[lj idol] week nineteen | "of caterpillars and cabbage moths..."
[they all fall down]
*
The first time they meet he is little more than a smudge of man and book and curled cigarette smoke and she is three years married.
It is the height of summer and the dust on her skin is heavy, an extra layer that she doesn’t need. She stares, unchecked. If he notices her, bag of groceries held protectively against her chest, he makes no indication of it, at least, not at first. A page turns languidly and ash floats, falls on the haze of a heat wave.
She longs, suddenly, to hear his voice, to entice him into giving it to her for just one moment. But as empty sentences gather in a mob at the back of her throat, she knows she’ll stay silent as surely as she knows the sound of her own insides, thump, thump, thumping.
She shifts the bag in her arms and turns to step sideways; intent, suddenly, to pass safely behind him and move on into the inevitability of another long afternoon.
It takes him a split second; less than that, perhaps. But he is shifted off-kilter by the bounced moment nonetheless as a surface level familiarity flickers fiercely but fails to find footing. At least, until it does.
Months have passed, he recognises. Summer’s dogged tendrils, finally given way to loosed leaves that crunch beneath heavy boots.
And it is his turn to stare.
She’s crossing traffic with a skip, her coat unbuttoned and the twist of a scarlet scarf whipping in the wind as winter heralds its icy intentions.
He conjures reasons to stop her that are no reason at all. Her laces are tied and she appears not to be aimless, has no need for his direction. He imagines lifting an arm in casual greeting but she is a stranger to him, and he to her, so he doesn’t.
Can’t. Won’t.
That was the beginning.
But this how it ends.
He catches her wrist in his fingers, not tight, just there. She is a contradiction laid bare as she shifts, shifts, shifts amid the total stillness. And he thinks, this is nothing new, but it is. A different kind of confused; one borne of secrets and lies and a bone-deep fear, of lust and freedom and an intense desire to be exposed, raw.
She speaks and he listens and she says nothing of substance for so long that he doesn’t see it coming in the end.
“He knows,” she says, takes a breath in as she speaks, as though replacing the words with air in a desperate attempt to stop them from dragging her under.
“He says he’s always known…”
And he smiles because the only way this goes is forward.
She has longed for this moment with a desperation both painful and embraced. The steady rhythm of her life, stalled by his unexpected presence in it; the memory of his skin on her skin on his skin as webs were woven of a most delicate fibre.
There is a choice to make, she lies. There is no choice here.
“You should leave,” she finishes, finally, with finality, reclaims her wrist and sets her fingers in her lap.
And it is left to her to burn them both to the ground.
*
previously on...
introduction | jayus | the missing stair | in another castle | nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent | build a better mouse-trap | step on a crack, break your mother's back | yes, and... | the recency effect | barrel of monkeys | open topic | confession from the chair | chekhov's gun | a terrible beauty has been born | scare quotes | disinformation
*
The first time they meet he is little more than a smudge of man and book and curled cigarette smoke and she is three years married.
It is the height of summer and the dust on her skin is heavy, an extra layer that she doesn’t need. She stares, unchecked. If he notices her, bag of groceries held protectively against her chest, he makes no indication of it, at least, not at first. A page turns languidly and ash floats, falls on the haze of a heat wave.
She longs, suddenly, to hear his voice, to entice him into giving it to her for just one moment. But as empty sentences gather in a mob at the back of her throat, she knows she’ll stay silent as surely as she knows the sound of her own insides, thump, thump, thumping.
She shifts the bag in her arms and turns to step sideways; intent, suddenly, to pass safely behind him and move on into the inevitability of another long afternoon.
It takes him a split second; less than that, perhaps. But he is shifted off-kilter by the bounced moment nonetheless as a surface level familiarity flickers fiercely but fails to find footing. At least, until it does.
Months have passed, he recognises. Summer’s dogged tendrils, finally given way to loosed leaves that crunch beneath heavy boots.
And it is his turn to stare.
She’s crossing traffic with a skip, her coat unbuttoned and the twist of a scarlet scarf whipping in the wind as winter heralds its icy intentions.
He conjures reasons to stop her that are no reason at all. Her laces are tied and she appears not to be aimless, has no need for his direction. He imagines lifting an arm in casual greeting but she is a stranger to him, and he to her, so he doesn’t.
Can’t. Won’t.
That was the beginning.
But this how it ends.
He catches her wrist in his fingers, not tight, just there. She is a contradiction laid bare as she shifts, shifts, shifts amid the total stillness. And he thinks, this is nothing new, but it is. A different kind of confused; one borne of secrets and lies and a bone-deep fear, of lust and freedom and an intense desire to be exposed, raw.
She speaks and he listens and she says nothing of substance for so long that he doesn’t see it coming in the end.
“He knows,” she says, takes a breath in as she speaks, as though replacing the words with air in a desperate attempt to stop them from dragging her under.
“He says he’s always known…”
And he smiles because the only way this goes is forward.
She has longed for this moment with a desperation both painful and embraced. The steady rhythm of her life, stalled by his unexpected presence in it; the memory of his skin on her skin on his skin as webs were woven of a most delicate fibre.
There is a choice to make, she lies. There is no choice here.
“You should leave,” she finishes, finally, with finality, reclaims her wrist and sets her fingers in her lap.
And it is left to her to burn them both to the ground.
*
previously on...
introduction | jayus | the missing stair | in another castle | nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent | build a better mouse-trap | step on a crack, break your mother's back | yes, and... | the recency effect | barrel of monkeys | open topic | confession from the chair | chekhov's gun | a terrible beauty has been born | scare quotes | disinformation