FEEL

40. Clockwise

Clockwise ~ aware that you'll only ever be a certain age relative to a loved one, only seeing them from one arbitrary angle across the decades.

~ The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows ~

~°~

It was like the night felt my pain.

She clouds the stars like a smile has disappeared from her visage, blowing a gentle yet piercing breeze to silently convey her agony. Much like myself, she wallows in quiet despair. Much like myself, people sleep through her agony. Regret must be tormenting her as well. Why else would so much darkness fall upon such a beautiful time of day, a time meant for peace and serenity, now filled with a tension of unuttered expressions.

I stood at the balcony, being only a spectator in her failing ostentation of harmonious dismay. The white cotton shorts and camisole I wore did nothing to challenge the cold, rather seeming to encourage its onslaught on my flesh.

You would think that, standing there for as long as I have, some significant reflection took place. Perhaps it should have. But it did not. There was just blankness. There was just the sky, the ground and me. And we were floating in the desolate void of existence. Where nothing was seen, it was rather looked at. Nothing was felt, it was rather experienced. Nothing was heard, it rather vibrated the eardrums and passed without being processed to higher thinking.

That was until something strong hit my senses, familiar and ashy. It menged with his natural scent and that of his perfume, creating a woody and smoky combination that roused my body into alertness. The feeling of his scrutiny pricked little needles of awareness along my spine and I knew without turning that he was present. Before he even spoke, I knew exactly where he was standing. “I thought you'd be asleep,” he said, his voice all groggy from momentary slumber, or the attempt of it. He's standing near the tallest pot plant in the corner of the balcony, the one between the door and the bars of rail.

“I couldn't,” I reply without turning to look at him.

Relating, he hums, “Neither could I.”

The words drop my head down to the road below us. That same sour feeling I had been trying to push down rises again, that distasteful combination of regret, guilt and my own sadness. I juggle for a good set of words to say to him. To rectify the filthy words I had said to him in the car. In all my contemplation, all I could find, instead of an apology, was, “I didn't mean it.”

He responds shortly after, “I know.”

My heart cracks. A cold wave of wind passes, burning my glassy eyes. I swallow before trying speak again. Take in a breath. Blow it out. “I'm sorry. After everything you've done for me, I shouldn't have said that. You saved me. You did something nobody else would. I owe you my life.”

It's audible when he takes a single step forward. From there, I can't tell if he stopped because he planned to or because a thought provoked him to. Either way, he makes no furter advance, instead letting my words linger in the air.

“You miss her,” he says eventually. The words are unexpected. So much so that they evoke a strong desire to burst into tears. It takes everything to push them back down. I won't mourn her. I won't let her absence affect me when mine barely hinders her head space.

“I don't,” I counter firmly, “I'm a grown woman. I don't need her.” He seems ready to say something, so I add before he does, “I don't want to talk about her.”

Even without looking, it's like I feel him nod his head understandably. I concentrate back out into the sky when he says nothing further, assuming that this is how the night will resume until he finishes his cigarette.