Inconspicuous

He punched in her numbers, knowing it was late, and a conversation fairly unlikely.  But the beauty of the process of dialing, of manipulating, of expending effort sometimes means that the connection is made.

Not always, but sometimes.

She answered with a voice full of sleep, cottony, and while he knew there were time zones he also knew that she had had a choice in answering and she had still chosen to answer.

What time is it?

I'm sorry...it's later where you are...I know you were asleep.

I had just fallen.  It's okay.

He wondered if she was up on one elbow, trying to see the time.  Or maybe she was flat in bed, eyes closed.

I just wanted to call you and tell you that I continue to find pieces of you...in the most inconspicuous of ways...

What?  She sounded a bit like she was still awakening...it was always a sound he wished he could discover in person, next to hear, clawing out of dreams and REM and the grasp of a night asleep...he always wondered if he could be there so that when her mind grasped the nuance of a morning that the normal pieces of the room were blocked by an outline of him.

I get pieces of you in the most innocent ways...reminders...or even actual parts...you know, like Harry Potter finding horcruxes--

What?  Are you quoting Harry Potter at...he heard rustling, knowing she wasn't on one elbow but was more likely on her back and now had to move and now she was annoyed.  at 1:30 in the morning?

Sometimes silence is a vacuum, sucking out the awkward.  He let her stay silent, wondering if she had returned to the flat of her back or was perhaps even now sitting up.

Listen. 

I'm listening.

So it's like a distance.  It's like if I put miles between you and I it is easy...it is erasure.  It is comfort, like somebody died----

Like somebody died?

Not like somebody close...like an ancestor, like somebody I had read about...like a history.  Like you're becoming a part of my history.

At 1:30 in the morning it feels like silence possesses weight...it's the tired, it's the exertion of an effort just to do the most menial...the most inconspicuous... 

Anyways, I found a hotel sewing kit...you know, just a plastic bag of a needle and thread, buttons and a safety pin.  It was like it could cause an easy repair.

Yeah? So?

He waited a few seconds.  You're not easily repairable.

She spoke after that...how is it like somebody dying then?

Well...it's not actually.  It's more like trying to save something that maybe has no chance...and perhaps the further away I get from it the chances diminish even further....but sometimes, occasionally, randomly and maybe even unwittingly I see something that reminds me that perhaps the wound is not fatal.  But perhaps repairable.

Repairable.  So...like a car?

He breathed out a laugh.  No...not a car...at least not on the outside.  Maybe on the inside.

The inside?

You know...the engine, the sparks, the fuel, the pulse...the parts of the car that make it alive.  I guess I could see a simile. But I guess a car isn't alive...this is something much more than metal.

In the early morning hours the brain has fallen mostly to critical bloodpaths...breathing, heartbeat, storage of energy for the next day.  It is not an ideal environment for debates, metaphors, similes...it needs the most innocent of tasks, perhaps the most inconspicuous.

So when does this happen? She asked.

Not always...just sometimes.

So you called to tell me you found a sewing kit?

No...I called to tell you that when I see a sewing kit, a tiny clutch of needle and thread I think of a wound that needs tending....or when I walk through the airport and see a mobile defibrillator I think of the shock of you to my system...or when I see a streetlight come on I imagine it's dark where you are but a thought of you casts light to me...or when I see a candle I think of you blowing it out and somewhere some part of me is extinguished....that's what I was calling you about.

Silence is awkward....not always, but sometimes...in the most inconspicuous of moments.