The Science of Interludes

So…how have you been?

The call had surprised him, at both the hour and the timing…he had just landed at yet another airport, way after midnight, and while he tried to do the math in his head he knew it was late where she was too.

I’m fine…fine.  Just landed in he looked around for a sign, not really remembering where he was and still recovering from the name he had seen appear suddenly on his phone. Detroit, he remembered.

I just landed in Detroit. 

He was walking past empty gates, the sound of a few vacuums muffling down the corridor, there was nobody there waiting and his flight had been relatively empty.  Silver metal gates were pulled taut against the storefronts and he was surprisingly hungry.

I just thought I would give you a quick call…to see how you are.  

He wanted to respond with something about her generosity, but something about the hour, something about the emptiness in the terminal made him reluctant to just jettison the connection.  

Yeah, okay.  I’m fine…I’ve always been fine.

Well then are you still mad at me? 

When was I mad at you?

Well you kind of left abruptly…that lack of a goodbye is kind of a sign.

He paused at the top of the escalators leading down to baggage claim, looking at his reflection in the darkened glass over the tarmac.  He saw himself, and in his façade he saw how she might be envisioning him currently.

You know he started, when I left I actually wasn’t mad.  I was…annoyed.

Annoyed? 

I was annoyed at the implications.  At least what you were implying to me…about me.

I wasn’t really implying…I thought I was just sort of stating the facts.

He looked at his watch, again remembering how late it was.  His hunger had faded and now it was just a low burn.  His head had ripened into a full-on bloom however.

Okay.  Fine, now I’m mad at you.  Happy?

I am not, actually.  I don’t want you to be mad at me.

Well then as somebody who apparently knows me better than myself, how would you like me to feel and just please do us both a favor so that I can be somewhat aware of what you want from me.

I don’t want you to be mad at me.

You said that already, but I asked a different question.

All I know right now is that I don’t want you to be mad.  That’s all I want.

He felt the hand holding the phone drop to his side, and he turned around, almost looking sympathetically for anybody to give him some sort of idea of what he should be doing at that one precise moment.

Look he started, you made it very clear to me that you were in a different place than I.

I’m in a different place then you now.  A lengthy pause.  That’s a joke.

If I’m in a different place then you, and I want you in the same place as me and I can’t get you there, then I am not sure of what emotion you’d prefer me to exhibit.

He wondered if she was lying down in bed, perhaps looking at her fingernail polish.  Perhaps she was looking out a window, her sharp features contrasting even more in a dark reflection. 

 

I think I’m not ready to admit some things she finally said.  It is much easier for me to be in a different place so that…

He closed his eyes and tried to remember a time when she had dropped her mask a little.  He remembered one time when he had driven her to breakfast, early in a morning when they had had a brief chance to meet, and he caught her looking at him intently.  It was just a quick glance and she had broken off the gaze but in that brief moment he felt like she was about to say something.  And she didn’t.  It felt awfully close to this moment in the airport…this interlude between all the non-verbal cues and instances and potentially, finally a truly spoken word.

So that?  He echoed.

He wondered if she was looking at something, or if she had closed her own eyes.  He wondered how she looked asleep.  He remembered how she scrunched up her lips and furrowed her brow when she was thinking hard.  He wondered if she was thinking hard now.  He wondered if her hands were cold, since they usually were, and if the warmth of the phone made her one hand warmer.  He wondered if she was still dressed from the day or was now dressed for bed and then he wondered what she wore to bed.  He wondered if she smelled clean from washing her make up off and now was stark and make-up free…and he wondered what she looked like with such freedom.  He wondered if she could feel the distance between them like cold rows of telephone poles, stretching out across the miles and seemingly never ending.  He wondered if the simplest answer was that she had once been bored and that he had caught her in a moment…and like the day cyclones that crop up intensely and spin up dust and quickly dissipate, he wondered if he had now fallen back to earth.  He wondered this in the few seconds while he waited for her to respond.

So that I don’t make any mistakes I might regret.

He thought about that for a second.

Can I ask you a question, then? He started.

Of course she replied.

Will you answer it?  Or will you avoid it?

That depends.

No…it can’t.  It cannot have any dependencies.  

He was looking out at the tarmac, past the blinking lights that brought the planes in safely.  He knew he was way beyond the chance to bring this conversation around safely and he was resigned to that.

When I see you he began or when I hear you, or when I get something from you in a text or email, it is like a Kirlian Effect…it is-

A what? She interrupted

Uhm, it’s a disturbance…it’s an impact on me that isn’t realized in your absence, but when you reach out to me…well, it glows.  Did you ever see those electrostatic crystal balls and when you put your hand on it the static is visible?

Oh, yeah…I have.

Kirlian effect. 

So I electrocute you? She laughed.

You know, I was trying to be serious. 

I’m sorry.

So, my point is any interaction with you causes this reaction in me.  It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t cause joy…it just changes…it changes the way I am at the current moment.

Ahh. 

So that it is my reaction to you.  And my wondering is…is that the same for you?

He had gotten to a pretty basic question, somewhat neutral and undefined…but perhaps she felt it was too much exposure and as he waited for her response he began understanding that most excitation happened because there was a positive and negative element…not two positives.  Simple magnetism, where the poles that are apart are the most attracted…not the two similar ones.  

I would have to say there is an effect. She had said it slowly, like a leak…a reluctant escape that snuck out and she formed the words carefully.  But amazingly she continued.   I don’t know if it’s all fancy-named…but yes.  I would have to admit that.  If that’s all I have to admit…right now.

It’s all you have to admit…right now.

There was just a bit of silence and the wave of tiredness once again rose upon him.

Then I am no longer mad at you he stated.

I’m glad. And then she said Goodnight .  And he didn’t want the interruption, he didn’t want to be pushed back into his world that was there before the call, he didn’t want to depart and it was simply because he didn’t know when he would hear from her or when he might see her again.  But he let her go.

Goodnight.