It was nice outside. It was midnight;
quiet and still. Nothing was happening and even the wind stopped
blowing. The daytime warmth had lingered and it was somehow the
perfect temperature. There were orange-yellow street lamps lighting
the vale between the buildings and there was an empty parking lot. If
you went out in the street you could have looked both ways and you'd
only have had the road as far as the eye could see. I was in my room
that was facing the said empty puddle of concrete. The lights were
off but there was light still gracing the walls through the window
coming from between the white dusty bands of the blinds. I was
looking at the wall in front of me but I could feel the ocean of dark
silhouettes, distant lights and proximate alike, nostalgia and
regrets parading in the corner of my eye.
“Can you hear me?” she asked down
in the parking lot.
“I'm right next to you,” I told
her as I sat down on the same flight of stairs as her. “Of course I
can hear you.”
“You didn't say anything.”
“I was waiting for you,” I said.
“I'd have looked like a fool otherwise.”
“Why's that?”
“Well what if I ended up talking to
myself at night? I'm tired of that. Had to make sure you were there,
didn't I?”
“Oh,” she said. “I guess that
makes sense.”
She looked up at the flies scrawling
at the street-lamp then back at me.
“But why would you think I wouldn't
be here?” she asked.
“There were times in the past when
you weren't.”
“Oh come on.”
“What?” I said. “It's true. Just
because you don't remember
it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.”
“Were you sad then?” she asked
with genuine curiosity.
“I wasn't happy.”
She leaned forward a bit then turned
her head so she could see me in the corner of her eye.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
“You know I do,” to which the
corners of her eyes wrinkled.
“Is that so?”
“Does it surprise you?” I asked.
“Well no,” she said resuming her
initial position. “But took you long enough to admit it.”
“I've said it before,” I told her.
“But you didn't mean it.”
“No?”
“You haven't said it since,” she
said.
“Well, in all fairness, you did
break my heart.”
“Lame, dude,” she laughed. “But
still.”
“Isn't that proof enough that I do
love you though?” I asked.
“I didn't say I hadn't proof.”
“What then do you want?”
“A chance.”
“At what?”
“Happiness.”
“Well who doesn't?” I asked.
“People want a chance at being
happy,” she said. “That's just too vague. It's like betting
on a car and being disappointed that your horse came in fourth. I
know what my happiness is.”
“Bull.”
“No, but I'm serious,” she said
surprised by my reaction.
“What then if your car does
win?”
“Wouldn't matter. You wouldn't know
it,” she said.
“Do you have to know it?”
“Yes.”
“I don't think so,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Well knowing certain things can bum
you out, you know.”
“Not the fact that you're happy.”
“What, do I have to be told that I'm
happy to be so?” I asked.
“It has to be made known to you.”
“No.”
“Fine,” she said looking away.
“Is knowing all that important to
you, love?” I asked her.
“Stop calling me that,” she said.
“Do you
love me then?”
“What
do you want me to say?” she asked still not looking at me.
“The
truth.”
“The
truth is irrelevant,” she said.
“Why?”
I reluctantly asked her.
“You
know well why.”
“I
do,” I sighed. “But still I'd like to hear it.”
“That's
not happening.”
“You
were always like that,” I said.
She
scratched some dirt with her
fingernail off her sneaker.
“Want
to get out of here?” she asked.
“I
want to go for a walk,” I said. “I like it here.”
“What,
on these stairs you mean?”
“No.
Here, outside.”
“Don't
you find it boring?” she asked.
“Do
you?”
“Well
I guess not,” she said.
“You then were always like that.”
We
walked about for a while. Not a car, not a sound, nothing disturbed
the peacefulness. When
I looked at her I'd lose her from my sight as we walked under some
tree, then again I'd catch her figure in the lights of the lamps.
Then again some tree, then the light. She'd only look at the childish
steps she took or away in the distance. She said it was okay, but I
knew it was more than that. She, like me, loved the sight. And I mean
the town. The horizon was dotted and multicoloured
were the dots. You could see where the sky began because it seemed
like fire was catching in the distance. It always looked like that.
As though there was this party going on out there and I was here
alone. But I never minded it. Especially not when she was with me.
“Do
you have any cigarettes?” she asked.
I
did.
“Really?”
I asked. “Now?”
“Yeah,
why not?”
