“I suppose it isn’t fair, but this is where we have arrived”
“This is where you arrived. I was tricked into being here”
“Theatrics, you certainly missed your calling”
“I asked for a light some time ago, I’d suggest you come through, or I’ll rip that one from your lips”
Obediently, a behavior groomed from years of slight, polite correction, he drew a worn zippo from his pocket. A ghost of the American flag remained ever so slightly poised on the face. As though it came out to haunt only as the striker ran across the flint.
Affectionately he cupped his hands over hers, and lit her slender cigarette. This habit required no grooming; the small caring acts came from some place that need not be tended. They came from his heart, however war torn it had become over the past few months.
“Thank you” she said coyly and a slight smile crept to the corner of her mouth, opposite of the glowing ember.
He returned the warm lighter to his pocket and returned the smile, though he felt himself forcing it. How had they come to this place, why? Years of laughter, love making, teasing had brought them here?
“I guess you only remember the good in the end” he mumbled
“Excuse me?”
“The good. When it’s become so bad, and our feet are out the door, the only thing I can think of is the good. I can’t for the life of me understand why I walked away”
She began to say something that would hurt, something that would temporarily make her feel satisfied inside, but her previous smile, and cigarette served as just big enough a barrier to stop her.
He was right, all she could recall now was the good in them, the good in him. Dinners, dancing, meeting each other’s families, friends. The trips they took. They’re first place, the first time they said I love you.
Walking away is the fresh coat of paint over a rotting wall, tempting you to forget, not to see but to reconcile. Eventually the paint fades, and the smell comes back. But not now. Now is a time to reminisce about the good things that brought, and held them together for so long.
“I will miss your cooking, and I will miss your matter of fact face. It never let me escape a moment” He was proud of this statement. To him it coined the essence of her.
“You will enjoy somebody else’s”
The paint begins to fade.
“Please don’t say that, not yet”
“It’s true. I suspect you already have”
“You know tha..”
“..and I suspect you are curious, if not madden by the fact that I may have as well”
Her comment was meant to cut, but hours, days, weeks of fighting had dulled her knife.
“You may be right. I just wish you wouldn’t degrade what we had, because of what we don’t now”
His lack of attention had caused a rather large ash to form. Visually it was hard to accept that it was still hanging on, how could it. But there they sat in the small room, the sounds of other people’s lives existing without care or knowledge of their present sorrow, outside. The ash along for the ride.
She noticed a small tear in the velvet sofa and began to dig her pointer finger into it.
“Do you think we will” his eyes lowered, embarrassed to ask what they both wondered.
“I don’t know what I think. I’m tired of thinking. I just want to be. I am devastated that we just can’t be”
“I know you are. You don’t just wear your heart on your sleeve, you let it walk three feet in front of you”
The raised voices of a man and a woman began to creep its way up into the tiny room from the cracked window. To them it felt like a breeze though, cooling, comforting. It reminded them that passions flare, and passions fade, but there certainly, will always be passion.
“If you could change something from the past, go back and redo one thing between us, what would it be”
He bent over to extinguish his cigarette, taking longer than needed, because he knew the answer, and so did she. She didn’t know why she had asked, she didn’t want to hear the answer.
The hole in the sofa grows bigger.
The question hung in the air for a few more moments. Abrasive, scratching at the new scab. Their eyes met and they exchanged information. They said what they needed to say, and heard what they needed to hear, without a word being spoken.
“I will always..”
“stop”
“I will”
The yelling outside had quieted. He imagined two lovers now in a passionate embrace after a spat over something largely ridiculous.
She imagined a man face down in the street, and the woman searching his pockets for a lighter.
The hole in the sofa is now enormous.
He begins to rifle through his pockets once again to find his lighter and another cigarette. The hot smoke reminds him of the dangers of pleasure. Ecstasy often has a knife behind its back, waiting for those less careful.
“I’m not quite sure how to leave this room. Do I? Do you? I’m embarrassed, but I’m unfamiliar as to how this should work”
He takes a long draw from his cigarette. As he does this, he notices the room grow darker, and brighter at the same time. The cozy glow of the lamp light dims, and the ember from his cigarette turns the room to a red hue.
“I’m not sure either love. But we have to. Our hearts will starve in here”
“I’m afraid they will starve just the same out there”
To her, his knife had not been dulled, and it cuts open tears in her eyes. Calm, not sobbing. Tears that come with the white flag of surrender. Tears that have no destination, but have travelled the longest journey.
“Please let me say it”
As he said this, he noticed the ash and ember of the cigarette had consumed not only the entire smoke, but the tips of his fingers.
She noticed this as well. She was not frightened, just sad. She began to unclasp her heels, set them neatly to the side of the velvet sofa, and swung her left leg into the hole she has molested.
He sighed softly as the good they had hit him like a wave, a wave she meant to take away with her into that damned sofa.
He began to reach out, but three of his fingers fell as ash to the hard wood floors. He was confused, but the thought of how she would hate seeing the ashes on the floors, came across his mind.
Now with both legs inside the sofa, she met his eyes long and hard. Their hearts felt each other, felt as though there was a last opportunity to correct this wrong. But their souls softly took hold of their hearts hand, and pulled them away.
He stepped forward now, but fell to the ground in a cloud of soot. The room became a thousand tints of red, none more brilliant than that of the velvet sofa.
Only her arms and head remained outside of the hole now.
How beautiful she was, and will always be.
How handsome he was, and will always be.
“I will always love you” he said as the ash consumed his body.
“I will always love you” she said under the muffled tone of velvet and padding.
Outside the window, two lovers embraced, kissing for the millionth time, for the first time.
