What Will Be

She knows how to find these little shops where the aroma of coffee bends the mind from larger issues. Soft paper, moist with liquid that perspires through fingers that grasp the latest flavors, my Affogato with premium vanilla ice cream and a shot of freshly brewed espresso, her flat white double espresso, steamed milk with just a hint of vanilla syrup. All would be well, as vendors hawk their wares down cobblestone streets and the unheard gentle murmurs of the delighted customers who nod and fondle their steaming cups.

I can let this all swirl and delight me, her smiling chatter of nothing at all as we sit at our table. The latest gossip served with know-it-all wisdom, never dangerous, that punchline delivered with calm assurance; practiced until even the dimmest of wits could not mistake her intentions. It is nothing at all. Life is unfolding as always. She doesn’t notice that tic, the nose twitch, and my attempts to touch what I cannot control, don’t attract her attention. Until all gossip reaches its destination, the train whistle letting steam escape into the void of my mind, one last chuckle from her, the valve running shut. It is my turn to speak. She waits still smiling, the curves of her mouth now uplifting only to begin their slow decline. Her eyes focus and I am late with that turn of phrase, the transition to what I must say. She is nodding, encouraging, eyebrows lifting as if I have spoken, toying with her empty paper cup. I want to squeeze that cup shut, but now she’s laughing, something I’ve said saved the day.

Out into the sunshine at the train station, tourists gawk near the toy locomotive expanded to life-size, its black beauty so sinuous and bare to the sun. Heat distorts the sky as I explain near that engine, lavishing knowledge and understanding. It’s a London and North Western Railway Class “C”, 57 tons weight. Boiler pressure 200 psi. She is clambering near me, reaching out to its immense weight so that I imagine her falling onto the grimy track. Then her smile saves me, innocent delight, that one treasure.

“All aboard!” the replica conductor shouts, the force of his words, piercing the din. Crowds find refuge, entering without luggage, passengers to nowhere we are. Our tickets are first class, four to a cabin. Then he walks in.

I’ve practiced for so long, trained my mind. A steel trap it is. Mustn't think, let alone speak anything injurious. But this is now, and that was then. It slipped out. I hardly remember when.

The petroleum stench of oil-drenched gravel beneath us could not distract me as I fiddled with my ticket. Fuzzy white lines crease across the picture of happy rail passengers, their perfect ticket lives now fractured and wanting. But he is across from us, alone, blithe, and engaging. We exchange pleasantries, like toy figurines on train sets, so happy to be whatever we must be to share four square meters for thirty minutes. At this moment, I realize that whatever I have been will lead up to what will be. I could not know how I knew this, like climactic moments in old movies, the music swelling and filling our minds, something impossible to be revealed.

The conductor fills the sliding doorway. Portly old-time mustache, jowls to spare, in so many movies his fat fingers reach for what he always must have. I dropped mine and it would be only a moment before I retrieved it. But the polite stranger is faster than me. His blonde locks dip as he deftly snatches the ticket limp and wasted, creased beyond recognition.

“Here,” he says.

I thank him, reddening as heat offloads from the billowing engine, the tic tac of steel wheels finding their places, I sit and dream. I cannot divine what must occur. For reprieve and then? Tell her. I must tell her. The conductor leaves, and the sliding door heaves shut. But she is speaking, her soft voice rising and falling with the stranger.

I and the cabin window compete for the landscape, trees, and shoddy houses, backyards with upended toys, and discarded car corpses. What people hide from prying eyes; I know as blurry blotches.

Try as I might to focus on one thing, I strain to not notice everything. Whirling and diving, my eyes are done in by the conniving trees that escape the tunnels and ringing signals. Railway gates close on cars that shuffle along streets that show the way forward. But for me the day rushes, it is too much. The incipient headache rears up and says, stop looking!

But what more is there that can yet afflict me? Oh, that gossip! With any other victim, it would not matter. I have what must be locked up. What I said, I said twice to someone, in anger. In a fit of pique, I imagined her with another. Then that maddening knowledge went still deeper, further into unknowing. Die! I do not care! I gossiped her out of existence. The knowledge of what I just did, fate, that trickster, had me? Which event will be first? Is this the only question? 

Too soon, we arrive. Screeching and wailing our engine in decline. Steaming gobs of white nothingness shoot skyward. She is with the stranger more than me! One part of what will be. One sorry event is still to come. Or will it be if I bow out gracefully?

We walk, she between us. Down groomed pathways fit for tourists, charming doorways with little trinkets. They look so charmed together, a brace of budding joy, he slips into his cell her number.

I am sorrowing as I plod near them. Their pretense and not knowing spins a future without me. Yet inevitable as uninvited dreams, the certainty of what must be, I, the power of life or death.

Oh, be glad to be weak! Merely human! Kept safe from unimagined power. A curse on me, I am neither human nor uncreated. If only I could give my life for hers! Yet I am bound, I must go on, her life a diminishing flicker.

Our day is done. She steps through the parking lot towards an uncertain future, her car filled with mortal dreams, one furtive glance at him, then a still longer tender one for me. I cannot think. It will pass far too quickly. There. One goodbye not followed by another. What will be.