It’s probably a restaurant, a table sprawled between us, a neon lamp swinging overhead. You are seated, your face cupped in your palms, your lips mouthing a set of phrases I should be acquainted with. You ask me of my past, and I laugh, raise an eyebrow, and look away. You tell me I’m secretive, and I twist a straw, between my fingers, and smile. You complain I’m silent, so for the first time, this evening, I decide, I must speak.

I’m told, people speak. I’m told they speak of their lives, those brief episodes that do nothing for them, but dampen their rooms with melted snow, and colour them with deep purple bruises. I’m told, when they speak, there’s a defined start, a roll of thunder, thick sheets of rain, clothes clinging to cold bodies, something, anything, to suggest: two people meet.

If you must know, he and I met. Logic dictates, we did.

It was probably just another day, though, with an insignificant drizzle splashing through an open window onto a bedspread, a bedspread with the same pattern of lilac flowers, creased somewhere close to the pillow, a strand of hair on the pillow, black, too black, now slipping off the sheets, and spinning by an empty bottle of wine. There may have been a half-empty bottle of wine, or maybe it was just water, impotent, and lacklustre. Maybe I consumed it, hung-over, slipped on a pair of slippers, walked downstairs, bumped into him by some corridor, and followed his dulled shoes, like a drunken moth, to a coffee-shop. Or maybe-- maybe, he wasn’t there at all, and I walked, alone. Maybe, I got a call from a stranger when the aloneness weighed heavy, so I spoke, and said, I missed autumn with maple leaves strewn by the door. Maybe, our first conversation was on telephone, and revolved around maple leaves that neither of us had ever noticed, doors, and colours, burnt ochre, and blood. Or maybe-- maybe we didn’t speak at all, but lived with all-consuming silences, so soon, we had no reason to converse.

But no, I suppose we conversed. We must have, because I remember thinking that his voice was a blunt knife cutting through an apple, and, mine, a pebble slamming against a rock. Or maybe-- maybe, I didn’t think at all, but created some metaphors, aimlessly, right now, to prove a point, to prove that we spoke.

So once we spoke and found words deficient, I suppose we reached out… let our bodies converse… rest close, so close that we could feel the moistness of breath, taste the wet smoothness of skin, and smell a hint of cinnamon and black pepper-- but, was it cinnamon and black pepper--?  I’m not entirely sure. I can’t recall.

Perhaps, that’s our reason for drifting apart--  that-- that there was nothing left to recall. Maybe, it wasn’t even that, but something more tangible, like dialogue, words that morphed into creatures other than themselves, to bare a set of claws and scuttle away. Or maybe there were (and are) no images, no claws, only non-reasons, and more non-reasons-- like forgetting it’s possible to return.

We won’t return. Not again.

And soon, I promise, this too will end: this restaurant, this table, this table sprawled between us, neon lamps swinging overhead-- you, seated, your hands entwined in mine, to cover me tender, like a raincoat on an inconsolable day.

Cover me tender, dear stranger, a raincoat, on this inconsolable day-- hold me tight. Enclose me, as I erase another travesty today.