Warm

Tears welled, but none came out. His heart screamed its silent scream but his body did not respond. The mind wrenched itself out of the subconscious hold which was tearing away at his sanity. He woke up wishing he had never slept.

It was an exceptionally bad dream. He woke up with a dry mouth and wet shorts. His mind was in ferment. It was torn between wanting not wanting water. The evening faded into a sprayed black night. It was time for him to go. Pouring himself a glass of lemonade, he decided to garnish it with a slice of freshly cut time. It was, he decided, a luxury his tight time line could afford.

Brushing his thick black mop of hair away from the forehead he walked into the sand brown recesses of the bathroom he knew and loved. The desert sand coloured tiles, of the non-slip variety, made by Marbonite reminded him of the silent flowing dunes of the desert. Having them – the reminders of those flowing expanses of desiccated sand – in his shower was his mocking laugh at the world. His luxury of reproving the creator.

With the grime of sleep, and the indecision of wanting to go back to it washed away by the jets of scathingly hot yet refreshing water, he got into his simple ensemble. A soft white Marks and Spencer shirt size 38, carelessly thrown into the well cut and well worn Reid and Tailor, which-had they not been tailored, would have revealed his waist size as 30.5 inches.

Held up by a smart strip of Italian leather that did not show crease or age, the understated wisp of the buckle added to the elegance of the deep blue trousers resting on immaculate black soft leather shoes riding on soles that sang silence with each step.

When at two thirty in the afternoon, he stepped out of the house; he was in moderately high spirits, with a feeling that could almost pass for anticipation. It was after all a wedding. By an unhappy co-incidence, it was of the woman he loved that was getting married, and regrettably so, it wasn’t to him.

The trees passed by the window of his car at comfortingly regular intervals, their leafy branches whispering songs of shade and light. He wasn’t a marrying man. His heart wasn’t broken. It was aching at the thought of losing the only person to whom he had laid his heart bare. He withdrew his thoughts. That wasn’t the reason. At least, not the whole of it.

The dance of light with the boughs of trees lulled his mind into a hypnotic trance the whipped memories back and forth like a curtain stuck in a broken window, allowing the lightning paint its purple streaks on the walls while the wind played gatekeeper. These flashes threw light on the wrinkled face, hardened with age, and with mercenary wisdom forced upon it by the relentless, loveless place the world seems to have become.

The wedding was to be a grand affair, with filigreed white and lavender curtains that she, the bitch, loved most and the obnoxious guests that she couldn’t care less about. A pang of jealousy hit him, but the wound was soon balmed and forgotten. ‘She deserves to be happy’, he thought, at the same time wondering if she really would be. He would need to dispense of with his presence at the wedding. His face lapsed into a temporary frown as his mind grimaced at the thought of being a part of a wedding.

The sun tinkled its way down into the embrace of the horizon, yet the heat haze refused to give up its abode of asphalt. As if the day, yet to advance into evening, denied it permission to depart. Through the winding mists of heat and thought came her smile. It came to her easily and without affectation. It was offered only when the owner deemed the intended recipient worthy. When it was, it left no memory of the carapace of sapience. It was a face that knew how to love; she had palms that were always dry to the touch. When those palms rested against his cheeks, as they so often did, he could feel the electricity of affection shift into depths of his soul. He loved her, like he loved his own grandmother, as he loved basking in her geriatric love which he felt was without lineal frontiers.

The rear-view mirror blinked the presence of a vehicle waiting to pass. His mirror answering the wink of the car’s headlights with a trance-breaking response sprayed into his eyes. He slowed involuntarily, pulling to the right, allowing the car to pass. His memories, feasting on time, did not allow the fatigue of driving to reach his limbs. The odometer clicked away silently, a mute proof of the two hundred and fifty kilometers of his tyres’ effort of pushing the afternoon into evening and then further into dusk, glowing on its face.

The darkness fell, and with the silence of light, this was followed by the dawn of irrevocable realization. This meeting was to be his last with her. There would be no more dry, warm, age-smoothed palms against the roughness of his cheek. No tender smiles. She would move into her grand-daughters new house where his presence was wanted less than his memory.

Gravel lost to tyres as the car tolled into the driveway – the warm rubber making capricious tracks in the cold evening cobblestones. Twisting out the key, he silenced the engine. The soles of his feet registered the now familiar pressure of the smooth round stones through the soft under-leather of the shoes. Softly crunching his way to the door, he made the bell speak away the silence of the house.

Dreams have the curious ability to render the body immobile. A dreamer is a prisoner of the dream. Straightjacketed into the fantasies of the mind, the body refuses to obey the conscious, caged in the vaults of the subconscious; it remains a motionless cast in its own pneuma.

‘Hello Son!’ said the door, before he could see the owner of the voice. He graced the door with a smile behind which was a mirth that surprised him. As the door bade him enter with a yawn, he pushed himself across the doorway, through the shadows of the house into the comforts of the boudoir where they fell into easy conversation. Time passed. He rose to cook for her. In his mind, it was the only joy with which he could recompense her gleesome vicinity. He felt her benign smile trace his back as his preoccupied humming parleyed with her silent smile.

Food lay prepared, and barely touched. Her ritual pecking accomplishing in diminishing only traces of the produce. He knew she loved the food. She knew he knew. The accounts thus settled, she spoke. ‘She loves you still and I will miss you’. She said this with finality. A finality that was child of a decision made and about to be carried out. Her unsparing understanding and abject acceptance of things never ceased to surprise him.

Looking at his watch, he rose. ‘It is time’ he said. The red hands that betrayed phosphorescence in the shadows stood speaking 10:15. She nodded. She helped her get to her feet. She did not need the help, but he enjoyed the contact and she allowed him this minor masculine barb.

Outside, the light relented to the inkiness of the night; the cacophony of the day replaced by the subdued chorus of the humid, tropical after-dark.  He waited as the longer hand of the watch made its interminable progress around the face of the dial since he last bestowed his attention to it. Curious, he walked in. There she was, smiling at him, sitting in the shadow of the lamp that clothed her favourite armchair; her lap laid claim to by an exquisite painting created by the betrothed.

Her reached her, held her hand, and immediately knew that he would know the warmth no more.

Tears welled, but none came out. His heart screamed its silent scream but his body did not respond. The mind wrenched itself out of the subconscious hold which was tearing away at his sanity. He woke up wishing he had never slept…