Never Forever

The growl of thunder, a drizzling rain.  Home from my night job, I have the first whiskey in five days.  I feel guilty drinking it and guilty that I do not want to be with the cat as much as she wants to be with me.  And that is all there is for me just now.  The sickness and the factory have destroyed my schedules.  I've lost some chances to make pictures of people with whom I really wanted to work.  I realize that it has been a while since I've heard from others, and I feel a cold distance growing.  It is difficult to maintain contacts.  Lives are busy.  Lives are hard.  And I'm always so enamored of the person I am with at the moment.  Everyone is so beautiful and interesting when you are just there with them.  "I really love you," one says.  "Write.  We must keep in touch."  But the clouds form and the thunder rolls and the light of heaven is dimmed, and soon too much time has drifted by and one begins to forget.  Sometimes after a spell, someone returns, but it is not the same.  Nothing is ever as lovely as one remembers, and it is better to forget.

I saw a girl in a hallway today, Hispanic, perhaps, or maybe Middle Eastern.  She sat alone, self-contained, self-aware, wearing very brief jeans shorts and a loose, sleeveless top, legs crossed at young, barely chubby thighs. She was pretty, but not that pretty, not as pretty as one would hope.  Still, the self-possesion was intriguing, something you wanted to disturb if not destroy.  Other than that, you did not want her to change, not in time nor circumstance.  You wanted her there for eternity, something to think about and come back to, something unattainable that you could count on, something to hope for.

But she will not be there next time I walk that hallway.  In a way, she was never there at all.  But it would be difficult to walk that hallway without remembering her.  She will always be there.