his eyes- oceans of blue dominated by strikes of lightning, prone to accidental electrification of cautionless swimmers. Some found his moodiness unbearable; most found it intriguing, yet overwhelming. His was a spirit of eccentricism, with the seduction of just a faint hint of heretic.

Roman had laid with beauty earlier that day. They lounged side by side in the lazy warmness of late afternoon spring. The world, and she, seemed to sigh- her perfume drifted from petal to petal in the sweet sunshine and gentle breeze, and the universe seemed a much more safe place than it had before. He watched the birds swoop and dart through sunlit green branches and swaths of brilliant blue day, carrying melodies and cooing lullabies to those of us with not the wings to join them, as if in a dream. The wind blew past again, and she enveloped him in her green silk arms, whispered in his ear of the ever-fleeting, lovely youth that blooms and withers in her season. In a half-lidded, warm, sunny stupor, her blossoms swayed to kiss his neck: faintly touching, cool, electric pulses up his throat, warning of an evanescent afternoon in a short-lived season of beauty and innocence. There was sadness in her soft breaths that splayed lightly across his rosy cheeks- the sadness that comes with the realization that a moment passed is a second lost and a memory that will soon fade into the gentle nostalgia that is the once unspoiled sentiment of remorseful youth.