just_writing | Valentine's Night

This is a story I have had for a while and posted on my lj last February. Now it's time to let go of it, so I leave it here, behind a cut for those who aren't interested.

I opened the envelope, and a snowflake fell out, shimmered, melted into the air.

Why is the night of love so cold?

I got the message and ignored it for a while because it was cold. Then I decided to go for a walk, and I found myself wandering the old ways. Yes, I could hear the music of the drains running through electric streets and I could have gone into any place sharp and angular, new with no shadows. Instead I walked bridges and smiled at strangers, declined hot dogs and held my breath through the thickening fumes of cars and lager, fried onions and caramel peanuts.

Sitting on the bus, I became aware that you were there, had been there for some time, and I wanted to lean back, to let my hair fall against your arm. But then that would be to touch you, and touch might make you real. And for all I am coming to meet you, I should not do that.

But you want to stroke my hair, I can feel it. So I let my hair fall against the back of the seat, over the back of the seat. I hear an intake of breath. So. You have made yourself real for tonight. How delicious.

Getting off the bus, walking through Nineveh and Troy, watching as the carriages overtake me, walking past cafes where Otto and Toulouse quarrel forever, where the Irishmen sit and their words, like the smoke of rich tobacco, spill over me, sweet, comforting. The waiter asks me if I would like a coffee and gauloise, and I say yes.

But I shouldn’t stay here, for you are calling me to the cold places.

‘You are cold enough already,’ says the waiter, a one-eyed man, ‘And this road leads nowhere tonight. Stay here and let your love come to you.’

I catch sight of myself in the great sepia mirror, between the swirls of Mucha’s Star of the North, her face smiling above the coathooks, where capes and cloaks, hats, doublets and even a few skins, wait politely. The walls are hung with masks and photographs, old sketches, remnants of maps and letters. One visitor still carries his sword, a mighty Frenchman who thrusts and feints, his wit as keen as his blade, to the delight of those around him. It’s an odd old place, but there’s no denying it tries its best. The music comes from an Andalusian guitar in the corner, though you can barely hear it over the noise of the clientele. The dark man playing it is the only one really paying attention.

I forget why I am here for a moment, because they are so alive, so happy while the streets are full of peelings, full of nothing. Gaze at the looming heights of the metropolis, at the cracks across the frame; see the little lights set at precise lengths from each other, see the shapes and the windows and the doors, all exactly the same. I turn inward, where Evil Maria waits ready with my coffee and an envelope. She puts her tray on the table and stuffs a green carnation into the vase at the centre. ‘From the Irishmen,’ she smiles. I lift my glass to them and they do likewise. Another night, I would love to join them. Tonight however, is for you.

I open the envelope. This time, there is a match. A candle sits at my table, propped up in a bottle of something undrinkable even in its day. I light the candle and put the match beside my saucer; I will take it to remember you by when the night is over.

Others are lighting their candles too, excited, waiting, and I am wondering where you are. I stare at the one on my table, the beams shooting upwards and around, sparkling off the mirror and the optics behind the packed little bar. The staff offer me food but they know I am not hungry; the night gets darker, the gas lamps outside are lit - go further and I know I would find myself among tar and torches - and the voices have sunk into deeper conversations, shadows in love with shadows. I stare at the candle, at the glow that fills my eyes while all else around me fails. Your hands on the table, light crevassing the roads of fate that cover you, lines and patterns, tracks across the desert of your skin, drawings of the past and future, of nothing and many things, delicate and strong.

My gaze moves along the length of your arms and upwards, to your face, still forming out of light and smoke and darkness, and your eyes, which have been there all along.

I should never have touched you. Now you are almost real, and the masks along the walls watch us, waiting to come to life as we smile at each other. I am tempted to go pick up a couple and prolong the game, but you reach over and cover my fingers with your hand. Your touch tingles like ice, burns like a flame.

Your touch is poetry in the darkness.

So the agreement is made, and we look at the white handled knife, trying to find a good place to begin it. You ask me to trust you, and I do, and the knife flickers beneath the candle, blade upwards towards me. Then there is a sting on my inner arm, just below my elbow, and I notice how white my own skin is when the drawn line spills, swift and red. Your wound is straight across the palm of your left hand, decisive, but then you have done this before. And when the two meet, the warmth is unstoppable, and I feel myself burning, flooding out to meet you flooding out to meet me. There is no place like this place, no feeling like this feeling. Snowflakes join to form tapestries of ice, flames join to dance in the inferno, raindrops meet at the edge of the glass, however separately they began. We are sparks and snowflakes and raindrops, and once we were the dead. But not now.

Now I am hungry, and order something to eat; you are the one looking pale and wet, weaker than before. Your hair is beautiful and I caress it without hesitation. I press a little, for I know that in a moment you won’t know how to feel my hands. We wait and smile again, and I hold your fingers to make sure the newness isn’t too heavy too soon. When you rise, your feet stumble over each other, but you straighten up quickly and you pick a mask from the wall. You turn back, uncertain. You want me to kiss you now, to touch your hair and remind you, but you are beginning to be afraid of me and you cannot see me clearly any more. Even the others are starting to alarm you somewhat, though they are too involved in contracts of their own to bother with you.

You are ready to leave now, to wander out into the rain and catch a bus home, opening a door with the keys from my coat pocket. You take the match with you; soon you won't remember why. But in necessities, you know enough. When you are tired, think of me and look for my message and I will be waiting. I don't mind waiting. The entertainment here is fine and the night is beautiful.

I finish my coffee and snuff out the candle.

Copyright and intellectual property of Debbie Gallagher 2005 all rights reserved etc, etc, etc.