May 24, 2012

• To be infinite

  The snow glided down the windshield, slowly making its way into a future that would have no past.

  “This weather always reminds me of being a kid,” she said hummingly.  “When I was a kid it felt like things were a lot quieter.  People said less things.  But when you went outside you could hear everything.” 

  “You don’t hear it anymore?”
  
  She did not say anything but looked out the windshield at my beige garage door and the snow sailing silently and safely to the ground. 

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.
  
  “I would rather stay out here.”
  
  “Me too.”

  We sat in the car and waited.  Or at least now I see that I was waiting.  It wasn’t that it was cold, or that I was hungry, or that I only knew her so well, but I remember at some point I took off my seatbelt.

  But I think she buried herself there; I left my coffin slightly open.

  “Do you think we’ll ever be old?” I asked after awhile.

  “No.” 

  The evening grew around us until the snow was blue.  I could feel myself breathing and she looked very pale and just the faintest moisture in her chasmic eyes and the way she clinched her lips let me know she was alive.  I felt unsafe around her, in a good way.

  “How did I find you?” she said.

  I looked over at her.
  
  “I mean, it seems like the same things happen everywhere.  People fall in love, get hungry, eat together, laugh together.  It’s all the same everywhere.  I wonder if we’re any different, or if we’re just like everybody else, doing the same things, we just have different names.”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was very cold so she turned on the car.  It shook gently beneath us and I could feel how cold my thighs were as they thrummed.  We listened to the radio for a few minutes but then we turned it off.

  “What song is in your head?” I asked.

  “Usually a sad one.”

  It was dark and we had been in the car for hours.  The snow now liquified as it hit her windshield and I knew that I should go inside.  She said it was great that I came out with them, and I said thanks for the ride home.  Her headlights were pulling out into the street as I went inside and closed the door. 

  Years later I saw that girl in a mall and I thought back to that winter, but that had been a long time ago.

  • 11:48 am
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