Oh So Melodramatic

The cold made memories sluggish. There was something in the air right before my eyes that bore your image as my eyes blinked to keep from freezing. To me it was interesting because time after time those images were of you running. As the images blurred with the cold air only random pieces of you remained distinct: a tanned thigh, a hand held in a loose fist, a swirl of long brown hair. The image was of spring or early summer, and the clear sky I saw beyond you was reality - a deep winter sky, clear and cold and merciless.

Where were you? I sat out on the rocks and whistled and waited for you for hours, the night growing tight around me. I kicked rocks into the canyon to keep warm. The moon and a small contingent of stars kept the watch with me. We all waited for you together, even after I knew you weren't coming.

Night is a funny time to sit alone on the edge of a great abyss. It gives a person a sense of scale, without being as blatant about the exact parameters of the smallness of an individual's existence as daylight is. Everything is lit like death, gray and colorless and imminently sharp and defined, like the edge of a knife. The hard angles of the rock soften to black and empty holes where no light can penetrate. Shivering and looking down into the canyon, I knew that if I fell in one of those empty spaces I would fall forever, that those holes had no bottom. If you fall in a bottomless pit, if the fall doesn't kill you, do you die of starvation? The lights from warm homes winked out into the night, and I imagined myself falling, eating myself to stay alive as I fell for eternity. I could see just my head falling, having eaten up the rest of my body.

Perhaps I won't ever know why you never came out to meet me like I asked. Maybe I don't want to know the real truth. I can weave whatever fiction I want now because I have no definite answer. You died in a car accident on your way, or had a heart attack. Maybe you fell down a flight of stairs and broke your arm. If I went to the hospital right now would I find you there in a full body cast? These are questions I can ponder endlessly, and certainly for the remainder of the night. The good scenarios involve you getting lost or hurt, attempting to reach me. The bad ones find you forgetting or not caring enough to come, snorting and rolling over under your warm down comforter. I prefer to think of it not as selfish, but as tragically romantic.

A car sped along the road but did not stop. I must admit that at it's approach I did feel my heart begin to flutter with anticipation. Was it you? Had you finally made your way out to see me here? No. I laughed a little, hard, forced chuckles without any kind of mirth behind them. The whole of my being was dipped in bitterness, and in the cold I could feel it harden into something worse. I thought of you plainly, simply standing, and then I added myself, approaching and kicking your legs out from under you, knocking you to the ground. Loose rocks abound in this fantasy, so I took a fist-sized piece and smashed your face, not once, but many times. I swung until nothing was left to remind me that the limp and lifeless object beneath me was you. My heart was racing. If you had showed up just then, I'd have annihilated you before you had the chance to explain away any tardiness.

But you didn't show up just then, and you never did. I headed to my car when I knew you weren't coming, and I allowed myself no hope for a late arrival, an excuse and an embrace. I turned the key and backed up, turned around and got out on the road, heading for home. As the trees exposed themselves in the headlights and then disappeared, I could feel the bitterness melt away, running down the inside of my skin like rainwater off a tin roof. It pooled at my feet, making them heavy and pressing my foot down hard against the gas pedal. Nothing came to replace the space left by my bitterness. My lungs inflated and deflated, air rushing into and out of my nose and mouth. A hand raked through my hair; a hand rubbed tired eyes. Home simply could not come soon enough.