We
sat down on the pavement with our legs stretched out in the street.
The smoke was rising so beautifully in the absence of wind. When it
got in the lamplight you could see how dense it was.
“You
smoke too much,” she said.
“It's
only my second one,” I said in my defense.
“Come
on, we both know it's not the last in this sitting.”
“Well
you had the brilliant idea. Blame it on yourself.”
“You're
so dull, you know that?”
“I
do,” I said.
“Don't
you ever do anything about it?”
“I
always come to you.”
“Lucky
me,” she said, her palms
beneath her legs and eyes
wrinkling again at me.
“Oh
shut it,” I said as I took
another drag.
I
liked the way she laughed. She'd mostly laugh at things you and I
would not. But I didn't care much about the reason why she did it, I
just liked that she did. It was like that tickling sensation in your
chest when you remember something beautiful even though it's just
some light on some pale coloured shape that's out of focus.
“Quick,”
she said. “If you could have anything right now, what would you
wish for?”
“I
don't like this game,” I said.
“Come
on, be a sport.”
I stalled.
“To kiss you?” I said.
“Come
on, that's sentimental bull. That's not you.”
“You
said anything.”
“Well
you don't have to get all vampire-soap-opera on my arse,” she said
laughingly.
“Man,
go away,” I said.
“Oh
come now, darling, don't pout,” she said. “It's unbecoming.”
“Of
a lady like myself, you mean?”
She
laughed.
“I'd
want a mansion,” I said.
She
scoffed looking at her
fingernails.
“With
a lot of booze.”
“There
you go. What else?”
“Cobweb.
There has to be cobweb.”
“Of
course, cobweb. Has to have cobweb. I
like that,” she said. “Go on.”
“What,
is it not enough?” I asked.
“Well
is it?”
“No,”
I said looking at the
cigarette in my hand.
“Come
on then,” she said getting
up and dusting off her trousers.
“Let's get back to walking.”
In
the park it was really dark. There were two, maybe three pale white
lamps in the distance and it looked foggy, though it wasn't cold
oddly. There was a long road that went uphill with trees on either
side and benches by every other tree. She grabbed my hand and we
walked like that
for a while. Then she stopped. I couldn't see her face.
“Want
to have a seat?” I asked her.
“Yes,”
she said.
“Where?”
“On
the bench, you idiot.”
“I
know, damn it,” I said. “But which one I meant?”
“Do
you think I can see anything?”
“Right.”
We
finally sat down and she rested her head on my shoulder. Then I put
my arm around her and we just looked at the distant lights. There
were three before,
I'm certain. But now there were only two.
I
yawned.
“Oh,
how incredibly rude,” she said as she sat upright.
“What
now?”
“You
bloody yawned,” she said. “What do you mean 'what now'?”
“Well
I'm tired.”
“Oh,
okay then. Phew,” she gesticulated with her hand off her forehead.
“I thought you were bored for a second there.”
“Well...”
I said.
She
gaped her mouth and she was amused, you could see it. She punched me
in the shoulder and got up in an awkward pseudo-masculine fighting
stance with a grin on her face that she could not hide.
“Hey,”
I said rubbing my shoulder. “You
know, studies show that when you get sleepy next to a lover it really
shows that--”
“Oh
bull!”
She
hit me again.
“Ouch!”
“Well
you deserved that,” she said with a full-fledged smile on her face
pointing at my arm.
“No,
I didn't,” I said. “What, are you mental? You hit like a man!”
“Oh,
you whine like a girl. It wasn't even that hard.”
“Why
you--” I said chasing her away.
By
the time we got around the starting point it was twenty past five in
the morning. There was light outside. But no sun yet. The silence was
broken by the looped chirping of the birds and the sweet concert of
cars and workmen hitting with hammers in the distance. We were
walking and panting. She was in front of me.
“You
know what?” I said as I caught my breath.
“What?”
she asked.
“I
thought about it.”
“About
what?”
“That
game,” I said. “What I'd wish for?”
“Yeah?
And?”
“Well,”
I said as I sat down on the little grass there was beside the
pavement. “There's one thing that would sum up all of it really.”
The
feeling in my chest turned to water going down a drainpipe. There
was only one light, now that I think of it.
“I'd
wish that I weren't sitting here alone like an idiot.”