Dance of the Damned

It's a dance and we both know the steps by heart. Forward and back. Back then forward.
Repeat.

You grab my cold, dead hands and pull me to my feet. In your eyes I see that familar flickering light, and I wrench my hands from yours and use them to push you out onto the dance floor. You plead and beg, hand outstrech. You know the dance, but can't manage it on your own. Find another partner, I say. But even as I look around the room I see that there are none.

Better judgement ignored I take my place in your hands. You're grip is tight, almost too tight. I ignore the fleeting pain as the music begins. It's slow at first, almost happy. It sounds of reunion, of forgivness.

It doesn't last.

Before I can pull away again, the music has us both captive with it's forceful rythm. Our feet move togather in the only way they know how. It's no longer happy, but a sad mournful tune. You knew it was coming, but you panic anyway. I can feel your heartbeat quicken through my own skin. You try to slip from the embrace, but I sink my fingers into your shoulder and clasp them around your own fingers.

You're not going anywhere. The dance must be finished and it demands nothing less than blood.

My face is rigid and your eyes are tightly shut. I think you might sink into my embrace at long last, but instead you step on my feet and cause me to lose my balence. But the same arms that shove me away are there to pull me back up again. A deal is a deal.

Back and forth we go. Two steps here, and one there. Around the room we circle, and unending. We twirl faster and faster till the world outside the windows is nothing but a blur. Your hair falls into your eyes and you don't even notice. The floor beneath my my bare feet feels like ice. Cold, inforgiving, dangerous. We might fall.

But we've had too much pratice to fall, and so we continue on without flaw.

For days we continue, weak and tired the both of us. At long last song begins to draw to a close, the cycle begins to break. You stand in place, gasping for breath. I walk backward, slowly, on unsteady legs. I take one last look, then turn to leave. I swear that I am done. My feet are raw and bleeding, my back aches from holding you up. You don't look at me.

As I reach the door, I hear you let out a sob. I turn back.

There you lay on the floor, having collapsed under the weight of your own heart. The floor beneath you is smeared in blood, and I can't tell who's it is.

Help me, you whisper.

My blisters and bruises cry out as I begin to walk back toward you. A faint music plays softly in the background. I feel my own hot tears start to prick at the corner of my eyes. I blink them away.

You're a mess, I whisper, extending my shaking hand. You reach for it, but fall short. I want to tell you to stay there, to look at at my own scars, my own wounds. But I won't. I won't leave you there. I will not leave you like you would leave me.

I lower myself to the ground next you. I take your face in my hands and wipe away the tears. With all my strength I pull you to your feet. Your weight sags against me and my knees almost buckle, but I refuse to heed them.

The music has begun again, calling us both to our places.

We lost our simplicity. We lost it somewhere on the beach, in the parking lot, on the grass, in the cracks of the sidewalk, or in one of the sticky booths at the pizza place. We spent so much time making plans to do something great- something memorable. We failed to see then that those would become the strongest memories. Just the times we spent planning the rest of our lives.

It was simple then, because all the worries and fears were things to be dealt with in the future. We didn't have to worry about life in those moments, we just lived it. And we didn’t even notice. We look back now and that is what we remember. We remember laughter, smiles, jokes, tears, and secrets… all the things that brought us together for those seconds and minutes and years.

How many times did the sun go down on us before we realized that each time it did so it got closer to being the last time?

After School

The dream's gone out, like the lights in the wake of the janitor. The doors that once seemed so big now shrink before my frame. Mere weeds have now become trees, a canopy above me, blocking out the sky. Chains on the swings now squeak not with use, but with rust. The sun sinks behind me, it's glare spreading to the windows. Behind the streaked glass sit dusty books and paper houses, yellowed by the unending flow of days.

There is no rest for this place, it endures tirelessly, unwillingly. Cigarettes and condom wrappers litter the ground where once before there were juice boxes and failed tests. Shards of glass sprout up from the ground in places where violets and dandelions once grew. Laughter echoes in the approaching dusk, harsh and bitter. Before there were giggles that bounced between the wooden rungs of the monkey bars.

