From all to nothing
A C E F
All on one page
We hold each other in silence. I keep wondering whether there was anything behind your question, but don't know how to decide. Finally, you hug me hard and let go, and I follow suit. I look you in the eyes, and for some reason I get the impression that the hug was some kind of test, but I don't know whether I passed or flunked.
We sit down again, with a decent distance between our chairs, and toast each other. I don't know what to say, but that's okay. You're the rare kind of person one can be silent with. We look out over the lake again, drinking our wine.
"Can you pass the cigarettes?" you ask, and the tension I hadn't noticed consciously is broken
"Do you want exercise or will you catch?" I say with a raised eyebrow.
You actually laugh at that, so you must have noticed the tension. You sound oddly relieved, yet sad.
"Just toss them here and stop being silly."
Later, much later, I lie awake on the couch waiting for the room to stop spinning around. My thoughts are spinning too, around you, your body, and your soul. They spin around two very different things - what is, and what could have been. And what did that hug mean?
If I listen closely, I can hear your slow breaths from the bedroom, and in the end that's what lulls me into sleep
Copyright Örjan Westin 2001, 2005