Friday, April 15, 2005
Still
He stirs in bed, and opens his eyes. Consciousness returns abruptly, like a particularly intrusive smell you just can't shut out.
"I don't remember my dreams; I think my subconsciousness shuts them out to protect me"
It's dark outside, and for just a moment he's disorientated. And then he remembers he's back in the tropics, and that yesterday he collapsed into bed with the sun still high overhead.
Another evening dead to the world.
There isn't anyone awake that he'd care to talk to online, and he doesn't feel inclined to do the mundane reach out and SMS someone thingie. So he just stares out the window for a while listening to the steady trickle of his brother's fish-tank filter, thinking about stories from other lifelines, and lifetimes.
*****
The dim lighting made her hair look more blonde than it normally seemed; she's had too much to drink, he thought as he looked into her dilated pupils. We all have.
The too-loud music pounded on the inside of his skull and something inside his head told him he ought to be leaving, but lethargy had set in already. So he stayed and listened to her speaking at him, and to himself speaking back at her.
She edged closer to him as they spoke and drank. He felt her forehead come to rest against his as he turned his eyes away and scanned the room. He felt her slightly warm, lightly alcoholic breath against his lips.
I think I'm supposed to kiss you, but I can't really be arsed...
Her words washed past his numbed ears and she smiled a little as she nattered on, and on.
He didn't have the heart to tell her that he was getting bored, so he stayed. It seemed the polite thing to do.
Sometime later he finally stood up to leave but a horde of student nurses he'd never met (or maybe never noticed) before grabbed him by the hand and manhandled him into dancing with one of the students he'd always rather fancied, the one he'd always dropped stuff around while performing procedures, just to see her put her hands to her hips and mock-petulently ask him if he was doing that on purpose.
*****
Music, again too loud, pounding rhythms, shuffling beats, soul-less lyrics.
He stands awkwardly by his colleague, wondering why on earth he allowed himself to be persuaded into coming along to this emergency-room "party".
People mill around him, talking and laughing to each other. Standing by the side of his much taller quasi-celebrity colleague (the reserve for London's Sexiest Doctor), he feels invisible.
His gaze encounters a pair of dark eyes; his casual glance becomes held for a little longer than it should, as that mini shock of almost-recognition sets in - We have something in common.
Brunette, petite (for this country), rather pretty, slightly detached. Searching. Standing, like himself, next to someone else who clearly dragged her along to this.
He steps forwards, as does she, and he feels rather than sees out the corner of his eye London's Almost Sexiest recoiling slightly in shock.
They strike up a conversation, and her friend joins in as well. His friend stands mutely by, almost disbelievingly as for the first time since they've known each other, he becomes part of the background. It's a stange feeling.
There's something about her ozzie drawl that he finds really appealing.
Yet at the end of the evening he doesn't give her his number, or even make a halfhearted attempt to ask for hers.
The searchers cast each other adrift.
*****
He doesn't know what he'd say to Her if he were to meet her again.
He probably wouldn't hold out his hand, or try to show her anything. He wouldn't wave from afar, or even half-raise his hand in greeting.
The first seconds when they met were never like that.
He'd probably just look into her eyes as that overwhelming sense of ? relief (? why relief?) flooded through him; they wouldn't move to embrace, or even touch each other as they approached.
She'd smile, and keep coming closer, her eyes holding his, and he'd be overcome with a sense of how tall she was; how much taller than he she felt - although in truth their eyes met on the level, to the centimeter. He'd feel himself smiling in return. They wouldn't say a word till she came to a stop just before him, and then they'd say hello.
Or maybe things would have changed, and it wouldn't happen like that at all.
It's been such a very, very long time.
"I don't remember my dreams; I think my subconsciousness shuts them out to protect me"
It's dark outside, and for just a moment he's disorientated. And then he remembers he's back in the tropics, and that yesterday he collapsed into bed with the sun still high overhead.
Another evening dead to the world.
There isn't anyone awake that he'd care to talk to online, and he doesn't feel inclined to do the mundane reach out and SMS someone thingie. So he just stares out the window for a while listening to the steady trickle of his brother's fish-tank filter, thinking about stories from other lifelines, and lifetimes.
*****
The dim lighting made her hair look more blonde than it normally seemed; she's had too much to drink, he thought as he looked into her dilated pupils. We all have.
The too-loud music pounded on the inside of his skull and something inside his head told him he ought to be leaving, but lethargy had set in already. So he stayed and listened to her speaking at him, and to himself speaking back at her.
She edged closer to him as they spoke and drank. He felt her forehead come to rest against his as he turned his eyes away and scanned the room. He felt her slightly warm, lightly alcoholic breath against his lips.
I think I'm supposed to kiss you, but I can't really be arsed...
Her words washed past his numbed ears and she smiled a little as she nattered on, and on.
He didn't have the heart to tell her that he was getting bored, so he stayed. It seemed the polite thing to do.
Sometime later he finally stood up to leave but a horde of student nurses he'd never met (or maybe never noticed) before grabbed him by the hand and manhandled him into dancing with one of the students he'd always rather fancied, the one he'd always dropped stuff around while performing procedures, just to see her put her hands to her hips and mock-petulently ask him if he was doing that on purpose.
*****
Music, again too loud, pounding rhythms, shuffling beats, soul-less lyrics.
He stands awkwardly by his colleague, wondering why on earth he allowed himself to be persuaded into coming along to this emergency-room "party".
People mill around him, talking and laughing to each other. Standing by the side of his much taller quasi-celebrity colleague (the reserve for London's Sexiest Doctor), he feels invisible.
His gaze encounters a pair of dark eyes; his casual glance becomes held for a little longer than it should, as that mini shock of almost-recognition sets in - We have something in common.
Brunette, petite (for this country), rather pretty, slightly detached. Searching. Standing, like himself, next to someone else who clearly dragged her along to this.
He steps forwards, as does she, and he feels rather than sees out the corner of his eye London's Almost Sexiest recoiling slightly in shock.
They strike up a conversation, and her friend joins in as well. His friend stands mutely by, almost disbelievingly as for the first time since they've known each other, he becomes part of the background. It's a stange feeling.
There's something about her ozzie drawl that he finds really appealing.
Yet at the end of the evening he doesn't give her his number, or even make a halfhearted attempt to ask for hers.
The searchers cast each other adrift.
*****
He doesn't know what he'd say to Her if he were to meet her again.
He probably wouldn't hold out his hand, or try to show her anything. He wouldn't wave from afar, or even half-raise his hand in greeting.
The first seconds when they met were never like that.
He'd probably just look into her eyes as that overwhelming sense of ? relief (? why relief?) flooded through him; they wouldn't move to embrace, or even touch each other as they approached.
She'd smile, and keep coming closer, her eyes holding his, and he'd be overcome with a sense of how tall she was; how much taller than he she felt - although in truth their eyes met on the level, to the centimeter. He'd feel himself smiling in return. They wouldn't say a word till she came to a stop just before him, and then they'd say hello.
Or maybe things would have changed, and it wouldn't happen like that at all.
It's been such a very, very long time.
