Ice Breakers on a Monday morning

I hate icebreakers. I don’t want to break the ice. The ice can stay firmly intact for all I care. I don’t want to get to know any of these people. It’s 9am on a Monday morning and my boss wants me to join a project about the reintegration of systems for the financial something or other... I wasn’t listening. I’m sat behind a stout balding man of about fifty. Counting the hairs on his head is the only thing keeping me engaged right now. It can’t be more than sixty, I don’t think. I wish he would just shave them off because that tragic combover is fooling no one. I bet his wife isn’t bothered. I heard him talking to the man next to him about what he did over the weekend and which restaurant he went to with his wife, and which seafood he tried for the first time and wasn’t a fan but his wife enjoyed. I find it kind of funny how wildly different people’s lives can be. Some people get so lucky, and some are cursed. I’d guess he’s probably fairly in the middle. He’s a nice guy, I’m sure. I said I would try to be less negative, but I’m fighting my nature. The project leader is rambling on about himself. I thought ice breakers were meant to be quick introductions but I’d have his life story by now if I was listening. As I watch the next person stand up and swing their pickaxe into the ice, I think about what I’ll have for dinner. I can’t be bothered making anything, I’ll probably just get a take out. Next, a lady about 40 years old is standing, giving her contribution to the big old iceberg. She must be the next closest person to my age, and she still has at least fifteen on me. Fifteen years is a long time. I used to think a couple months in the summer was a long time as a kid. A lot can happen in a couple months. Maybe a couple months still is a long time. Time seems to move so slowly now. 

“And you, sir?” The project manager is staring right at me. 

Shit it’s my turn. I shoot up like I’m spring loaded. “I’m sorry, what was the question?” I mumble through the shame. 

“Where would you go if you had a Time Machine.” The project manager beamed at me waiting for my response. Every other head has swivelled round and locked on to me. The balding man stares into my soul. I can almost read contempt on his face as he awaits my reply. He must have known I was counting his hairs. I need to say something. It’s not a big deal. “Where would you go if you had a Time Machine?” But it is a big deal. If I had a Time Machine, I’d probably go back to the Athenian acropolis and see democracy in action. I’d love to see Socrates orate the shit out of that place. I’d visit Plato’s academy and - I don’t know why I’m lying. I never understand why lie to myself. Do I think I’ll get one over on my own mind? No, I know exactly where I’d go and I knew it from the second he asked the question. It’s all I think about. I try to pretend it isn’t but it is. I’d go back to the night at the lake with her. My mind’s embarrassed because I hate being soppy, but what the hell am I going to do in Athens? Yeah, no, I’m going back to see her again. Do I even need a Time Machine? I relive it every night in my head. I always think that reliving memories is like tending to a garden. You have to water them or they’ll fade away. And this is a memory I cannot lose. I cried myself to sleep one time when I came to the realisation that my brain can’t hold every single conversation and moment we shared together. I just found it so frightening that I was losing a part of her. This is all that exists of her now but in my mind I can’t catch all the little bits that fall off her. That’s a scary thought. It’s probably the worst part of grief. I’ll never have a new memory of her so I have to make do with my dwindling supply, that slowly trickles away day by day, year by year, until I’m in a nursing home and I don’t remember my own name. 

That night is locked away in my mental doomsday vault though. It’s still so fresh, even though it was over a year ago. I can still see the crescent of the moon, lonely in the clear sky dancing on the surface of the water, as we dangled our legs over the edge of the jetty. I can’t believe we still thought we were just friends back then. It was 2am and everyone had gone back inside. It was just me, you and the lake. We were sitting there for hours just talking. I could talk to you nonstop from now until the end of time. It was like breathing, it shouldn’t be that easy. You had no business being that fun. Who gave you the right to have me in stitches with a single glance. We were cackling away on that jetty. You were telling me the story of that time where you lost your friend at the bar when you were really drunk, and you came home and thought they had died so you started planning their wake, phoning funeral directors out of hours. I’d heard it before, but it almost got better each time. Our laughing slowly faded, and we looked out onto the surface of the water. The glassy surface was almost completely still, save for the little ripples our toes made when we tapped the water. Then we turned to each other, and I really looked at you for the first time. I stared into your eyes, and was shocked at what I felt. My gut was in free fall. You became the only light to my eyes, at the end of a very long tunnel. Then I felt that magnetic force; I could no longer turn away from you. The realisation hit us both at the same time, I think. We looked at each other confused. I was always indecisive; you helped us out by putting your head on my shoulder, and we just watched the lake in peace. In perfect tranquil silence. 

