Published:

• Saphire Selections

   We got out of the car mechanically, mindlessly. We shared a glance across the top of the car, that vast and trackless distance, defeated within ourselves before turning away. No words filled the space between us as we walked up the drive, up the steps before entering into the house, or rather, our home. The door was shut behind us, so that we were sealed within, captors of our own creation. Inside, a wasteless void for us to occupy.

   I wanted to talk, though I had forgotten words, sentences, sounds. Sounds? Yes sounds. That is all I could now produce in the emptiness of that day, of that space where so much history, so much memory rested. Inaudible sounds that captured a return to those forgotten years as a baby. Full of meaning yet bereft of understanding. And yet, in that moment, I wished I were a baby. So young and uncomprehending, that all the plagues of humanity were foreign to me in my land of fantastical wonder.

   And so we did not talk, though we did not leave each other either. Instead we hovered in an uneasy silence that was begging to be filled with our words, emotions, touch, passion. Fuck, anything to make that deafening silence fade into obscurity, but nothing came. And still we endured it, in some great standoff where the settled dust of lovers past stirred between our bodies, screaming at us in despair to talk, just simply, talk. It was as if we had forgotten each other, and enduring this was all we had and could now have shared. A space where only this morning ritualistic gaiety and love thrived, was now a lobotomized void that we could only fill with pulpy glances and grimacing, tightly pursed lips.

   She asked for a whisky, but for what use? I was unsure. She wasn’t a drinker. It was as if she were now rudderless, guided only by predetermined ideals, and that’s what made her think she needed a drink; to reconcile the truth, that unavoidable truth that now lay before us.

   I poured it into a crystal cup that, in the right light, was a shimmering, twinkling star holding temperance of enjoyment upon any lips that pursed it, yet in this light was nothing more than a dull vessel that held that sloshing liquid in the silence so long, it stilled and could have been solid.

   And still that silence endured.

   It was as if we had forgotten each other and I wondered if we would ever speak again or if this would be our lot. Eternal silence cutting between us, as we rode upon the back of a ship across this world. Two strangers upon the same path.

   That night we lay in bed. Side by side, yet there was that distance between us that was incomprehensible. Words and speaking had fallen into a crumbled vestige of the self, used only as a tool of understanding, explanation and convenience. We had spoken, but not naturally. Everything was short. Stunted. Defined.

   The day had befallen, and we had continued with that mechanicalistic nature that led us beating onwards until we found ourselves in the requited darkness of that familiar room, under the covers. Clutching them with the shudder that mimicked the dead of winter, though I was not cold. 

   The darkness engulfed us. Why wouldn’t it? Why would it care? It was there at the beginning, it would be there at the end to greet us, and I thought in that moment, perhaps they were the same thing.

   Already my thoughts were trackless and distant. I tried to think. Think. Fucking think! Think of something. Think of dinner.

   Wait. What was dinner? I thought in a moment, not really in attention but distraction to the truth. Abstract as I had wished it to be, now I really couldn’t think.

   I remembered setting the table, even clearing and cleaning. I always did the setting, clearing and cleaning. I was a shit cook, and she never let me forget it, as if my jobs were ritualistic shame that I carried with me. 

   It would have made me laugh. It used to make me laugh, though not now. 

   And now I couldn’t remember it. Not her cooking, not eating. I moved my hand and placed my palm on my stomach in quiet inspection, though it revealed nothing. I was not hungry, nor full.

   I wonder if this is how it will be forever after. After. Recalling the actions, yet none of the feeling, the emotion tagged on that separated reality from dreams.

   My wife sleeps soundly, I can tell from the rhythmic breaths of ease. I couldn’t understand how, but maybe it was the sheer definition that her life now held, that caused this calm acceptance. Every day was a day I wished never to die. The very definition held fear and weight, but was far off, at least I told myself it was. That’s the arrogance of man, especially youth. Death was always distant. Now that for her, it was defined. Now that she understood the boundaries of her existence, she could finally be at peace within herself and the world. All worldly pursuits are performed against that ticking clock, marching with or without us.

   I could hear her breathing and in that moment it was as sweet as the songs the sirens sang and at last I sacrificed all misgivings and truths, and I cried a silent cry, forsaking all manner of communication into some begotten abyss. An emptiness. An emptiness that only I would enter. I was not only losing my wife as a companion, but also, the cruelty of love meant I would lose the part of me that enjoyed her, that loved her. The part of me that loved her, was so vast, it made the Sahara look like a sandpit and soon, it would escape me.