It’s Sunday and it’s the final day of The Dot Philosophies exhibition.
You’re a little melancholy that it’s almost over but you’re excited to see what the final installation has in store for you.
After a leisurely brunch in bed you make your way to the gallery. You skip over those friendly cobbles one last time and up those winding steps inside the foyer. You walk through the glass exhibition room doors and keep on walking forward until you get to the end.
There a small white dome with a small white door and a small white handle. You press the handle down and enter, dipping your head low on the way in.
It’s like an igloo inside; pristine white walls and a white bench that runs all the way around. You can’t hear anything or see anything worth noting. You can’t even smell anything either. But nevertheless you decide to take a seat in this pretty little bubble of nothingness.
As your body hits the bench, music begins to play out of speakers that are so well concealed you can’t even spot them. You recognise the chords of the song straight away – it’s Love Will Tear Us Apart by Jose Gonzalez.
Your body starts to melt with the music as your mind devours the lyrics. You’re slumping comfortably into your seat and your toes begin to tap. You lean your head against the wall and look up towards the ceiling of the dome.
And there it is, that same image you’ve been staring at all week – a thin black outline of our seven continents and seven seas.
But this time there aren’t seven billion black dots, or seven billion multi-coloured pins – there are only two. And they are red and shaped like hearts.
As you stare upwards with wide eyes, the song begins to stir up a thousand memories and feelings and thoughts. Your whole body feels it. This isn’t a dome, it’s a time machine of romantic recollections.
You know what love is. You always have. It’s a bond that no barriers can break and no miles can separate. It’s a connection that runs through the wire and through the airwaves.
It’s a look or a touch or a presence. It’s a magnetic force that keeps you together even when you are apart. And once it’s there, and I mean really there, it never ever leaves.
And as you look back on the lost loves that you’ll never stop loving, give thought to those you love now and look forward to the hearts that will meet yours in the future, you feel a concoction of every emotion any man, or woman, has ever felt. It’s pumping through your veins, beating in your chest and swirling around your stomach.
It’s love. And it’s tearing you apart, again.