“Me too! I kept trying to concentrate on one image but by the time I started the image was replaced with another image.”
Then she leans in and kisses me.
I think I kiss back.
“You’re strange,” Veronica says, “but sometimes that strangeness is good.”
“When is it bad?”
But she kisses me again.
And after the kissing we have sex.
Then we fall asleep.
Then sex again.
I think I fall sleep before she does.
This time we fall asleep for good.
I think I have a dream but I can’t be sure.
What I do know is that at one point during the night, I wake up, see that she has her arms wrapped around me, neither of us wearing any clothes, the sheets half covering us. Not at all concerned about the coldness of the room.
The bottle of wine empty.
My eyes have trouble focusing on any detail.
I attempt to think about the day, and why any of it happened. Laptop and phone cannot be seen in the lightlessness of the bedroom.
But then few details seem to stand out. Except for her. I attempt to stand up from the bed but she moans in her sleep. Holds on to me tighter.
I think up something I would have typed:
Is anything different?
Then I must have fallen back sleep.
In the morning she is gone.
5
There were words in my head, words that couldn’t have been mine. They exist in three phases and culminate with me saying them. When I say them, I am the one that hears them. Nobody else. There is nobody in my bedroom. I thought she would have been here. Her. I don’t know why.
The words I don’t type, leaving only one phrase, the worst one.
The hardest to grasp.
“I love you.”
The words that sound final yet don’t mean anything.
They don’t mean anything unless there’s someone to hear it.
I get out of bed before the words pin me down.
I see the note taped to my laptop screen. The words return, this time in her handwriting. She was here but now she is not and the latter quickly becomes most important. She’s not.
I turn on the laptop. I turn on the faucet.
I listen to the water running down the drain as the day catches up with me. Her letter is marked with the word and every time I read it, the word doesn’t register. And there are reasons why she isn’t here.
Work.
Wanted to wait for me to wake up.
But couldn’t.
How early is a morning shift?
I find my phone on the floor. Battery drained. I plug it in and listen to the water while it charges. I type and then erase.
I type number strings and then erase them.
Breakfast is leftovers of a meal that no longer has any lasting taste.
I eat the noodles cold, let the rest ride the water down the drain. I flip the switch and listen as the food is ground into a paste.
I am wearing clothes that don’t feel comfortable. They feel old, sweat through, smelling of something indecipherable. I go back into the bedroom and change into new clothes. The routine, as it were, there is only one thing left to do. I check the phone. It has enough to go on until I get to the store. I turn off the faucet. I go to turn off the light but it’s off.
I did this all in the dark.
Try to type something but instead I close the laptop.
Today the typing feels as distant as anything else.
What is genuine is how I can almost predict what happens next.
Someone is at the front door. Different kind of knock. It goes back to the same considerations: Look through the peephole and the person sees you too. Don’t look and don’t open the door. Person might not go away.
It isn’t Ben the super.
It isn’t him. Rios, who I recognized from the bar, stands at the door, bringing back elements of a previous day. Familiar, I can feel my heart beat faster, palms clammy. I want to type it out but I start with direct eye contact.
Rios doesn’t skip a single step, picks up back where we maybe left off.
Open the door and I should have asked but I didn’t.
Rios has a different sort of knock. Heavier, with more implication.
When I open the door, he greets me and says, “Super guy’s cool.”
I take a step back, not wanting Ben to see.
“I have work today.”
“Yeah, bummer. But hey bud, there’s something happening and it might be cool of you to join in.”
Something happening.
What is it like to work on a Saturday, everyone asks.
Each like makes me more confident of this conversation.
I make eye contact; I believe that there’s not a whole lot that is bothering me. Rios crosses his arms and can’t stand still. He looks like he’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes. When he leans in to tell me more about what’s happening later today, I catch a single trace of something. Not quite body odor.
I’m too busy thinking about what to say.
I tell them it feels like anything else: the same.
“What’s going to happen?”
“Lots of people worked up about this ridiculous snafu that fell through. We’re all getting together to talk ‘damage control’ over some beers.” Points at me, “We could use another mind on this. Someone that’s not already got his fucking mind in the clouds.” Shakes his head, “Everyone’s falling apart. Fucking too deep into things.”
Rios turns away from me, looks down the hall, “Don’t know who to trust.” Looks back at me, “But I can trust you, bud.”
I tell him that I have to be going.
Though I do my best to listen to his problem, he is intruding upon my routine. I should already be out on the streets.
I step outside and lock the door. Rios walks with me.
Ben the super waves to me as I walk by. He mumbles, “O-okay … you have a good day.”
I focus instead on what Rios says. I made a decision and I stick with it.
Out on the street, there are already too many people. 48—how many of these people are watching?
Rios and I walk, and this takes on a different sort of importance. I am not alone and being in the company of others means bearing the burden of more peoples’ thoughts.
I look down at my phone. I begin counting and recounting the number of likes and comments Meurks received so far.
You live through it and look forward to the day(s) off.
Rios keeps talking.
Words take on some sort of meaning as the conversation elapses over the course of my entire walk to work.
I listen intently, but nothing he says comes through.
I hear the voice, the voice that is his, but my heart racing, sound of blood thudding through veins loud and clear, I never look at him again, keeping my gaze to the phone, at least one item of my commute remains in place. He keeps slapping me on the shoulder.
Rios acts genuine.
Anticipation is often more than the actual; the day off is really just another day, another day without a routine.
We part ways a block away from the mall.
I tell him, “I’m going to be late.”
Rios chuckles, grins and I worry that it isn’t genuine.
“Yeah boy — I’ll catch ya later!”
And he walks away.
Just like that.
As he disappears I think back to how he appeared at my door.
I think about people and how they are lost and found. I think about the capacity of a single person on a single day, what they are able to accomplish, what kind of routine a single person adheres to in order to have some sort of hope. And then I think about hope as time seems to pass.