If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

I wanted everything to stop she said, even if it was only for a little while.

There was nothing about it on the news she said, I knew there wouldn’t be but it didn’t seem right.

It just kind of happened and passed she said, and then we left and there was nothing to prove it had happened at all.

I said, you know, it’s the noise I can’t forget.

I still have dreams about it sometimes I said.

The way it echoed

off the houses, and, oh, it just, I said.

And then we stopped talking and I could hear her breathing.

She said actually can we talk about something else now.

I said yes, sorry, it’s just I’ve been thinking, you know, lately, and she said well it’s a long time ago.

She said so anyway are you seeing anyone at the moment, and we talked about recent possibilities and failures, comparing notes.

And she said look my dinner’s nearly ready I’d better go.

I said oh sorry I didn’t realise, you’re eating late aren’t you and she said oh I do these days and we both said I’ll speak to you soon then bye.

I didn’t say who are you eating with are you eating on your own.

I sat there for a long time, after I put the phone down, the letter and the appointment card on the table, unmentioned.

I don’t know why I didn’t say anything to her about it, I don’t understand how I became fearful and closed off like this.

I sat there, watching the flowers quivering each time a lorry went past, feeling the tremble echo along the bones of my spine.

I saw the moon appearing, low and white over the park by the river.

I remembered the time Simon had called me through to his room, saying look out of the window, a dark night and the moon was bright and crisp away to the left, a thin crescent like a clipped fingernail.

And he’d said no no no but check this out, look over there, look over that way.

Pointing away to the right, to a second moon as bright and crisp as the first.

I’d looked at him, and he’d giggled and said how mad is that.

I’d looked at the two moons, each as clean and thin and new as each other, the same size, like twins of each other.

And I’d swung his window closed, and the reflection of the moon on the right swung away into the room with it and he said oh right yeah I thought it would be something like that.

I remembered this, and I wondered what he’d been doing the last few years, I wondered about all the people I haven’t seen or spoken to properly since then.

All the emails I get these days start with sorry but I’ve been so busy, and I don’t understand how we can be so busy and then have nothing to say to each other.

I read the letter again, and I sat very still, barely breathing, the streetlight striping the darkening room through the blinds.

I took off my shirt and bra and began touching my skin, very slowly, tracing the contours, pressing against the ridges and lines.

Running my fingers across all the marks and scars and spots, as though I could read my blemishes like braille.

I’m not sure what I was looking for.