Ether – A Short Story

*** Ether ***

“Aren’t you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

She said it in a warm voice with a playful smile while rolling towards his side. He looked at her acting indifferent while taking his head away from the pillow. She raised her head and further opened her eyes contracting her forehead. He could  now notice her neck wrinkles more than ever. Then she poked his chest a few times with her index and repeated: 

“Tell me tell me tell me. What’s wrong?”

She was caressing his shoulder and his back with her silky palms, while gazing steadily at his troubled eyes. He tried to look as indifferent as he could, but his eyes betrayed him, they looked overwhelmed by sadness.

“I just remembered something miserable, that’s all.”, he said.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Aren’t you gonna tell me what did you remember? Come on! OMG you’re unbearable.”

She said that and rolled to the other side giving him her back in frustration. He did not want to make her feel sad, he cannot be sure if he cares about her, he does not care about anything, let’s just say that he cares about her more than he cared about anything else. He did not try to find out answers, the only thing he knew that she looked frustrated and it is because of him. He wanted that to stop. He started to surround her with his arms, he approached her until he was feeling the reactions of his own heart beats bouncing off her back. He started to softly kiss the back of her neck, and then whispered to her ear

“I did not want to share to not make you sad. I know that you’re already emotional about your brother’s thing.”

She rolled to his side again and held his face within her hands and said in a lovely tone

“You can always share with me, babe.”

Then she kissed him in a way that never failed to arouse him. Not this time. He was too overwhelmed. He laid on his back, held her hand, stared at the ceiling, sighed loudly and dramatically, then began to give it all in.

It was ten years ago, it had been a year after his wife had died. He was so lonely, he hadn’t started to date again back then. Having just moved, or as his brother used to describe it -escaped-, he did not know anyone, all his friends had become virtual characters on his smartphone. He remembers, oh he remembers so well, it was a Friday evening, right after winter. It was chilling, not cold, just cool enough to feel uncomfortable if one remains still for a while. He was feeling lonely so he decided to walk. He headed to the park a couple of blocks away, and kept wandering around aimlessly. He had his headphones on, he always does. They are chunky and colorful, they always attracted people’s smiles and disgusts, but he couldn’t care less. The night was lovely and moonful, but people do not appreciate that. They are indoor somewhere, eating and sleeping, dancing and lying, who cares.

What is he doing? Where is he going to? Why is he doing it? A lot of questions were orbiting his head and hitting it from everywhere. He was not happy, he was miserable at the least of it. He missed her like he never felt anything in his life. He missed her more than he loved her. He lived for her, he survived for her, he was happy just for her, and he never knew it. Even in his mind, he never knew it. It just hit him after she passed. His will to live has gone. He moved to run away from seeing that coffee place where she used to go and work on her terrible paintings. From seeing that bakery where she used to buy their blueberry muffins, then pick the blueberries out because she only loved the hint of its taste. No NO No! He has to stop thinking about her, those details are killing him. His therapist told him to stop, to distract himself, to focus on the future. What future? He feels alone. A better question is ‘why’? Why future? Why does he have to suffer just because she died and he hadn’t. He speaks to his friends on the phone all the time, he hangs out with his colleagues, he’s not lonely by people’s definition but he surely is. The loneliness is so heavy. It’s everywhere. The existence is a part of the loneliness. Light cannot reach us unless it is carried through loneliness, it is the ether! He did not feel the loneliness all the time, he was feeling time all the loneliness*.        

Oh it’s hard, it’s getting more difficult. He cannot do it anymore, he just can’t, he can’t keep going. Why does he have to suffer? Why does he have to survive? Loneliness is not a knock pain or a cutting pain, it is just there, from inside. It is an agony radiating from deep within oneself. It does not occur in episodes nor palpitates shortly then goes away. No, it rather persists, it crawls to one’s heart and becomes intrinsic to one’s soul. That’s how it was, it filled him entirely while surrounding him from outside. It took over his whole world.

He was breathing heavily, trembling, and crying. “Stop!”, he cried. He stopped. He sighed deeply while shaking, stood there and looked up to the sky, one could see his red eyes and his face full of tears. He then went on yelling ‘What a fucking loneliness’, he repeated ‘what a fucking loneliness’. Then he shaked his head in determination, bent over and put his hands on his trembling knees, and kept breathing heavily for a few moments. It took him several minutes to calm down and then resumed his walk. He listened to the songs playing while his ceaseless thoughts were fading away in the background.

For some reason he couldn’t forget that particular night and those moments. No events had taken place that night, nothing actually happened, but rather what he felt was eventful. His loneliness and sadness were overwhelming. That night changed him. Ten years later and he still remembers it. He feels its traces whenever he walks alone on a chilly night. He is not alone anymore, he has her. He rolled towards her with his tearful eyes and said in a broken voice

“But I have you now.”

But she had already fallen asleep. That didn’t annoy him, he knows that her Fridays are always long. They are not young anymore, he understands. So he smiled, kissed her forehead with a warm and a salty-wet kiss. Then he rolled to the other side, turned the lights off, laid there staring at the window, and waited for the daylight.

*** The end ***

~ NY,USA ~ 06/23/2017

* ‘Wahdy’ a single by Maryam Saleh

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