Sapphire Diamond

The afternoon sky was Provence blue, the air warm.  It was the solstice, the shortest day of the year.  I sat outside a cafe after another shoot, my day half done.  The sandwich was dry and boring without beer.  A pretty girl walked past.  I did not look after her.  All young girls were pretty now, it seemed.  That said more about me than about them.  I'd missed it again, I thought, missed once more that Christmas sensation.  Where once there might have been anticipation there was only something similar to remorse without being remorse exactly.  I hadn't sent out Christmas cards.  I guessed I wouldn't this year.  Perhaps in a few days I'd send out something else.  Yes, yes, there was hope.  I could make all the things in the studio that I'd planned to make a month ago until the factory beatings began and time fell by the wayside.  Why had I shot so many girls these past days?  I hadn't time for anything.  I'd not been able to get my mother any presents yet.  What would we do Christmas day?  I was tired even though I'd not drunk a beer.  I needed a nap.  I'd been staying up late, past midnight, but still I awoke every morning at four.  The horribleness of it gave way to the pleasure of the hot coffee, but later the heavy fatigue set in, limbs weighed as with cement and eyes that did not want to see.  What were their names?  I couldn't remember the names of the women I'd been shooting with all week.  That was bad. It was terrible.  I remembered that last year the beautiful woman had come to my house to invite me to a party.  Or was that the year before?  What was her name?  She was young and pretty when she began stopping by on her walks in the neighborhood some years ago, but last year she was a beautiful woman.  What was her name?  No one had come to the door this year.  There had been no calls nor surprising emails that someone had come into town.  I realized I'd had no apprehension about that, no anticipation, and that I no longer believed in the knock on the door nor the incoming email.  Text.  It would be a text now.  In a few days it would be Christmas here in the land of sunshine, the days like blue diamonds on a never ending strand.