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Retrospective
Retrospective, introspective, he was a child out of time.
Born prematurely, lost in time even to the midwives, he grew up plucking guitar strings, writing spidery letters with an old nib, friendless in overgrown fields.
�Not bothered�, he�d reply, his mother questioning over severe vegetable dinners why he�d not invited friends around Friday night, why he�d not taken his bike to the Square, why he wouldn�t talk about his day at school.
�What am I missing? Is this normal, what I�ve been warned about?� she�d ask her coffee break audience, uniformed and bathed in halogen light.
He was a serious child. Dirty handed, unclinical, man-handling, leaving fingerprints on the dog-eared pages of Dickens, Conrad, Browning.
In those forests of childhood, smiling in the blind dark, began his fear of his era. A fear of his days, his nowadays, a true disgust toward the unblinking tawdry moderness celebrated around him.
Did he think himself a troubadour, looking so troubled toward the stage, alone but not lonely, alone and sipping his amber slowly, the creases in his denim endearing her to him. Always going for the underdog, she thought to herself, imagined herself saving, eyerolling, her legs shaking to the rhythm of the band, a gang of would-be poets.
They were in the place where they had first spoken to each other, stumbling over the surprising perfection of the chance meeting; just finished reading Bronte and needing a passion, a mouth, a cave, in which to lose each other. He fell in love with her hair in a braid; she fell in love with his seriousness, shown in his strong jaw and dark eyes. She felt fifteen again when that sensible mask fell, and he grinned.
It was cold out but she insisted they spend �the last night of freedom� at a dance. She liked his quiet, quaint ways, him taking her out to a barn dance, inviting her to take a spin, drinking punch with a twinkle in his eye, the plastic cup looking crystalline in his hands.
It was too cold to walk the way home, so they took the train. He squinted over at her as she bought the tickets, she knew the jargon that goes with such transactions, pieces of paper for pieces of paper, the arms of the turnstiles trapping pieces of clothing, grasping at the transient life travelling through its arms.
He placed the heavy plastic on his lap, the wires in nuchal cord, truly hideous and unnatural, he couldn�t help but look away from the leering face. She was dainty with her weight, not strumming her fingernails.
�You know it�s gonna be alright, don�t you?� holding his hand tenderly.
It was the end of the world.
He started tomorrow, tie bound, desk bound. His life was more alien than he could have predicted, star-gazing, standing child limbed in the dusty backyard; this was a moonscape more unmanageable, more unimagined.
Suddenly weightless, lost in space, he gasped at the air.
�You will come home to me� she explained.
And calmed, he breathed her in.
[thanks for inspirational kick from Michelle Zink.]
4:49 p.m. - 2010-02-12
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