Another Sunny Day

We felt, that day, almost invincible, a sense of time spread out in front and everything to play for, so let's run, run, run, into the day; smack, bang directly into the sun. But also, we knew, somewhere inside ourselves, that things would come to an end eventually, so there was also a feeling of urgency, of time running out, of all of the everything laid out in front of us becoming gradually less, of things receding. We knew that we were both invicible, because we were young, and not, because we were alive.

The sun was bright in the sky.

We drove your car along the coast, the sun smashing its way in through the windows, blasting us with light, with life. We opened the windows and the wind wooshed through the car. We listened to a tape of songs your father used to play you when you were young. We sang along to Simon and Garfunkel. The day felt endless, a clear sea with no bottom.

A colourful coral reef teeming with life.

We bought ice-creams. They melted in our hands as we laughed and hurridly ate them. We ran along the beach, hand in hand, and afterwards lay by the sea, watching the sun-dappled waves making their way to shore and then back out again. I ran into the water, waded out up to my thighs. You pushed me in. I swam, submerged, and kissed you.

I fell asleep in the bright light and dreamed vividly.

Ice-creams & Discarded Cider Cans

It was the middle of summer. We took it in turns to impress you. I bought a skirt shorter than any I had ever owned before, read books by authors whose names I couldn't pronounce, and dyed my hair purple. Elaine coloured her eyelids in a shade between grey and black, plaited her brown hair into tiny plaits, and started learning guitar.

You and your friends concocted a plan.

You charged us 50p each to hang out with you for a week of the summer holidays.

We were giggling and in awe.

You were two ice-creams richer.

We wandered along the cycle path, kicking the discarded cider cans out of our way. We talked, endlessly, about bands, and people we knew. We sat on the grass verge drinking cheap cola out of plastic bottles. We stayed out too late and went home with headaches from the sun and the glare still in our eyes.

I bought a pair of plastic sunglasses. I fancied myself as older than I was. Elaine and I never thought that you were really hanging out with us for any reason other than pity.

When you bought us ice-creams one afternoon, I knew you felt bad.

Elaine clipped her hair up and tried to catch your eyes as she licked the melting ice-cream cone in a way she thought you might like. I looked at the ground, sepia toned through my sunglasses. Your eyes were hidden too. I imagined them rolling, taking none of this seriously; we were both younger than you and you were above all this, right?

That night, Elaine and I decided our friendship was more important than boys. We listened to the same song seventeen times, shouting how it spoke to us, and this summer was so important, and how we were the very best of friends. We were seventeen years old and thought we knew everything.

Two days later, the last day of our bargain with you, it rained. We went to the cinema. Sat quietly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw your hand touch Elaine's, saw you glance furtively at her in a way that said very clearly it wasn't the first time.

I didn't let on that I'd seen anything and we parted ways that evening with hugs and promises to see each other again soon.

Elaine went to University at the end of summer and we stayed sporadically in touch, but it was never the same.

I only ever saw you again once, years later, back at the same cinema, with two hyperactive children and a woman who looked at least five years younger than you. You looked at me as though you were trying to recall where you knew me from, smiled briefly, and were gone.

Mellow Drizzle

I remember the night cracked open like a cold beer, the fizz as you flipped the bottle opener sideways, the sky opening up into the crystal white light of Friday evening.

I felt like it could have swallowed us whole.

The night cracked open and shared itself with us. The first taste on your lips, the sigh and the sit down, the hazy glance, a smile lurking.

Mellow drizzle.

It is a rare thing to be afraid of nothing.

Sweetness

I listen to violin music. I miss you. I imagine myself missing you, dramatically, waving a hankerchief into the wind, atop a mountain. The tears that run down my face are big, and dramatic, and wild. I am wild with missing you.

I can't even breathe.

I listen to a rock song. I shake my hair. I ruffle my hair myself and it's not the same.

I imagine candles and ceiling tiles, stuck fast in the place where I feel empty.

All the sweetness in and out and within the world, I remember in a single moment. I squeeze those molecules of sweetness in, using only my memory. There was a look we exchanged which said it all. I wanted to stay, to say it again, and again, and again. Over and over and over we went, over the same ground, slipping in our sock shoeless feet, laughing as we went, crashing into walls, jumping up at them, through them, across them. To hell with boundaries, we said, life is short and we are boundary-less, we move beyond that, and if you aren't touching all four walls of a room simultanously how can you be sure, I mean really sure, that they are all actually there?