The air still holds the lingering smell of rubber and asphalt. The cement still shows the fading lines of four square and hopscotch. A thousand sneakers have flattened these paths, but I remember only my own. Shoelaces untied, hair twisted by the breeze. Strong winds blow now, as night quiets the secrets housed beneath the rocks and sticks. All that has come and gone, and has yet to be seems to take flight in the stubborn wind.

There is nothing here for me. Distant memories, ideas torn and shredded by reason. The future is no longer a grand adventure, but a haunting shadow ever upon my heels. My hands are stained with blood instead of paint, my face marred with ash instead of fresh dirt. I am no longer a creator, but a destroyer. My footprints are too big, my voice too loud in the quiet of this place. My mind is sealed shut against its lingering wisdom, my heart hardened against its last whispers. This is a sacred place, a hallowed place. I dirty it with my presence. I stain it with my lofty thoughts. I desecrate it with my account of it.

The dream is dead.

We Write.

We write on napkins. We write on the backs of receipts. We write on scraps of cardboard. We write on street signs and in the stalls of public bathrooms. We write in the dirt, in the dust and in the ashes.

We write when we're happy. We write when we're sad. We write when we're angry and we write when we're excited. We write through tears. We write when we feel like it. And sometimes when we don't. We write in the midst of fond memories. We write to ourselves. We write to lovers. We write to enemies.

We write letters. We write notes. We write memoirs. We write obituaries. We write articles. We write stories. We write poems and we write threats. We write cries for help. We write the truth. We write lies.

We write our thoughts. Our emotions. Our fears. Our hopes. Our dreams. Our secrets. Our desires. Our sins. Our joys. Our tragedies. Our confessions.

We write because we can't imagine what would happen if we don't. We can't bear to think about what would become of us if we weren't allowed to scribble our feeble thoughts down in messy marker, blotchy pens and dull pencils.

We are poets. We are authors. We are children. We are men. We are women. We are young. We are old. We are wise. We are foolish. We are students. We are teachers.

We live. We die.

We write.

We are.

