As time and patience fly
Love buds, then awaits to die.
Are we not all lost ghosts?
Ghosts of our shattered selves,
Ghosts of our invented selves,
Ghosts of the loves we invent
Before we die in the intent.
Slap! The sharp sound of an open hand smashing the damp smoothness of a bare cheek, its sound reverberating from wall to wall in the semi- darkness of the room, then bouncing back again with a more soprano tone, only to fall off to nowhere with a dull thud. He did not expect the blow; neither did she. They gazed at each other in absolute silence: the silence of instant fury. A blotchy red toned spot emerged near his nose, gradually turning to a livid pink. Her hand trembled in spasmodic electric beats. The hand that had just previously advanced so lovingly over his body was now throbbing with pain; the cheek that had received the silky caress was now burning with the heat of a smothering coal.
Outside bickering voices mixed incongruently with sudden melodies; shouts, screams and cries filled the thick summer air and sought refuge in the nicks and crannies of lonely back streets and rubbed shoulders with the rumbling growl of traffic. Further off a shrill safety alarm screeched, the sound of a fist was heard crashing through a window and, still further away, the air vibrated with other slaps and kisses and the rhythmic thud of angry or forgiving heart beats, mitigated only by the soft cooing of lovers and pigeons.
The slap had lasted but a second, yet seemed an eternity and a half. It came and went as a blink, as a radiating star dying away before reaching the observer’s eye. The movement had burst out from her most inner self, much like the “big bang” that millions of light years before had set the universe on its ever expanding course. The words that followed, ending the seemingly eternal silence, shot out like rapid machine-gun fire. They were off-key choral arrangements unable to find a reason for their existence. Everything had been expressed in that slap. The cosmos would continue on its way. So would she. So would he. In its primitive physicality the slap had found meaning in a void that had developed between the man and the woman.
With a drive like that which had sent the woman’s open hand to her companion’s face, she stood up and attempted to place the slap into her memory chest. She advanced towards the threshold, the threshold dividing her confused feelings and the threshold of the door leading to the open air outside. But she remained there in the limbo, unable to find her way out of it. Something kept her there, in that no-man’s land between the room and the clamorous street. She could not visualize it, there were no words with which to express it, and even her memory was of no avail in resolving her impasse.Suddenly a ray of light from early morning moonlight outlined her face, highlighting her gently upturned nose and casting shadows over the depression that shielded her eyes. She imagined the moon’s illumination to be a voice and turned to reply, but it was the man, now on the outer edge of the threshold, who spoke first:
“I dreamt I held you in my arms but your body was that of a silvery pigeon.”
A very slight smile broke over the edges of her lips:
“And I said no.”
“I asked but for an instant of love. Remember? Time without time but time enough for love to caress and heal and propose; but an instant, the thrush of a bird’s wing, the song of a lark at dawn, the instant but eternal lasting of an orgasm.”
Now her left foot was on the point of passing through the threshold and there was a unknown glow of confidence in her eyes when she replied:
“I told you no because if there is a once, there will be a twice and a thrice. If you recall the candle, our candle of love, flickered not once, not twice; it waned in greater and lesser intensity many more times and burned its way to extinction. Candles always go out. So do love affairs.”
He advanced his right foot to the middle of the threshold, nearly touching hers, but an unaccustomed rigidness seemed to knot his shoulders. His voiced sounded as if echoing from a deep well, seductive but aware of its prompt defeat:
“Darling, remember how we softly entered each other...how our bodies meshed, twined and bubbled in sweat. We were caught in a tidal wave of love, an erupting volcano so impressive we will never forget its bright embers.”
“So what? After the waves crash there is always quietness. When the volcano has erupted there is only silence and destruction."
“Perhaps It never happened, perhaps our love was but a dream. Or a wish in the midst of a tropical storm that blew over and left us staring at each other from opposite sides of a dried up salty sea.”
Now the moonlight danced upon her face playfully and her other foot had begun passing through the threshold.
“It was more than a dream. We faced each other from opposite sides of dampened bedding. Perhaps it didn’t happen but it might have. And if it happened once it would surely happen again. You were there hovering over me with a bottle of sherry in your hand, an impish macho smile breaking over your teenage man’s face. Then I slapped you. That was all. That was my will. That was all.”
“And I touched you, my body going stiff and soft all at once. I’m transgressing, I thought. Is it wrong that I feel so free and strong at the same time? Is my freedom your slavery? No responded my inner voice. You have gifts to give her. Give them to her! Is it wrong for a lover to give? Why is it so difficult to take the initial step?”
She did not answer. Or perhaps she answered in silence. Both of her feet had now noiselessly crossed the threshold and the rest of her body followed obediently as the moon played games with the image her figure reflected on the now opened door of dark oak. Without replying and casting no look back, she transgressed the threshold and vanished into the cover of night. Shortly thereafter the moon faded away behind the nearby weeping willow tree that guarded the entrance to the house.
The man remained there in the threshold statue-like for a long instant, his lips quivering. Perhaps he is still there.
