I wake up early in the morning, though we went to bed late. I got used to waking up really early, so it's not often that I find myself sleeping in. But she was tired, and she sleeps soundly. I sit by the side of the bed, and watch her sleep. She twitches here and there, and I run my fingers through her long, soft hair. It's good that she's sleeping, I have something to do. I get dressed, and go out to the shed. There's something there I need. I open the door to the shed, and pick up a few boxes, then go back inside the kitchen. I put the boxes on top of the table, and open them. Though I know full well what's inside, I still check the boxes. This puts a smile on my face, but damn, does it make me nervous as well. I put the kettle on, and light the stove. We're going to need a good amount of coffee to face the talks that lie ahead. While I wait for the water to heat, I go back to my room where she sleeps. I look at her - I cannot escape her. Never. I was a fool to ever think I could. You can't escape love, and this is so much more than that : it is what the most pious would call Latria, a form of devotional love so sacred it is reserved for god alone. But here she is, and is she not my god, my goddess? My hands caress her back softly. I feel the words coming out of my mouth, I say them quietly, words I've known for so so long and that only ever made any sense in relation to her : 'I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you.' Geraldine was already awake, her big eyes looking at me, even before I finished my words. 'Morning', she says, stifling a yawn. 'Was that Keats? And is that fresh coffee I smell?' I nod, and tell her to meet me in the kitchen after she takes a shower. I hand her a couple of towels, and she asks me if I want to join her. 'Yes. But... no. We have to talk, ok? I'm going to fix us something to eat, then we can start figuring things out.' She leaps from the bed and hugs me tight, naked but for my t-shirt she slept in. I hold her just as tight. Her smell envelops me. 'Come on', I say, after a few moments. We get up and walk out the room hand in hand. 'Off you go', I say, pointing at the bathroom door, 'and off I go', pointing at the kitchen. We kiss and she says she'll miss me. Jesus, I miss you already, and you're still here.
She does take her time in the shower, which is just as well - I've never ever been any good at cooking, and even the most basic stuff I struggle with. It never bothered me, personally, but... Anyway, as I'm busy prepping and cooking, I hear her coming out of the shower. She starts to sing a song, softly at first, then she allows her voice to become louder and airier, and the house is filled with song. I know that song, I know that song. She's coming up behind me, I hear her footsteps and her voice, her singing voice. She holds me by my waist from behind, and rests her head on my back while she sings. We sway slowly to the rhythm of her singing. When she's done, I turn to her and say, 'Salka', and she jumps towards me and kisses me. 'Salka', she says. I never, ever forgot that song. It's the soundtrack to my religion, my evensong on this hymnal of desire that is her. 'What's that you're cooking?', she says sitting on an old wooden stool beside me. She looks up at me, almost like a child. What am I cooking? Well, it just so happens it's green eggs and ham. Do you like green eggs and ham?, I ask, and she bursts out laughing. She says, 'I do not like them, Sam-I-Am. I do not like green eggs and ham.' I lean down and my head is now level with hers. It seems as if we're going to kiss, but I just boop her on the nose and say, 'Well, them's the breaks : you're going to eat the and you're going to enjoy them. Probably even ask for more. Or so I hope.' I turn back to the counter and fix us our plates. She grabs the coffee pot, and places it on the table. I motion to the cupboard, where she can find some mugs for us. This is good. This is... nice. In the best way possible. We both sit down at the table, she at an angle so we have to turn sideways a little to face each other. The easy part was done. Now come all the hard bits.