Just Fine

He comes outside through the garage, carrying the last of my things, his long strides bringing him to the car in just a few steps. Mom’s sick and won’t be going this time. Another headache, and car rides make them worse. Today it will just be the two of us.
I feel like I could throw up.
I get in the car first, buckle my seatbelt, and start picking at my nail polish. A habit I’ve been meaning to break. He checks the car one more time, gives the tires a light kick with is foot, and gets in.
“All set?” he asks.
Maybe I should say no.
“Yeah.”
Sand and grit crunch beneath us as the car eases down the driveway and towards the highway. I feel claustrophobic and wish I could read in the car without getting motion sick. The distraction of a novel would be nice. I settle for counting things in and around the car instead.
I’m at 107 rain spots on the window, 3 dead ladybugs on the dashboard, 12 crumbs in the seat, 34 cows outside, 2 abandoned shoes alongside the road and 1 pen cap on the floor when we pull over at the gas station. He always has to get something to drink. Can’t bring it from home, has to stop and get it a half an hour into the trip.
“Do you want anything?” he asks.
I ponder for a moment, I wouldn’t mind a little caffeine, but I shake my head no.
I can see him in the store through the large glass paneling at the front. He’s smiling, talking to some girl. My hands give a slight tremor. He’s always nice to strangers, especially pretty young girls. He’s got a kind of charm with other people that I’ve never experienced, I’ve just heard about it secondhand. I wonder if my mother started out as one of those girls, if that was how she came to think he was the wonderful man she still pretends he is. It’s an easy mistake to make.
He’s taking forever in there, and the car is starting to smell like gasoline now. A man with a bald head and a Hawaiian shirt is staring at me from his car, where he sits chugging a diet soda. I focus on my hands. I really wish he would hurry.
Finally, as the bald man pulls out of his parking space, he comes back out. His from-home economical mug refilled. His smile lingering on his face as we get back on the main road.
The car smells like a dryer sheet, thanks to the lime green basket of laundry shoved behind my chair. If I shut my eyes, I can almost imagine that I am part of an advertisement for Snuggle.
He turns the radio on a few minutes later. Normally I would click it right back off, and a silent war would ensue, but I remember the mp3 stashed in my purse. The slender green device was a gift from him, picked out by my sister.
“Got a good deal on it,” he assured me when I had opened it that Christmas morning.
Relief washes over me as I plug the headphones into my ears. I click start. Nothing happens. Two more successive clicks to the button result in the same outcome. I click it again. What is it about desperation that makes us so persistent? Three more rapid clicks draw a raised eyebrow from him. A message blinks onto the little screen: low battery. Perfect. A sense of defeat settles into the car as I slip the headphones out and slide the mp3 back into my purse.
I rack my mind, trying to come up with something else to focus on, having been denied the escape of music. A familiar song is playing on the radio, so I dial the knob up. I don’t love the song, but it beats the deafening silence. He starts tapping his fingers against the wheel to the beat of the song even though he knows things like that make my skin crawl with irritation.
A few houses drift by, but mostly I see fields turned brown by a winters worth of snow and ice. We’ve about another hour and a half of driving, and the combination of warm sun and the gentle sway of the car relaxes my eyes and limbs with sleep.
My head bounces slightly against the window frame with each crack and bump in the pavement, keeping me from deep sleep, but placing me instead in the in-between place. The place where my mind wanders freely, as if in a dream.
I start to imagine the car crashing. It would never happen of course, he’s too safe a driver. But what if it did? The crunch of metal and cheap plastic would tear his enduring sense of control from his grip right along with the steering wheel. I can picture the surprise on his face before my own smashes through the glass of the window. The ambulance would come, and pronounce him dead, after trying in vain to save him. They would call my mom to tell her the hero was lost, and amidst her tears I imagine a small sigh of relief.
But what of me? What is my fate in this horrible crash? I would earn a body bag too, it’s only fair. That way she wouldn’t have to feign further grief out of motherly duty to me. That and I don’t want to be around for the funeral. I don’t want to pretend either.
What a wonderful caricature of a family we are.
The car slows as we enter the residential area surrounding the campus. Groggy, I rub the lingering signs of sleep from my eyes, my previous thoughts vanishing to the back of my mind. He pulls the car into a parking space, and gives his hair a quick check in the mirror before throwing on a baseball cap and stepping out of the car. I follow him outside, enjoying a stretch before I head around to the trunk.
Two trips and I’m moved back in. Boxes and bags litter the floor, and pile on the chairs. I’ll put it away later. He would like me to put it away now. When it becomes apparent that I’m not going to, and he follows the usual routine of “checking”, as he calls it. As in, ‘I’m just checking’. I call it nagging.
“Did you turn your fridge back on?”
“Yeah.”
He opens the door and checks, nodding.
“You plug everything back in?”
“Yes.”
He makes a quick circuit around the room with his eyes, checking each outlet. Satisfied, he stands by the door awkwardly. I keep standing by my desk.
“So I’ll see you in a few weeks. Don’t forget to turn your forms in. And remember to check out the job opportunity, it’d be a waste for you not to.” This is his way of saying goodbye.
“Sure, I’ll get right on it.” I have no intention of doing any of it, but I’ve learned it’s futile to point that out.
We share a stiff, one-sided hug, he pops his hat back on, and then he’s gone. I can see him pull away from the loading zone from the window in my room. I watch until I can’t see the car anymore.
As I unpack a few things around my desk and set up my laptop again I think about his drive home. It will be much the same as the one here. The radio will play softly in the background, he’ll drive 5 miles under the speed limit and he’ll stop at the gas station to refill his mug before he’s half way home.
And then that thought bursts forth from my mind again.
Maybe his car will wreck.
It’s morbid, I know. I don’t want to think it, but it just keeps clawing at me- taunting me.