“It’s funny,” you said eventually. 

“What is?” I turned my head to your face. 

“I feel like … I knew this moment was coming. And yet it’s still all a surprise.” I could feel your warm breath on my face now. “Do you know what I mean?” 

“No,” I laughed. “But I feel you.” 

You lifted your head off my shoulder and looked at me, taking me in. “I think I know what happens next,” you said. Our faces were inches apart. 

“Oh yeah?” I smiled coyly, trying to act aloof. But my was heart pounding, you could probably hear it. Your hand was on my face and that magnetism drew us together and we kissed for a lifetime. My life could have ended there. Sometimes I wish it did. When we finally pulled away, everything was different. The moonlight seemed far more beautiful, each little ripple in the lake telling its own story, and your eyes were worlds upon themselves that I could fall into forever. We laughed, and you put your head against my chest, but I lost balance and we both toppled into the lake. I thought I was going to have to give you CPR the way you were catatonic with laughter. With your arms around my neck we played in the water, and splashed each other as we waded about in our soaking heavy clothes. We let our outer layer dry on the jetty, and laid back on the grass where we fell asleep, you in my arms, under the infinity of endless stars. 

If I had a thousand time machines, I’d go there a thousand times. 

To be honest, my memories aren’t cutting it anymore. I feel like I’m burning when I think of you, like I need to reach out and grab you but there’s nothing to hold on to. There is a dark empty hole in my body that can’t be filled, a necessity that I’m starved of. I get by, but just about. 

Over and over again I play our memories together in my head. It’s the only time I am alive. I need those memories like a needle in my skin. The happiest moments of my life are tainted by your shadow, and yet I torture myself anyway. Can I even say I miss you at this point? It’s a masochistic fascination. But it’s like you’re trapped in my head and if I could just let you out… I could drag you through the back door of one of my dreams and yank you back into the empty spot on my bed beside me. We could laugh the whole thing off, and I could hold you, and see you and feel you and tell you there’s no such thing as pancreatic cancer. We could go out to dinner the next day and I’d be acting nervous because there’s something I want to ask you. And we’d go to the park with those old fashioned street lamps you love, and the overlook of the city. I’d grab your arm and get on one knee and show you the ring. You’d say yes, you don’t get a choice. Sorry it’s my fantasy. We could live in a tiny house we can barely afford, with just a mattress on the ground and we’d cuddle up by the heater. We’d love it because it’s ours. We’d have kids and grandkids and grow old together. I think we’d be one of those old couples that both go peacefully together barely days apart, like some act of fate.  

But you won’t grow old. I’ll grow old without you, counting down the days until I go, and we’re reunited because life hasn’t been the same without you. Because I have this aching pain in my mind worse than any wound I’ve ever had. I feel this pain every moment and I just yearn for you. My shattered heart will never be whole again. You took the pieces to the grave. I can’t take you as my wife, I will be married to the void. 

“Sir?” The project manager was speaking to me again. I get whiplash from the speed I’m yanked back to real life. I’m surrounded by strangers. It’s 9am on a Monday morning and the bright office lights are blinding me. “What would I do with a Time Machine?” I ask. “I’d probably visit the Athenian acropolis and see democracy in action.” 

The project manager smiles a polite thanks, and moves onto the next person who is now droning on about some medieval battle, while I swallow the lump in my throat and feel your hands slip away.