I wrote today, in order to always possess my belongings. The sediment at the bottom of my teacup was granulated, creating a hemisphere of its own, contrasting to the white of the porcelain like a diaper to a garbage truck.
“I don’t need to stay that long”, she would say.
I recall the setting as being different than all others I had experienced before those moments, although most of the time they occurred at my nearby subway station. The stop I always traveled to to return home.
I never thought she was serious, serious about the suddenness and closeness of her mortality, mostly because she was as healthy as could be; a poster child for staying fit, albeit simply in mind and somewhat body. The decision was all mine when discussing death, however, she just the partner to my pretext. Never did she initialize this conversation, though. Her conscience was so wavering that it caused me frequent paranoia, in relation to myself, and of my correspondence with her being.
Never once had I considered the extreme mental trauma she carried within her day to day, a fatal flaw in our relationship. She never struck me as an unstable human, as someone with inner contrived issues. Not even issues that I could surmise were rarely brought to light, although we seemed to discuss difficult and macabre issues every time we were together. Maybe it’s not truly me who brings up these situations; maybe I like to ignore truths when it benefits my psyche most.
It turned out to rain one day, today, and the humidity began to wet my clothing so as it stuck to my skin. The cleanliness I had felt merely hours before now wore into a sense of unwashable sweat swimming through my pores. She approached me, sort of smiling, but more so heaving, out of breath from running to make our meeting on time, I suppose. Why did I not automatically assume she was in the same boat as me, the humidity hitting her in her lungs, too?
“Sorry, this humidity is really messing with my stride today”, she commented. “Same here.”
So we walked a little bit, I still daydreaming about what she was thinking rather than just out and ask her what was up. She paused a few times, and then would re-instate her part in my inner monologue by asking contrived questions to create dialogue. I listened, answered, never really putting all of the conversations, including this, together cohesively.
The next day, or the next week, as I remained in a daydream while we were physically in cooperation, she disappeared.
Well, she passed away. And I awoke from my ignorance and small-mindedness to an even greater, truer nightmare.
camilleplatt 