I take a bite from my green eggs and ham - it's a bit bland, could've used a bit more seasoning, but it's still pretty decent. She seems to like it as well. I take a good, long sip from the cup, and then say, 'You remember how bad it got? When every word was like thunder and every silence left a bruise? How we just couldn't make it work, no matter what we did?' She pauses at this, and rests her hands snug between her hands. She's not looking at me now, she's elsewhere. Then she seems to snap back to reality, and starts fussing with her hair - it's grown so, so long. She bunches a section of it into a long ponytail that runs down her back, and then separates two long tresses, one on either side. She starts braiding her hair, head bowed down, and then when she's done, she says, 'I remember. I remember everything. I... I never stopped thinking about it. And hey - chastising myself for it', says she, showing me her scarred arms. But I also thought a lot about the last time we were together. I didn't want to go. I didn't want you to go. But you deserved to be happy... so I left. And yet... there was still a chance. That day, there was still a shot. And I looked at you, and I wanted to hold you so bad, I wanted you to hold me so much. How I wished it was forever you would hold me. And... I let you walk away.' It's only then that she seems to notice the boxes that I'd laid on top of the table. She looks at them studiously, as if enraptured by their mere presence there. 'What are those?', she asked. And I reply, 'Well, it's... it's a surprise. Open them, and find out for yourself.' We'd both finished eating, and I lifted the plates from the table and took then to the counter. 'Start by... this one', I say, sliding a box over to her. 'I'm going to do the dishes.'
I hear her open the box, as I stand, my back to her, washing the dishes. She's rifling through the contents, uncertain at what she's looking at. 'Are these...?', she attempts to ask. I was done with the dishes, and so I sit back by her side. 'Every single day since we... since that last day. I wrote you a letter, and put it in an envelope.' She rifles through them all, and says, 'But they're all postmarked. Why didn't you send them to me?', and I say '...because you deserved to be happy.' She empties the first box onto the table, then checks the others. One has more letters and the others one has my journals and something else she'll maybe find interesting. As she looks at the letters, dozens and dozens and dozens of them, I tell her that they're not all postmarked. The first few hundred, sure. 'But I kept on writing them. Every day, just before my day finished, I sat here and wrote to you and told you about my day. Sometimes I imagined these scenarios where we were in a long distance relationship and this was us trying to make things work.' She clutches a bunch of letters in her hand, and asks, 'But why?', and I smiled. 'Because I didn't want to forget you. Ever.' Geraldine looks at me, with pleading eyes. 'Can I open them?', she says. 'Sure', I say, 'they were always meant to be read by you.'
She spends a long while reading the letters - not all of them, not yet, but some of them. She reads them silently, religiously. She uses a paring knife to cut open the envelope, and she does so deftly. One swift slice, and it's open. After she's done reading one, she puts it back on the envelope, and opens another one. She tries to fight back the tears, but sometimes I see her wiping them from her eyes. 'There's something written on the back of each and everyone of them. 'SWALK'? What does it mean?', she asks. I topped up both our mugs with some more coffee. 'It means it was sealed with a loving kiss', I say. 'And now I wonder.' I let the words hang in the air, allowing the silence to grow. 'I wonder', I repeat, 'if I've written my last letter to you or if I have a lifetime of letters still ahead of me.' And Geraldine placed the letter she was reading down on the table, and came over to me, and sat on my lap. And then she whispers in my ear, 'This is forever.'
It's a long day, there is much talking done. She remarks that I had maintained my taste in terms of décor, but how could she know why? I never told her that story. I do now. I tell her everything. '...so, you see', I say, 'I didn't want everything. I didn't want nothing, either. I wanted... something that felt right. That was my hope, that the day would come when all the pieces fell into place and everything would feel right. That one day it just wouldn't be the place where I lived in and slept in, but a home. I hoped... I hoped it was with you.' Geraldine says she's sorry, I say no, it's ok. It was a lifetime ago now. It was almost as if it had happened to two different people. It's about how we move forward now that matters. She reads some more letters, and when she's satisfied, she goes out to the front and sits on the sofa. I follow her, and as I sit by her side, she lies down on the sofa, and rests her head on my legs. I ask her if she wants to go to the town and grab a late lunch. She says yes. This is a perfect moment - her looking up at me, and me looking deep into her eyes. I want to be here for all time, where each breath lasts a thousand lifetimes - that is where I long to be.
Minutes later, and we're both inside my car, driving down the road that would take us down to the town some miles away. It's hot out today, but the AC keeps the car cool. My hand's on the gear stick, and hers on top of mine. We're coming out of the road that leads from my house, and into the main intersection. I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at her, one single second, and I don't know what hits us, but the car is flying above the road, everything has frozen in time, it crawls to a stand still, seconds that seem to last eternities. We both leave trails of tears that hang like raindrops in the air. Our eyes never leave each other. Dear god, dear god, dear god. To die by your side is such an heavenly way to die.
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