Bertie and Bert

Bertie and I moved away quite far, to a new place we never knew before. I had worked solid for many a year and Bertie, she just never had any fear, so I was the one holding us back keeping us from our good cheer. Finally, she said, Bert, my man, it is time or the shit will hit the fan, I need a new change, widen our free range, lets get out of this cage before we are of too high an age, while we each can earn a high high wage, and you know we both need that boost, before, and forgive me love, our chickens come home to roost. 

Twitching a bit at the egg dropping images, I considered her thoughts well and took a hard look at our wages, and let me tell you our taxes are quite a few pages. She knows these all by heart, indeed, she is always twelve steps ahead and has to stop to keep from us being too far apart. We can do it, she said, not a little impatiently, and I just kept staring back at her, my eyes swelled with humiliated tears, Let me see, you move so quickly, I am breathless to catch up, no doubt you are right, as you always are and I don’t want a fight, I just want to see with your sight, and make sure our finances are airtight, even though I know they are, he said speedily, to avoid the words of war, that he feared were about to come, I can’t spar on this, if the time is right, then you can wait until I can see the whites of their eyes and then we can fly high and far, like an unanchored kite. 

She understood and calmly walked away, she was angry, it isn’t hard to say. She has been ready for three years and a day, to move away from here, far, far away. When you are with someone so long, you realize how much you don’t know about them at all. The day to day things sure, but do you really know where they belong, or what they long for or what they hear when the radio plays a love song. Am I what she dreamt of or is she waiting for the gong to take me off stage, has she been waiting for me to leave, for an age? I had these thoughts as I pretended to crunch the numbers, really I was just thinking and thinking and preventing myself from slumbers. I knew I had to consent and move quickly, skipping out on the rent, maybe we would have a check sent, after we left for India, Budapest or Kent. 

I told her in the morning, after I had spent all night mourning, that yes, without question she was correct, and if she will have me, I agree and elect, that we move wherever we can go, and find a new social sect. She laughed and smiled and nodded her head. She clothed and made sure we both were well fed. And then she got started on searching the world round, to find our new happy home, our perfect hometown. She just needed to know she had a partner, she could easily go this alone for, she has moved around her whole life, whether single, alone or being a wife. And she was thoughtful too, she would look for places where I could be happy too, and even offer us options, like optometry, town one or town two. She took charge from here, and I was just along for the ride, or so it would appear. We talked and made our decisions quick, before we got research sick, and over thought it and slowed our kick. Time moves in a quick flick, a tock and a tick, and we both knew, if we didn’t decide, we would get stuck in the mud without a saving stick. 

And then the day came, where we were to move awayin’. I was nervous, as nervous as can be, but she, no not she, she was determined, determined to flee. I never asked her, thought I probably should have, why there was never a thought to consider, why she needed to go, why exactly she had nothing to fear. Perhaps, that would have made all the rest much more clear. But at the time, I was just happy to have her near. She would only be mine, we would only be us for only another year, another year after we moved from here. Without burying the surprise, it is really pretty easy to surmise, that everything was not all fine, and if she ever was, she was long past no longer mine. Whether it was a test to see if I would let her go, or if she wanted a second chance to find out more, I really don’t know.  With her, I always presume she means to be kind, I just wish I could take the last few years of our life and rewind. But I am getting ahead of the worst, first, we set out on this new path, steering a new course. An unforced accord to test if our relationship was porous, or worse, so thin, no love is left, there is nothing more for us.

Divorce rock is a term that you know what it means, after you first hear’em. You can tell by the album cover, something about it makes you shudder, and you hide away the sleeve, and hope such feelings you will never receive. sometimes, it is good, sometimes bad, but it is always one-sided, angry, hurt, and quite sad. I am listening to it now, even though that isn’t quite how, the story of my and my love came to be when we entered our new hometown. At first it was nice, the days were always full of glee, when everything you touch, feel, and see, is new fresh and wintry. We got there in winter, and it was the perfect time, we could smell the fires, the burnt cinder, we could ski for miles and just take every day on our own wiles. We worried not for work, that was an added perk, in crunching our numbers and avoiding all those slumbers, we could ease our way into this new place, to find our footing in this foreign space. 