I let it continue to poke at me as I fix dinner. Nothing too special, seeing as how I’m limited to microwave cuisine. I decide on soup. While the microwave hums, I open the window to let in a brisk breeze. It’s almost dusk; I can see the sun beginning to descend behind the building next to mine. An hour or so has passed since he left. He should be almost home now. I don’t think I really want his car to wreck. Maybe I just like imagining the changes it would bring out. Maybe I just want a moment to pretend, to act out the scene in my head.
Maybe I honestly want his car to wreck.
The microwave beeps, pulling me back to the reality contained in my small room. But before I can pull out the steaming bowl, my phone rings. I look at the tiny screen on the front before I open it; it’s an unavailable number.
“Hello?”
My mom’s voice crackles and blurs on the other end as she chokes out an answer.
“You’re father’s been in a car accident. On his way home. I’m at the hospital now. You’re sister’s on the way. I just, oh God…”
My hands start to sweat and pinpricks of light mar my vision. The phone slips from my grip and I rush like a broken robot to pick it back up.
“Mom, what happened? I don’t understand.” I understand all right, but I can’t quite shake the feeling that my dreams have turned to full-blown hallucinations.
“Another driver hit him, slid right over the center line. Smashed the car up pretty good. The ambulance had to come for your father.” Her words are rushed, punctuated with gasps of breath. She’s leaving out a crucial detail: what’s his condition?
“What happened to dad? Mom, how bad was he hurt?” My words come out louder than I meant for them to. Their volume surprises me and my mother too, from her stunned silence. But as always, she assumes the best of me.
“Oh my God, you must be worried sick. I’m sorry, I was just so flustered. You’re father is fine honey, he’s okay. Some bruises and scratches, and a broken arm. The doctor said he was very lucky. He’s going to be just fine.”
He’s fine. He’s not taking up space in a body bag. He’s still the hero. He’s fine.
I should feel relief, but I’m feeling something all together different: disappointment. This is no hallucination, because he’s fine.
I drop the phone again.

