"One Hundred Twenty Eight Shades of Memory"

(composed 1999 November 18 through 2000 January 18)

He pauses and, sipping softly, steals a glance at her. Lying unself-consciously across from him on the thin carpet, oblivious to his attention, she works on, sweeping out color with the short deft strokes that will later distinguish her as an architect. Wary, shy, he looks quickly from her to the paper spread out before and beneath her, sure that he is seen though no one is watching. The figures are drawn broadly, meant for a child’s hand, but the colors are exquisite, drawn by a master. Until this moment he had lived his life entirely unaware of the beauty implicit in a box of Crayolas, or in the hand that holds them.


He loves her, but she does not know this. Her ignorance is entirely forgivable, since he didn’t know it himself until an instant ago. Until the crayons came out and the walls came down, when she threw herself wholeheartedly into this childlike activity wholly inappropriate for college seniors. When she gently mocked him and herself and the oddities of the world. When she laughed, deviltry sparkling in her angel eyes. When her guards fell, just for that instant, and he saw behind her tough exterior, her shell of ribald indifference and too-causal aloofness into a weary soul clinging from sheer stubbornness to the idea that the world should be a better, brighter, gentler place than it has been so far. She is coming apart while coming of age, and he knows, in that instant, that he wants nothing more than to be the one who holds her together or who falls with her when the night comes.


She does not love him, but he does not know this. His ignorance is forgivable, since she does not know it herself. She will not know it for some time. Their lives will move about a common center but never quite touch. They will dance a slow orbit around each other. She will stumble, more than once, and he will catch her, more than once, but somehow, even as he steadies her stride and she grounds his existence, no sparks will fly, no electricity will transform them. They will share nothing deeper than a box of crayons and a moment of peace stolen from busy lives.

Voices In the Wilderness

A Web-based Literary Journal (Voices Home) (ubidubium.net)