Palimpsest of You

The alarm, that is to say, your alarm, signifies it's time to start our day. Time to get up, face the day, as you often say.

You love to face the mirror each day and say "Let's make today special, eh Fay?"

Once in a while my protests that there's no rush to start the day are heard and you give in and we spend a little longer in each other's arms.

Then the coffee is made and poured and the toast is browned and topped with marmalade or jam. Never cheese or peanut butter. The way it clings to your teeth irritates you.

Clouds in the sky overhead mock me, make me reach for my raincoat before leaving the threshold. A counter to the usual "Don't forget a jacket, love" from deep within our modest abode. As dramatic as it seems, it's Scotland and it's just another day in the rain-soaked paradise of Glasgow.

The walk down the street to the shops for some fresh bread rolls and a carton of milk is as uneventful as ever. A solitary old hen stands with her pug outside the entrance, "lovely weather for ducks, isn't it?" I note as I pull my hood down and walk through, clapping the dog on the back.

The skies were vermillion, or something equally pretentious and poetic. High pressure pressed above, dragging an old memory from the back of my mind.

I love the rain and coming home to the warmth. Your warmth. That electricity when our bodies connect.

Laying in bed, until noon, on our days off. Naked and unashamed. Our limbs and fingers interlocked, as sweat drips from us both. It coats your skin, like a watery canvas and I am the painter. Your own artwork - an abstract piece on my own canvas of red.

Beautiful but oddly flat and uninspiring. Doesn't change anything. Elevates and punctuates, but never changes it. Together, the world’s biggest mountains and deepest valleys seem surmountable. Alone, they are impossible pipe dreams mocking me from their lofty, depth-charge extremes.

Our list still holds its prominent place on the fridge. Kilimanjaro, sky-diving, traditional American ranch experience - all ticked off. Seychelles holiday - well, you know what happened with that. I got a refund.

The coffee boils over; it’s bitter. I trip on that rug with the upturned corner. Again. Nothing changes in the day-to-day. Not really. Things still move. Even if I don't. Even if we don't. The world still turns. Clichéd. Of course it is.

Amethyst lamplight — your colour, your reminder. Soothing, ethereal. Or just factory-constructed beauty. It's LED bulb, 20-year lifespan. Because it makes sense, economically. But, does it? If you don't have 20 years? Outlives us, like reminders should. Outlive us all in the end. Our legacy on the world is our reminders, after all. I recall Helen Keller's words "What we have once enjoyed we can never lose; all that we deeply love becomes a part of us."

I pour from the pot, into the chipped "World's Greatest Cheese Grater" mug, the one you never liked in the end. Still bitter. Still. Steam rises and curls around my nose and lips like a ghost of yesterday or a visage of tomorrow's hopeless trajectory.

Reality is intriguing. The empty void beside me feels heavy with the loss, the grief, the sorrow, the regret, and the guilt. Survivor's guilt? Did I survive? As I talk to you, I ask you. You remain silent as ever. Perhaps through fear of spelling out the inevitable, the inescapable to me.

I swear that your breath on my neck brings life to my crushed spirit. Your bated breath, as you remain silent..

If all silence could be so tranquil, life would be easier.

A shiver shakes through my body, as my skin reverberates as the battle between the cold and the warmth rages.

Love, accordingly, steals us from loneliness. So, what happens when love is absent?

People worry about love tiring out or dying out completely, but what happens when it's just not present anymore?

The pillows still smell of your scent. Still smell of your Chanel. Like you were here just yesterday. The strong patchouli with top notes of citrus, pink pepper and pineapple. Your scent.

Absentmindedly, I had been keeping to the schedule, keeping the quirks alive. Keeping you alive.

The scent. Haunting and familiar. Framing your absence in tangibility. Fraught I feel, but a little less alone. The scent gives me something to hold onto.

The dusty old house, once homely, feels at times — as clichéd as it sounds — more like a prison. Or a mausoleum.

Not that I would have it any other way.

Fragments of you still hold their own in the tranquil stillness.

In the cold and the dark. A hope that you might return? In the cold and the dark, I hear Atlantic City’s refrain: everything dies, baby, that’s a fact — but maybe, just maybe, everything that dies someday comes back.

In the mirror, your absence distorts. My thoughts fracture, language breaks down—

"foren

sick

as I

isine

stare

stare

stare

at

the reflex

shone

staring

back at me

staring

naming

shaming

~~~

~~

~

I decline further comment

walk away

sure of the mock

king

sure of the shame

for a reflex

shone

(reflection shown)

~~

~

~~~

~

Tell me a see

see sea

cre(s)t

the s~ea keeps

score

a re

cord

rope

hold

~~~

~~

~

~~~

Something struck me

when writing

about something else

that shame chokes

the mirror reflects

the shame I feel

I need to

knee to chest

confront it

comfort it

release it

~seaforth~

and be free

'til

~~~

~

~~

~

~~~

next tide(time)"

A hope burns — ember / ash / ember — flame flicker, but the reality insists: you’re not coming back. Never. The Chanel fades too, ember by ember.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: So, another entry for the The Shape of the Thing Challenge. I went with a different tone to my previous entry involving grief. I've included a link to Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen from his masterpiece, Nebraska, because it's referenced. Yes, yet another instance where the Boss, his music and his lyricism has bled into my writing.

In addition to the above, in reference to the word 'palimpsest', in time it has come to mean, for many people, something with many layers of meaning, with remnants of the past still visible beneath the present.

So the story, could be read like a palimpsest of grief - where the present-day mundane details are on the surface, but dig a little underneath and there is the ghostly traces of memory, guilt, loss and, of course, love, that still bleed through.

Here are my other two entries for the same challenge:

Even in Dreams

Parlay and Desecration