Let the People Prey

Sunday mornings come too soon. I’ve been going to church since I was a child, and never was there a Sunday I didn’t hate. But, I was never quite sure how to abandon the practice; it’s become a kind of ritual to me. One too sacred to break, and too disturbing to embrace. I take my seat towards the back of the sanctuary, my drab purple skirt crinkling as I sit. Heavy wooden doors close with resounding finality and the room is silent for a few moments.
Abruptly the band begins to play, and it seems much too loud, as usual. The congregation rises from the glossy benches and begins to sing; an electronic screen slides down from the ceiling should anyone have forgotten the words. I too stand, reluctantly, moving my mouth to match the words, but no sound forms in my throat. Mostly I stare at the pastor and his wife, seated front and center. They were the last to sit and the first stand.
The music swells and shifts between a variety of songs, and the pastor begins to clap his hands enthusiastically, one foot keeping pace with the beat. His wife doesn’t join him, but instead shuts her eyes and tilts her head upward. What a perfect couple they make, together becoming the very picture of devout worship.
The pastor and his wife are disappointingly innocent. As pure and ignorant as the white ribbon that winds around the large cross hung in the front of the church. They truly believe themselves to be doing God’s work, I think. And while their displays are ostentatious, I cannot name them false. But the congregation the pastor so foolishly loves and leads? Such filthy secrets they harbor, secrets that infest them like parasites. If I listen close enough I can hear dull, dry whispers of their confessions bounce off the grey walls of the sanctuary.
The time for song has ended and the gallant pastor takes his place behind his sturdy podium. What will he preach about today I wonder? Truth? Love? Purity? All of them will be lost in the sea of sins before him, but the pastor is oblivious. Poor fool.
Directly in front of me sits the local banker in her long sleeved grey dress, making her appear as little more than a shadow beneath her long black hair. She seems innocent enough, but her secrets hang from her body. Reports of missing items trail behind her like receipts. She led communion once, and the pristine white table clothes were not available for use the following month; they had never been returned. Nervous fingers twist a stray thread on her dress, turning her finger a sickly purple before the fiber finally snaps.
Not far from her, only a few seats down, is the navy and khaki clad youth pastor. He’s fairly young, no more than 30. He’s tall, and his inflated sense of self only adds to his height. When not attending business meetings at the church, he hosts a small bible study at his home. The group consists of eight high school girls, and is always conducted on the nights his wife is away. The beautiful bride sits next to him, her peach colored skirt tucked carefully in between her legs and the seat, her hands folded in her lap. I watch her for a few minutes, and she doesn’t move. I have observed her going an entire sermon without moving. Even when her husband’s arm slides around her shoulders, she doesn’t move.
A shudder runs down the base of my neck as I feel the breath of the old man behind me drifting across it, interrupting my thoughts. I try to avoid sitting by him, but at times I am unsuccessful. I reach up and snap the collar of my jacket up around my neck. I can picture what he must look like sitting behind me. His legs will be crossed, with his pants creeping up his ankles, just enough to show the tops of his white socks. Reading glasses will be perched at the tip of his nose, their gold rims catching the rays of the florescent lights on the ceiling. His jaunty cap will be resting on the seat beside him, adding to his grandfatherly appearance. His wife disappeared ten years ago, and they later found her body in the river. Her husband, conveniently, knew little about her disappearance. Much to the adoration of the congregation he was blessed by God with a spirit of forgiveness towards her killer- so much so that he didn’t even cry at her funeral.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see the twenty-something boy located two seats down from the old man. He goes to college here in town, and even today he is sporting his school colors in a bright red sweater vest, layered over a crisp, white button-down. On Sundays, he takes pride in participating in a purity-based bible study after the sermon. On the weekends, he takes pride in screwing any girl on campus that will have him. Today his glances fall on the youth pastor’s wife. Big ambitions, I think to myself. Though I appear to be the only one who has noticed his habits. What an upstanding young gentleman, all the elderly women of the church say, so handsome. A nice boy.
What does anyone here know about nice? I should think their own festering sins would make them all the more aware to the sins of those around them, but the opposite seems to be true.
Beside me sits my favorite of them all. She’s middle-aged, tanned to an orange glow. Every item of clothing on her sports a visible designer label. Every strand of hair is styled to perfection, afraid to move from its assigned place. She has her beady eyes trained on the pastor, squinted in concentration. Every person in this room is guilty of despicable evils, but hers are the most disgusting of all. As always, her mouth is set in a tight line, twitching at the corners every few minutes. I imagine that the twitches coincide with her disgusted thoughts of the people around her. Make no mistake, she shakes hands when we are called to, she participates in devotions weekly, and the offering plate is always heavier after passing her, but the stink of haughtiness overwhelms all of her actions, much like her perfume. Bile rises in the back of my throat. I swallow and pry my eyes away from her.
I look down into my lap, at the Bible that I haven’t bothered to open. My hands itch to heave it across the room, perhaps at the wooden cross. Maybe at the pastor. Maybe out the window.
The pastor calls for us to bow our heads in prayer with him, signaling the end of his sermon. Each head, the liar, the thief, the cheater, the killer and the dozens of others around them, bow in automatic unison. I keep my head up, my eyes open.
I think of performing my own sermon right now. Liars! I would say. Fakes! Hypocrites! Sinners, all of you. I wouldn’t pretend any longer that I didn’t know, that I didn’t see.
But I say nothing. We have a complex parasite relationship, and I mustn’t upset the balance. Instead I rise with them for the benediction.
“Finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received, do; and the God of peace be with you. And God’s people said?”
Amen.

