LOST

I haven’t participated in the Sunday Scribblings writing prompt before but I really liked the prompt this week so thought I’d give it a go.

The prompt this week is LOST –

{This story is dedicated to my friend, Gina, who after 20 years of marriage is getting divorced. She goes walking at night to keep anxiety at bay…..}

I was thinking as I walked the dirty city streets I have walked a thousand times before, looking for lights in windows, people walking arm in arm; listening for the sound of a gentle voice, that this is how I pray. Looking for signs, beacons outside myself to lower the fever in my head. Looking for God in the buildings that loom like nightmares, dark enough to be covered in moss; so dark I am frightened to touch them in case my hand sticks.

I am praying in the moon’s light. I am aching in the moon’s light. I am crying in the moon’s light.

I never really loved you, he said. Words with such power. The only thing that comes after them is silence. Then a grief that rips like talons.

I didn’t see it coming, this treachery disguised as disinterest. I really must live in the fantasy world he has accused me of inhabiting because I thought things were fine between us.

A. OK, that’s what Joey at work says. Everything is A. OK.

Drives me crazy with its hint of  1950s small town vernacular, but in this case I thought that was the state of things – A.OK.

There is a light rain, feathery. Oil stains on the road refract with the streetlights to form quasars, the colours spin and split into pieces that bounce like celestial rubber balls on the footpath. Pieces of light. Pieces of me.

I pass a church, just like in California Dreaming, except all the leaves aren’t brown, it is the middle of summer – they are green as slices of lime fresh from the fridge. I try to enter but the doors are locked – great medieval bolted wooden doors like the entrance to a Keep.

Church closed till further notice, says a sign. The faithful have fled the streets full of nothing but hard edges, looking for love.

I don’t know where I am. This city I call home is crowding in on me. Falling in. It is atonal, sharp. How can I not know where I am? I have to stop and find my way but the thought of stopping is unbearable. I can’t be saved from the pain if I stop.

How can you hold someone in your arms for twenty years and then tell them you never really loved them? How can you diminish all that time to less than a second, brushing it off yourself the way a bug is flicked from a shirt?

I have no visible scars at forty years of age. I have not yet broken a bone. But in my mind, I am falling, twisting and tumbling down a flight of stairs with such force, such momentum, my flesh and bones are pulped and powdered, spread on the ground like a condiment only ghouls would eat.

How far do we fall when we fall? How long does it take?

So many questions fill my head, irrelevant, random. I can’t think about what no love means. Change two letters and love becomes life. I can’t think about what no life means. I still have lots of questions.

Does antimatter fall up or down? Will machines reinvent themselves and take over the world? Does free will make sense? Is there nothing to fear but fear itself? Is the pen really mightier than the sword? For God’s sake, who shot JFK?

Stupid, stupid questions. I am rambling. I am mad. I am bereft.

A door swings open. A man looks at me. A little boy holds a teddy bear. They have books spread all over the floor, bright pictures. They let a cat out. It runs, jumping over shadows, tail held high.

Traffic slices through the liquorice dark. A conveyor belt monster with sulphurous eyes. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it does it fail to make a sound? If I stop walking will I cease to exist?

Smoked glass air falls on my upper lip. I look for the cat but he is gone. There is nothing in the street but unfamiliar forms of dust. And me. Just me. I am lost. I am alone.

A sky like Monet’s grey and black period leans. I have seen how they do it, the artists. Thick, dark horsehair brushes, daubed and swivelled. Daub upon daub upon daub until there is nothing but paint. No spaces. The canvas cannot breathe with all that paint. The city cannot breathe with all that sky. I cannot breathe unless I continue to walk. So I do. Until morning. Until the moon’s light is an afterimage. Until the sun slips pale and golden into the sky, like silk.