Goodbye?

     31^st May 2020

Sandra Wheatley

sandrawheatley@live.co.uk

1090 words

‘’How many lifetimes can we spend saying goodbye?’’

Tears were flowing down her face like fairy’s pearls and when they reached her chin they hesitated, then plopped casually onto her Tshirt.

She held his hand, it was warm, smooth and as comforting as a dummy and a square of silk, both of which she had sucked and stroked until she was three years old. Even after her mother had given her dummy to the fairies, she had kept the silk square under her pillow for a very long time, then one day it was just; gone.

That feeling of emptiness, desperation and sheer sadness had overwhelmed her when her square of silk disappeared and standing here now with him, the same desperate feelings washed over her with the same intensity and she was convinced that her legs would not hold her.

He stood motionless, he was pale and whenever this moment came, and it came often, he never knew what to say and how to say it, so as usual, he said nothing.

The silence hung between them like a net curtain, it was palpable, slightly soiled and it had a musty smell that was oh so familiar to them both.

‘’I can’t do this Jay, I just can’t keep doing this, when will this nightmare end? talk to me, please talk to me, let me hear your voice’’

‘’What exactly do you want me to say, what can I say, no matter how hard we try we keep coming back to the same place, it’s like a Flippin eternal roundabout’’

‘’No, a roundabout is fun, this is torture, I really just, cannot keep saying goodbye to you, it's destroying us, we deserve better.’’

The sun began to sink behind the horizon, silencing the day, turning down the heat and dimming the light.

Jay wondered at her beauty, her face was perfectly formed, and her blonde hair shimmered in the fading light of the sunset. He let his eyes linger on her face, his friends had often said to him that she was ‘easy on the eye’ and easy on the eye she certainly was, he could not recall ever seeing a more beautiful woman, beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.

Her thoughts were razor-sharp, she never missed a beat and she could hold her own in any intellectual conversation, this was something he was so proud of, to have a wonderful woman like this in his life, he just did not have what it took to make her stay.

Silence once again fell between them like a stone dropping to the ground, the silence was comfortable and palpable it was also heavy and suppressive, a dichotomy of all dichotomies.

His heartfelt as if a dart had been implanted into it and he started to fidget with the physical pain he was feeling. He never knew what to say to her, he only knew that he loved her. He owed her his life; she had sat with him when he was so ill, and she had bought him back from the brink he could never repay the cosmic and very real-world debt he owed to her.

She smiled a smile that did not even begin to reach her eyes. It was a sad attempt at a smile, but it was a smile, nevertheless. Her feet turned away from him, forcing her body to follow, it seemed like an easy move, they were however joined together spiritually in a way that only people who truly loved one another would understand.

Her body was willing to walk away down the driveway and once again out of his life, their spiritual chains were preventing her feet from taking a step.

‘’Just a few more minutes’’

He did not recognise his own words as they tumbled out of his mouth like the dried-up old tumbleweed being blown down the main street in an abandoned cowboy town.

‘’I must go, Jay, you know I must go?’’

‘’I know’’

Another long silence fell and if only they had known that they were both experiencing the same emotion at that precise time, it may have given them both a reason to stay together. It was the emotion of sheer desperation, a desperation that their relationship had once again come to this gut-wrenching terrible brick wall of impossibility.

They seemed unable to climb over it, tunnel under it or go around it and as far as both could see, every time they arrived at the brick wall, some clever dick had built another layer of bricks on the top.

‘’Do I have to tell you that I love and adore you?’

Jay sighed; it was a sigh that did not stop until it reached the bottom of his boots.

‘’If you did you wouldn’t leave me again’’

Once again, she turned her feet a little more than before and this time her whole body turned to dutifully follow them.

‘’Can we stay in touch?’’

‘’What for, we keep coming back to the same place, how many times can two people who love one another say goodbye?

Jay noticed a figure standing at the bottom of the drive.

‘’Go then, it looks like your next boyfriend is waiting for you, go’’

She walked away from him still feeling his presence as she dragged her feet down the concrete driveway and towards Bill.

Bill had been so good to her, he was kind and generous and he didn’t make any demands, he was just the kind of drug dealer a woman needed in her life.

At the end of the drive she took hold of Bill's hand and they walked in an unsteady gait towards the town and to their familiar squat.

‘’How did it go?’’

‘’Bill what can I say he doesn't understand how can he? he lives a privileged life, he can’t walk in my shoes, I hope to God he never has too’’

‘’He’s a brat if you ask me, he will never live in the real world’’

‘’He’s only 12 Bill, give the kid a Flippin break''.

The two of them walked out of sight and Jay stood so still he thought he was going to turn into a garden gnome.

What he did know, for sure, was that he would have to go through this day, again and again, Ground Hog Day was a living reality for him, and he was the reluctant hero in his own heart-breaking life story.

The End