At a Distance

He moved here from the Quad Cities over the summer, and today is his first day at school. She does not yet know his name, but she’s seen him around town a few times, his forehead damp with the summer heat as he peddled by. He was always headed confidently in some direction.
But not today.
Today he looks awkward and out of place. He does not appear to have made any friends over the few hot months between his old life and this new one. This speaks more of the others than it does of him. There is not much room for someone like him here. He reads Voltaire and Rand; he writes in his spare time; he is on intimate terms with the record store. There is a pattern to follow here, a form to adhere to, and he’s breaking it. It makes them squirm in their trendy shirts and shiny new shoes.
It’s lunch, and rather than seeking a group to sit with he instead chose to sit alone at a corner table. She thinks of going to sit with him, but hesitates. He’s leaning back in his chair, relaxed, but the fingers of his left hand are drumming rapidly against his knee underneath the table. No food sits before him, just a notebook. He looks ready to stand and leave, but before he can a group finds him, and fills the hard plastic chairs around him. They are drawn to him like children might be to a rare insect- intrigued, terrified and ready to squash it at a moment’s notice. He forces out a smile, a pained one, to satiate the jovial faces that surround him.
She snaps her head back to the incessant chatter at her own table when he catches her eye through a stray lock of his matte brown hair. The look is subtle, but accusing. She looks back up after a moment, and he’s still looking at her. A weak smile turns up the corners of her mouth and to her surprise he returns the gesture before turning his attention back to the faces around him.
His shoulders don’t sag beneath the weight of empty conversation as she thought they might, as she knows her own would. No. Instead, in the midst of his discomfort, he is strong - almost forcibly so. He laughs, but keeps his arms crossed. He answers their probing questions, but keeps his voice steady. He smiles, but doesn’t engage any further. She will come to learn that it is his fear of weakness that keeps him so guarded. He hates sympathy. He relishes playing the role of the misfit, but he cannot tolerate the pity that succeeds weakness. She had made that fatal mistake once, when she told him later that she felt bad about ignoring him that first day. They had been sitting on the bridge near the edge of town. The sky had just begun to melt together into a sea of pinks and yellows when she wondered onto the subject.
“I still feel bad about not talking to you sooner. I mean, you must have felt so lonely. You didn’t look like it, but I knew you had to have felt it anyway. Everyone judging you and talking about you…must have been hard,” she had recalled.
“I would rather be alone than with them, it’s a choice, so save your sympathy.” His voice was even, but it was laced with irritation. He stood to leave, but he paused to look down at her for a moment.
“And you really need to stop worrying about what people think. Have a day where you don’t give a shit, it’d be good for you.”
Four years have passed since that first day. Now she sits next to him on the last day. They are pressed close together, their knees making soft contact, just the coarse polyester of the graduation gowns separating them. He sits next to her now as a companion. Though, when she stops to think about it, he never actually used the word friend. But they had a close relationship nonetheless. Still, in spite of their closeness, there is a distance. As the end of this day leads to a host of others, they will drift apart. He acquired a job at a nearby factory, ignoring the dozens of colleges that had extended their invitation. She chose to attend college a few hours away, and leave him reluctantly behind in the mediocrity of this small town.

