Built one country away, on an ordinary day
Ash
We've never been in the same room. You're still the warmest thing in my life.
Section one — from here
Things I've noticed about you, from an entire country away.
- 01
The way your eyes catch the light. I've looked at it more times than I'll admit.
- 02
You're the kindest person I have ever met.
- 03
That laugh. The real one, the loud one, the one that clips the microphone.
- 04
How certain you get about yourself the second you've done something well. It's my favourite thing you do.
- 05
Your voice at 1am your time, half asleep, is the best thing I have heard.
- 06
How you look in the photos you weren't posing for. Unfairly, ridiculously beautiful.You know I mean this.
- 07
The little pause before you say something kind, like you're choosing the exact right word.
- 08
You have not once been boring to talk to. Not a single time. Do you know how rare that is?
- 09
You're gorgeous in a way that doesn't need me in the room to be true. I'd just like to be in the room anyway.
Section two — the ember jar
Reach in. There's more where that came from.
Press the button. I filled this thing right up.
0 of 26 taken
Section three — one honest question
Do you know how loved you are?
Section four — calibration
Set the dial to how much I like you.
Section five — where this started
It began in a game. Of all the places on this earth.
A server neither of us had any business being in, on a night neither of us remembers properly. Statistically that should have gone absolutely nowhere. It went here.
> connecting
> joined server #4471
> polat has joined the game
> ash has joined the game
best server I have ever been in
Section six — the distance
There's a whole country in the way. Watch what it does anyway.
--:--:-- Right now, where you are in Germany.
Polat
Ash
Not yet. But it's already happening.
People keep telling me the distance is the hard part. It isn't. The hard part would have been never finding you at all.
Section seven — sealed
I wrote the rest down instead.
Break the seal
Ash,
I'm not good at saying this out loud — and there's a whole country in the way besides — so I built it instead.
Of every possible way this could have happened, it happened in a game neither of us should have been playing that night. I'm never going to stop finding that funny.
And we still haven't actually met. I'm aware. Somebody should probably tell my brain, because it hasn't slowed anything down for a single second.
Here's the strange part. I already know things about you that people standing right in front of you in Germany don't. I know what you sound like at 1am. I know the pause you take before you say something kind.
You're beautiful, obviously. That was never the question. It's just turned out to be the least interesting thing about you, which I genuinely did not expect.
So take this as a placeholder. For the hug I haven't given you yet. For the first time I get to hear you laugh at something in a room, instead of through a speaker.
Until then, this thing stays lit. Come back whenever you want to.
Yours, from one country over — entirely, embarrassingly.
— Polat