My wife Bertie, she volunteered everywhere and took everything to care. She would stay up late nights looking for those green waves, for when under the auroras, everything is saved. It is hard to explain how both small and large it is to be a viewer, a spectator, a borealist, when breaking your neck to find those green, red and sometimes purple wisps. We would hold hands, touching through gloves, staring at the light show above. And all seemed well, and happy, or so I could tell. But just like you don’t know what a loved one thinks when a love song chimes away, it is hard to know what is thought when the aurora fires flay all the time through the nighted day. 

The end I tell in deep sighs, full lungs of every asking Whys. As the temps warmed and the summer formed, I grew restless, anxious by this new warm weather dress. And Bertie, well, just just disappeared, and seemed as if she were always gone, every year. Corporally, she was still there, for a while there. I was raw and emotional and full of care and she was moving away, finding a new way of being that she didn’t want to share. She would take long walks and really ignore all of my talks. I asked her every day what was wrong and tried to joke, dance and sing to her songs. I tried to help her to find a happiness I myself had forgot how to feel. Maybe I’d lost it long ago, over top put armor trying to conceal. But people don’t work that way. People don’t share that way. People don’t care that way. We reveal each other to ourselves and one another, in our own time, never ever, even remotely emotionally smother. I sincerely don’t think I did anything to compel her to be away, she was always going on her own, and maybe I would be there for a few days. In her life, only a small portion is shared with me, I hope it is a part that helps make her happy. I tried hard to make friends to go out and spend, time and money for joys outside that may our relationship course change the tide. Hi, I’d say to all who passed, pretending to be happy, even using some sass, This is my wife Bertie, you can see she is lovely and my best friend it is true, how lovely it is to meet each and every one of you. And polite she would always be, to me you, and every possible thing, you see. But her heart and mind left me, left us, left the world long ago, maybe she was just waiting for the right time to go. 

So one day, in the middle of that fall, a few weeks before the snow overtakes all. She must have heard a call, and that was it, for never did I see her again at all. What we know to be true, is that she wandered for a while, until long after dark, maybe until about one or two. Then she sat down, on a log or a beach or some place emotionally out of reach, and she looked up to the night, to the stars, and the heavens height. The auroras were at play, in a way, that anyone would say, Oh Hey, that is simply the most magical display. They seemed so close as if you could touch their tendrils, climb on to their particles, grab on to a wisp, a puff of air, a colored beam that breaks through the nights seams, and go far away in search of your dreams. And that is exactly what I believe went down. For quiet, perhaps with only a rustling sound, she climbed up on one of their colorful branches, and up up up she went through the night doing cartwheels and dances. 

And then she was gone, unto that other world she had fallen on. I looked for her for a while, covered mile and mile, but leaving a trace just wasn’t her style. She didn’t want to be found, otherwise she wouldn’t have left without a sound. I should have known she was gone from the moment I heard the divorce rock song, or really from the moment she said that she needed to get a goin’. It probably didn’t matter at all if I stayed or went followin’. It is painful and not easy to accept when your life is not for you to be kept. Your part is not one of chivalry, heroism or glory. You are Horatio and known for being a part of another’s magical story. 

I moved back home and found a happy life here, where we first lived for many a year. Mostly, I am somewhat happy and essentially full of good cheer. I have friends and we drink pints, and sing songs and look for signs of life, beyond the stars, for loved ones swimming with the auroras. And I miss her so, and think of her as often as I can let my mind there go. But more than anything I love that I got to spend such time with such a soul, and know that she went to where she needed to go. She climbed up and to the lights fell down and I know, she found her real hometown.