He’s sitting next to her, a look of casual uncertainty about his face. He’s relaxed today, in opposition to her own nervous anticipation. He hasn’t bothered to put his cap on yet, he says it looks stupid. He asks her if she wants to blow the whole thing off and go have a smoke.
“I don’t smoke,” she reminds him.
He smiles. “What a shame.”
The ceremony draws to an eventual close, and he heads for the doors, choosing not linger in the sea of celebration spilling into the decorated cafeteria.
“Here,” she says, shoving a book into his calloused hands before he can leave. It’s a paperback of Anthem, his favorite book, wrapped in a bright teal ribbon. She had tied and retied the bow at least three times, until it looked as close to perfect as she could get it.
“Thanks,” he says, wrinkling the bow as he tucks it underneath his arm.
She asks if she can write him. He says sure, but mentions nothing about writing back. She offers her arms to him in a hug and he accepts. In the brief second before he releases her, she thinks how right his arms feel around her. On unsteady legs she steps back from him, giving him up to the greedy darkness beyond the glass doors. An impish grin lights up his face as he walks away.
Green leaves faded to shades of red and orange, and with the cool evening breezes came the start of college. She composed letter upon letter, written upon the splintering wood of her desk, and dropped them into the mailbox with a lingering hope. He never wrote back. What she wouldn’t give for a sheet of his scribbled handwriting or the sound of his rough voice. She still sends him letters occasionally, she doesn’t want to admit defeat, but she’s stopped waiting for an answer.
So, when she catches sight of him from across the street that rainy afternoon she is caught entirely off guard. She is in town to visit a friend for the weekend before returning back to school. As she sees him she misses a step, and comes to an abrupt stop. Rain is blurring his image, but she needs no second glance to know it’s him.
Scruff has taken over his lower jaw, and above it his cheeks have begun to hollow. His shaggy hair is plastered to his head as he stands waiting for the bus; he carries no umbrella. A thin jacket hangs limply from his shoulders, hunched against the pelting drops. His white tee shirt beneath is dirty and stained. Markings of a new tattoo wind their way up from under his shirt and onto his neck. His jeans hang precariously on his hips, with a studded belt doing its best to hold them there. Muscle appears to have given way to bone, and she suspects it has something to do with the lingering sent of smoke that has always surrounded him- even now a cigarette hangs from his mouth. It’s one of the only three things he spends money on: cigarettes, books and music.
His grey eyes are narrowed with his gaze locked straight in front of him. Beneath the dome of her umbrella her face is carefully hidden and he doesn’t appear to notice her. Water is pooling in the cuffs of her pants and seeping through the canvas of her tennis shoes, but she barely notices. Across the street his skin is damp beneath his clothes and she can almost see the drops that cling to his eyelashes and drip down his face.
A couple is standing next to him, their fingers woven together. They huddle under the dull red of their umbrella and murmur to each other contentedly. Looking no more than twenty-three in her bright green rain boots, the woman gently fixes the collar of her lover’s coat. Simple garments shield them from the rain and nothing about them speaks of anything but middle class. But looking at them now, she is jealous. Her gaze flicks back to him, and she wonders if the couple could have ever been them.
“Excuse me ma’am, are you lost?” The voice belongs to an elderly man who has appeared next to her. Deep blue eyes wrinkle in concern beneath the brim of his yellow hat as he peers beneath her umbrella. Standing here in the drizzle of the afternoon has caught the attention of someone, and she is surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. She must look odd staring off across the street.
“No. I’m just, waiting for…someone.” Her voice isn’t as steady as she would like it to be.
“Well shame on the person that’s making you wait out in this rain, not very considerate I’d say.”
She wants to look at the ground and wait for him to leave; she wants to walk away. Instead she forces her eyes to meet his.
“I’m fine.”
The old man’s face is the very picture of doubt, but he relents and continues on down the street muttering something about good sense. She turns her attention back across the street. Her breath catches as she does.
He’s looking at her.
Panic floods her veins and she angles her umbrella so that he can no longer see her. Seconds pass before she peeks out again. He’s back to focusing on something in the distance, no sign of recognition on his face. Relief loosens her limbs, but indignation keeps her heartbeat above normal. Had he forgotten her so easily?
The bus arrives, slinging a spray of muddy water clear up to his knees. Taking one last drag on his cigarette before tossing it to the curb, he walks toward the open door, but as he does so the couple rushes past him and the woman slams her shoulder into his, knocking something from underneath his arm to the ground. Muttered words animate his lips, she’s too far away to hear them, but it is impossible to miss the gesture he offers to the woman with his hand. The woman doesn’t break her stride. Leaning over he gently picks up the object, which she now can see is a book, and gives it a small shake before placing it in his back pocket. She watches as he turns and walks once more to the waiting bus. The title of the book looks familiar, but before she can blink away her sudden tears for a second glance, he is gone.
The foolishness of what she’s doing finally sets in and she resumes walking, but she can’t get the image of him out of her head. Old instinct had told her to cross the street and wrap her arms around his wretched figure, to stop the rain from beating down on him. He wouldn’t have tolerated it of course; he blurred the line between love and pity. Pointless tears run down her pale cheeks; she tries to wipe them away, but can’t keep up. Overwhelmed, she snaps her umbrella shut and lets it hang loosely from her wrist. Rain seeps through the fabric of her clothes and drips from her chin. She welcomes it. For the fifteen minutes it takes to walk to her friend’s house she feels close to him again. As close as they had been on that last day, and just as far away.