Skywriting

He had a small laugh, at his own expense, when he conjured up a brief cobweb memory of one of his favorite ideas of communicating to her. 

I have an idea he said, laying there beside her on a blanket beneath an afternoon. The sky was a blue dome with no end or horizon, especially when laying down and looking straight up. Not a single cloud blemished it. It was a color you could almost taste, the blue of an ice-pop at the height and heat of summer. 

Oh yeah? she had said, turning her head slightly towards him. For what?

For telling you something. 

A pause. Well. Uhm why don't you just tell me instead? she had asked. 

The idea?  Or the thought?

Oh. Uhm. The idea? 

He felt the wind blow slightly, the trees of Texas fluttering just a bit. Just enough to advise a breeze. 

He wondered if the words he might write would get caught in the upper air drafts. He wondered if they would smear across a perfect sky before blurring into dissonance and before she could comprehend. 

I would like to write you something in the sky. 

A slight pause. The sky?  Like what, a hello or my name?

God no. Something better. Not better than your name, but you know. Something better. 

There's not a lot of better things than my name she had countered. He turned to look at her. 

They have this new technique, like a dot matrix printer. Four or five planes fly straight releasing smoke at intervals. The words hang around before getting all caught up in the winds. It's really quite cool. 

I still like my name up there. 

You see your name all the time. I'd rather give you something special. Something a bit more unique. 

Well what would you write me?  

He was quiet for a time. And then probably just a word. 

A word?  One word?  How is that a message or a sentence?

It would be a description. It would be as unique as you. Or maybe representative of you. At least to me. 

She seemed to buy into that. It was quiet, the quiet times when he knew she was thinking of a response and doing all of her safety checks to make sure whatever she shared was what she approved for sharing. 

Do you have some ideas? She asked. 

Oh. Of course. I know the perfect word. 

Again the slight brief moments of quiet. Of wind. Of blue spaces. 

Would you tell me?  She had moved over a little bit closer. He could sense her beside him, almost feel her breath. He closed his eyes and let the afternoon envelope him and he could feel the slight weight of her against the grass and the slight angle of the sun halfway through its descent. He wondered how it would look against the sky, the white contrast to the expanse and the long crazy letters written so high up. Would she notice?  Would she care?  Would she respond?  Would she just let the clouds dissipate after an understanding?  

He didn't know. He didn't care. 

illecebrous.