On Waking.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

She always made her best decisions just after she awoke. There is a clarity to thought when it is unencumbered by the cares and worries of the passing day. Just after waking, before moving, she was able to assess the world, and see problems and solutions as dancers moving harmoniously across an empty ballroom.

She had split up with him after a long day, driving from the northern tip of Wales to London in the pouring rain. They had been arguing constantly, and she was very tired. She was never sure if that had been a good decision or not.

He had showered her with words and attention, phoning her every day. She had fallen into a rhythm of ring tones, expecting to hear his voice in the morning and the evening. Their chats were inconsequential, never more than three or four minutes long, and rarely touched on topics of any importance.

He had become a regular fixture in her life, and it seemed only sensible to make him a part of the rest of it. They had dated, kissed, touched. They fumbled and learnt of each other, slowly, step by step. And then he asked her to marry him.

Marriage? At her age? None of her friends wanted to get married. They were all stretching their wings, learning where the boundaries were, if they existed at all. Life was for the living, they would say, as they gathered around small glass tables in mirrored bars, multi-coloured bottles of modern alchemy in front of them. Don’t tie yourself down. Don’t commit. Grab for ourselves what they’ve had for ever.

They.

Always opposition. Always small warbands of whooping warriors on the bass filled battlefield. The language of war, not of love or even like.

They were all night time decisions too.

That’s where the rot started. She would later blame arguments, lack of care, drunkenness. But it was the proposal that caused her to wake each morning, his snoring form beside her, to think. She didn’t dream of a white dress and a train, nor did she see 2.4 children and a cottage in the country, roses climbing the walls and a dog barking.

She saw a lack of choice, and a loss of freedom. Her morning thoughts began to echo her night despairs, until she began to mistrust them both. How could she not get married? They were in love.

And then came the drive. They had been doing a walking tour of north Wales when all the doubts and pressures and anxiety came to a head. It had been while he had been droning on and on and on about some war or some castle or some king. He had been standing on the edge of a granite outcrop and she had been filled with the overwhelming desire to just push him off the cliff and drive home in perfect silence.

Splitting up was less likely to get her locked up in jail for the rest of her life.