So Far Untitled

Sound waves bounce and wiggle. A certain pitch, a certain frequency, a certain ratio of noises, and she can’t hear properly what is being said. She smiles and nods and hopes it is the right thing. Blank looks every now and then, and conversation stuttering to a close, tell her she has missed the point.

But the music is everything, with its depth and its range, and so what if this is the thing that has brought her to this point? What is making conversation, in comparison with hearing notes on a page, or inside someone’s mind, make the leap to reality?

If she thinks of the things that might have been said, the things she might have missed, she could go mad with not knowing which opportunities have been lost. If she thinks like that, it’s only one step to thinking about all the conversations she’s never had, all the memories she won’t ever gather or remember, all the paths she’ll never walk down.

She walks down a path now, the same path she walks down every day, from the front of her house to the street. There are moments in her life, she knows, when it is convenient to not hear, or to mishear, or to otherwise twist the truth of the sounds falling against her eardrum.

The sky is high today, and there are smells in the air saying spring is on its way. There are buds of vibrant vivid green on the trees and on some bushes, and the grass on her lawn is beginning to look like it might need a haircut.

Halfway along the street, she remembers. But she carries on walking.

Halfway across the city, he remembers too.

Is this a love story? She no longer knows. She no longer believes in love, or the emotions that masquerade as love. This feeling she has is so far untitled, and most definitely unrequited. There is nothing between them but smoke and mirrors, suppositions and game play. A lot is at stake, and at the same time nothing. A shabby pretence at hoping.

She has the feeling that she needs to leave. The feeling that a moment has ended and it is time to move on. But she does not want that moment to end, and she does not want to move on. She wants, more than anything she has ever wanted, more than career, and security, and stability, and control, the feeling that she is pinned.

The tears fall uncalled as she walks along the street. She keeps her head bowed. That way, should she encounter anyone walking in the opposite direction, her tears won’t be so apparent. She is ashamed of them. Ashamed of the weakness they represent. She is the strong one, the resilient one, the one who has carved out a life for herself without recourse to the strength of others, without the need for anyone’s support but her own steely will.

And that, she knows, is bollocks of the highest order.

Her gut is hollow from the lack of food and the excess of alcohol. Her skin is waxen from the lack of sleep and nutrition. She stops the tears and wipes away the remains of lacrymosity that stain her face.

Lacrymosity. There’s a word. She mocks her own thoughts as she walks and tries not to think the other thoughts that are playing on her mind.

So many clichés today in her head. So much emptiness.

Halfway across the city, she knows he is not thinking of her.

Halfway to the station, she is thinking about last night. That space filled with noise, and chatter, and music, and all her ears can really hear is the music. Everything else is lost, especially if it’s at the wrong pitch. Too low, too soft, too abstract. She can’t hear anything these days, not if there is something bigger demanding to be heard from a PA system that she sits or stands too close to. You’re not alive, though, unless the bass threatens to replace your heartbeat and send you crashing.

She knows that there were moments last night when she appeared bored, or rude, or vaguely stupid. But there are only so many times you can say “Excuse me?”, and usually it’s not even worth trying. It’s better just to avoid conversation.

So she nodded and smiled, and she knows that it wasn’t the right thing. But last night there was never going to be a right thing.

Her thoughts today are not right. They are not straight. She is thrown, off balance, off trajectory. There’s a richness to this feeling that she loves, and yet she knows it is not right. To feel so alive, and yet to feel nothing.

There is so much about this that is not right.

The paths and conversations that she did not cross, did not have. The times in the past that their paths must have crossed, and the conversations, what of them? When you are in the same room as another person, someone you do not yet know you will know, how can you imagine that there are conversations that you are not having?

She ties herself up in knots. All these thoughts about nothing that will never exist. She sighs, and realises that sleep would be a good thing.

She reaches the station. She isn’t sure how, but she is there, and there are people waiting for the train. She stands close to the edge of the platform, and wonders whether, if she were to fall onto the tracks, people would be angry, or shocked, or just confused by her action.

She would never know, in all likelihood, and the thought of that oblivion makes her smile.

She hears the muffled voice through the tannoy make an announcement. Indistinct because of the poor quality of the equipment, not because of any damage she has done to her eardrums. Still, she guesses that a train will be arriving soon. There’s a whistle-hum in the rails that tells her that another, faster train is coming. One that will not stop.

Ultimately, she did not know that the people on the platform were both angry and shocked, and that some were even confused by her action. She did not know, because she did not hear them. She had already left.

© J R Hargreaves 2006