Strain of Consciousness

-She sits trembling, her heart swells. To etch love into paper, she tries. The pen pressed into the 4×5 canvas in front of her. A card. She likes cards. She bought him a card. It made her smile when she bought it, thinking of him. Writing in it, makes her heart ache. Tears fall, as her heart swells and her pen trembles, along with the rest of her. She breathes deeply and heavily. There’s an emotion, now alive inside, she’s never felt before. And as she writes, she writes it down as, Love. She smiles, as the tears fall; it’s […]

– The event lasted twelve years, and it was an event in many ways. A daily event. Waking together in each other’s arms. At first, anyways. Then it slowly became a different kind of event. It brought other events. The first lasting ten years so far, a beautiful little girl. The other, six years so far, a gracious little boy. These too were daily events, beautiful events that made the event so much more, at first. Then, maybe they had a negative effect. Maybe she missed the undivided attention. Maybe it made the event more beautiful than she had ever […]

-The smoke dissipates into the air. The window is open. He didn’t notice until she left. The cold. He stares out at the city lights; somehow they look a little different now. A little less magical, perhaps. There’s an ironic smile on his face and he lights up another one. To keep warm. He would follow her, and she might come back, but he understands, and he doesn’t. He feels, a certain, weariness set in, and his eyelids weigh. He takes one last hit off his cigarette and as he exhales, it feels as if his energy leaves with the […]

-She’s made up her mind and she packs her things. Everything’s together and she has to separate hers from his. There’s no anger, maybe just hurt, maybe fear. She does it gently, as if everything he owned was somehow an extension of him, and she doesn’t want to hurt him. But she’s determined, now, to leave. Maybe she thinks if she stays she’ll be the one suffering the worst pain and her heart is already aching. It’s hurt too much already, not with him, but in life. Maybe she’s the one getting short changed, she thinks, and she can’t let […]

-He resuscitated her, the image of her, if nothing else. She had been absent from his mind for years, except for the occasional thought of what if. The thought itself had been so ephemeral that it was hardly a thought. But it was that dream, her resurfacing. Like with most people and events he had encountered in the length of his consciousness, when he attempted, he could never remember them well enough to remember them, simply a vague impression, but in that dream, she was more real than she had been at any point of their material acquaintance. It made […]

-They sit in his car, the water trickles down the windshield, as the raindrops fall. He’s telling a story. Something to do with a couple of friends of his. She makes those gestures, the ones that make him think Gui yop ta. She watches him, almost as if waiting for something. She knows. And there’s the moment, he leans into her, his eyes on her, and their lips touch, softly. He pulls back and almost without missing a beat, he continues telling the story, smiling a little wider now. He looks at the door, at the handle, at the umbrella […]