I listen to a love song. It says little about love.

I soar away, elsewhere.

I count down the days until you return. I imagine the smell of your neck. I put my hands flat on a wall, and my ear, and I listen for a sign of the past, residing in the insulation.

There is none. Nothing in the wall, anyway.

When you return I will be wearing a blue dress. I will gather flowers. The sky will last forever.

My Summer Friend the Garden Gnome

In the morning you told me you had fallen out of love with me.

In the afternoon I sat in the garden staring at a garden gnome, trying to denote the truth from the cracks on its faded green hat.

I failed to find the truth. All I knew was that my heart was broken, and I didn't know how anything could carry on.

The next day was a beautiful summer day, no clouds, bright sunshine. I again took to the garden, this time choosing a spot under the apple tree. I looked at the shadows of the leaves dappling my winter-white legs; I plaited my hair into tiny plaits; I closed my eyes and the sun danced; I reached my hands through the overgrown grass; I smelt the earth.

I felt small.

Days passed and I did very little. You sent me a text message saying "sorry"; a word that offered me no comfort at all.

I didn't reply.

My mother laid out eggs and salad at lunch time, and I picked at end-pieces of bread rolls, chewing the same piece over and over and over, tasting nothing. I would stare into space without blinking, letting the tears gather without letting them go. The world would become flooded until the water got too heavy and fell.

It seemed endless.

All summer I spent in this daze, wandering from room to garden to kitchen to bed. My mother tried to talk to me, talk some sense into me, but I was glazed and my misery was impenetrable.

I was a full stop.

But then Autumn came. First I noticed myself noticing the browning of the leaves. Then I required a cardigan for my daily meeting with the garden gnome. Then it was September and a week until the beginning of term at college.

I spent an afternoon sorting out my books. I called my friend. I heard my voice lift itself out of monotone. I cried. I went back to college.

I survived.

Talking Big

Teeth bare in a mouth, an expression that says "get away" or perhaps something else; the lines on a sheet of paper, hemming your words in when you wanted to TALK BIG; the scrawl on paper napkins, that three-pints fuzziness and the "truths" you wrote in unromantic, wonky letters.

You were never a poet.

But I knew what you meant.

I Was Not Alone

When I first heard your voice I was nine years old, curled up on the top layer of a custom-built triple bunk bed, pushed up close to the ceiling, touching the popcorn texture of the wallpaper with the palms of my hands as I tried to jump, feet-first, into sleep.

You said "Hello".

I glanced down into the inky darkness and saw you standing there, your arms crossed over your chest, so serious. You seemed to be lit from underneath, or perhaps within. My eyes were tired. I squinted to try and see you more clearly but you disappeared.

I was left with an imprint of your light when I closed my eyes, like when you look directly at the sun or a lightbulb. I closed my eyes and your light danced, was first the sun and then the Earth and then and then it was me and my sisters, holding hands in the living room on someone's birthday. I feel asleep and dreamt of a sun, brighter than our own, hanging lazily in the sky on a summer afternoon, and my sisters and I swimming in a lake, and you, standing off to the side somewhere, barely visible.

When I awoke you slipped away from me and I forgot you'd ever been there, at least for a while.

When I was eleven I saw you on the television, wearing a suit, debating budget cuts and war in the Middle-East. Shortly before this I learned about World War II at school and as a result renounced God. I was a melodramatic child.

During the interview, you looked directly at me and said, "Hello".

I remembered the night in the inky darkness and your light.
I wondered who you were and what you meant when you said "Hello".
It was a mystery.

When I was fifteen I listened to music about being so alone in the world and what is the point and I dyed my hair black and my parents said Your Behaviour Gives Us Cause for Concern.

You popped up in the middle of one of my favourite CDs, your voice, quietly, saying "Hello". Later that night I closed my eyes and you were there, arms crossed, so serious. I mumbled, half-asleep, "who are you?" and you disappeared.

I thought perhaps I was going insane.

When I turned eighteen, I saw you in a cup of coffee and thought, this is it, the descent into madness. But I found my dreams were waves and not jagged shapes, and that my eyes looked less tired.

And then I saw you wherever I went, walking along in front of me, arms folded, so serious, a red jacket and an old-fashioned hat. You were ageless, you were all ages. You rarely said more than "Hello". I studied Maths and Science and I worked out the statistical probability of life being meaningful in any traditional sense, of the existence of God; it was low.

And yet you followed me.

And you said "Hello".
And I was not alone.