A film of sweat covering me as I lay in bed as still as possible to avoid generating more sweat. Finally stand to have a cigarette and cooler air outside. An unusual display flashes in the sky. A storm rumbles, the thunder still faint. The unusual part is the grid lightning hiding high behind cloud and lighting up the atmosphere, all of it, in intermittent bursts, like someone flipping a light switch on and off repeatedly. The glow comforts me while I struggle to remember the awe this would have inspired twenty years ago; it comes, slowly and unevenly. I put out the half-finished cigarette on the cement ground, turn two feet, and walk through the red door of this apartment feeling vaguely....
And now a mighty blast fulminates and with it a massive light attack and downpouring rain. The storm's summoned its forces and now unleashes an extremely heavy, angry rain that loudly announces itself against roof and tree and ground. The thunder comes in half minutes, literally shakes this compound; I can feel it...
...symbolic, feeling vaguely symbolic. Something is going to happen, I think. I'm going to say something to you or maybe not but something is going to happen. The preparatory thunder made the suggestion I then internalized. The elements guided my mind instead of media and politics. How refreshing to be sombre for no reason.
The rain doesn't scrub away the heat clinging to everything.
Someone outside meows like a cat, twice, then stops. I peep out of the blinds but see nothing. Today's a day of paranoia for me. People entering the compound who do not fit, look right, have rattled me a little. I wonder if ghosts from the past materialize into flesh and pursue me. Chequered lives like mine forge many demons, some human, some psychological. The human ones are those today preoccupying me. I try to let go of my uneasiness and almost succeed.
Recurrent thoughts at first amorphous clarify themselves each time they manifest anew: did we feel the same? Could our tired grievances ever be obliterated through the compression of time and memories less gripped than gripping? Does true love ever die or only burrow into psychical crevices? behind walls?
A frisson of excitement and of fear knocks my knees a little for no reason I can discern.
I think of your walls and how they are the most sorrowful thing that I know. The image of a small soft faceless being trembling inside a crusty cocoon makes me think of how the most sensitive mostly suffer.
Another meow issues from beyond my wall. I won't look. The cat or the man fuse meaninglessly. The meow alone counts.
Something changes between us or maybe only for me the longer we are apart. I feel each new day that I remember only your presence; and feel a pristine affection and desire. The problems we've had become harder to recall. A hard sob spindles somewhere to the left of me, a thing detaching like a glob of anything leaving its host: moistly, audibly, not a fleck of matter lost in the exchange for new room.
I think I feel fragile tonight. I do not think but know that I miss you and that I feel a dense sob in my chest too mournful to even reach my throat. I feel a little afraid for us tonight. I fear losing you, though not to another man. Never something as paltry as that.
Suddenly I imagine your tears and mine intermingling while we kiss. A memory to be made; and how I imagine we might respond to these, my current thoughts if we were together or even while we are, or because we are, apart.
There are many strange noises outside my apartment tonight. The place is normally silent at this hour. Tonight there are crashing and banging sounds. I think of trespassers and feel concerned. A small fluttering in the stomach occurs.
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