“Wow. There's one seat left.”
“Take it.”
"No, I can't. You take it.”
“Look at me. Take the seat. You need to go home to your family.”
* * *
Me: Staring at you wide-eyed in unabashed admiration, well beyond curiosity and headlong into shopping trips for interior house paint and flowerbed ornaments.
You: Standing by yourself in the background. You made eye contact, and in spite of the distance, in spite of the darkness, I could tell those eyes would melt into green from a very soft shade of auburn. There’s no need to contact me through this announcement. I am presently wandering the streets until I find you again.
* * *
I had flown in on Sunday, into La Guardia. The plane circled around the city, and upon the final approach, it seemed I could reach out through the window and touch the twin towers. I looked out again and there was water. Water. Water. A glimpse of concrete, and I felt touchdown.
Five days and one missed connection later, I am sitting in a cab, headed towards JFK. The cab driver points to the smoke, but I’m tired of seeing it. I had been stuck for the past three days in midtown, the air smelling bitterly of burning plastic. I was about to get on a plane. I didn’t want to look at any smoke.
* * *
Wow, ten years. What’s your secret?
There’s one key. And that’s respect. Respect and space. Two keys. Respect, space and…
Please don’t do the Spanish Inquisition. Again.
Respect, then. She doesn’t interfere with my after hours drinking with the neighbor’s daughter, and I don’t interfere with her child-rearing and household chores.
You’re drunk.
Ah! The fourth key!
* * *
2001 is a difficult year for us. I take a job two hours away and move into a tiny apartment by myself. When I’m not flying around the country, I come home on weekends, where the distance between stands somehow greater. We both draw from reservoirs dug far too shallow, dredging up every hurt and heartache that once lay quietly beneath the surface.
* * *
The pilot comes out of the cockpit after the cabin doors are shut. He says, “Thank you all for having the courage to do this. I promise you, everything is going to be fine. I know it’s been a terrible week, but we’re going to get through this. Look around, say hi to the people sitting next to you. Reassure each other. And if there’s anything at all that you need, don’t hesitate to call on me or my crew.”
I look around. I am the only person on the entire plane sitting by himself. Once we are airborne, I turn on the LCD screens at the back of each seat. On the aisle seat, I turn to the animated diagram that shows us where the plane is at, hovering above a tiny, digital map. On the middle seat, I turn to food network, a show I’ve never seen before called Iron Chefs. On the window seat, I turn to CNN, which is still replaying all those horrible images. I look out the window hoping to get a glimpse of the city, but we’ve flown out over the ocean, and there is nothing more to see.
* * *
Condense those long months of fear and what you have is much like two lost emigres, running from the dangers of men who speak foreign tongues. Two people like that stand very close together in threatening times, and that’s how they described us, two newlyweds spending far too much time in far too close proximity. Love, they said. Fear, we thought.
* * *
Me: Dangerously close to missing my final chance. I was the one with the over-dramatic look, trying to say too much with hand movements and facial expressions, but not really saying anything at all. I was wearing the blue button down shirt, the one you bought for me for Christmas. The one I told you I hated. The one I wore every single week for a year.
You: Standing by yourself in the background. Inhumanly patient. You laughed at my joke, and told me to stop worrying. If you don’t call me soon, I’m going to kill you.
Tag: Epizeuxis
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