sikuaq

sikuaq:  from the Inuit meaning "small ice", referring to the the first layer of thin ice that forms on puddles.


I feel like when I talk to you that it's like yesterday when we last spoke...like we can pick up a conversation even if we haven't spoken in weeks...she started...

or months he added

or months she slightly murmured, her voice trailing as she pulled the glass to her lips, the ice and the bourbon making a slight disturbance against the crystal.

The evening was in the first full days after Daylight Savings kicked in, adding its brief jet-lag feel to each day, but allowing for the sky to grow lighter despite it growing later.

Well anyways...I do enjoy just the lightness of our conversations...they're easy to have.

He walked away from the edge of the pick up, he had turned it around on the hill so the bed was towards the west...he pulled the latch down and the drinks were poured on the tailgate.  A bottle of Woodford and a bag of 7-11 ice...a small bag.  But he had brought two heavy crystal glasses, mottled almost a clear but slightly blue.  She had asked for more ice than bourbon.  He had a small cube that was losing its battle against the liquor.

I think it's because we are just staying on the polite skim he said.  He was away from her, so he had to turn his head to throw his comment.  She was leaning against the truck.  Behind her was darkening...but she still was a bit of a glow.

Polite skin?  What is that?

Not skin...skim.  A thin sheet of ice.  

Ice?

Ice.  The build up of ice between us.

He finished his current drink...drinks are either current, past or future.  His was gone now so he ambled back towards her...he put a few cubes out of the plastic bag into his glass and poured enough to cover all of them.

What ice between us?  It was like hearing her whisper.  It was a question, for sure.  But she knew the answer.  She had been a part in its creation.

He looked at her, over the rim of his glass.  He walked closer to her and gently clanked his crystal against hers.  The reason the conversations are so easy is because we are not discussing the hard.

She looked at him, then down.

Why do they have to be hard...she said it in the declarative...not a question, a statement.

They don't have to be...actually they could be fairly opposite.  But...well...he walked around, his arm extended as his glass waved across the horizon...perhaps the ice that has grown between us isn't quite thick enough to shield it from breaking easily.

She took her own glass and finished it.  She set it down on the tailgate where it made a slight tinkle with the ice still inside.

I am not a fan of those things, those comparisons.  

You never were.

I don't like the ice reference.

You never should.

So what should I do?

He walked back over towards her...setting his glass down he put a few cubes in her glass and held up the bottle with a "should I" look as he held it over hers.  She nodded slightly.  He poured a small amount...more ice, less bourbon.

Behind her the west was quieting...the tiniest hints of daylight were being slowly packed into a growing big box of blacks and grays.  Her hair, freshly cut into a new slight style was skirting around her.  But her eyes...his most favorite,..were smoldering.  She, unlike the Inuits and their million words weren't even comparable as she could say an infinite amount of things to him with just a brief glance.

He just rarely saw it anymore.  And it was a slight pierce when it alighted on him.

Forget what I said he started.

About?

About the ice.  It's not real.

Yes.  You said it.

True.  I cannot take it back.  But he held the glass up.  There was a ton of ice in here and it's gone.  

So I'm now a liquor?

He regarded her for a second.  He took a sip and swallowed and closed the slight distance between them.  He pushed onto her slightly and put his lips on her mouth.  He lingered for just a moment, just barely until he felt her relax and draw hers together and kissed him back.

No he said.  But I will always find you intoxicating.  And you can erase every bit of time, every skim of snow and ice with just allowing me to be able to do that so I can never let such things get into the way again.

I cannot help it.  

I know.  You'll just have to let me find you when the cold sets in.

It was almost shadow dark at that point, and he pulled her towards him, a move she remembered and gathered into him, her one arm around him, both of his around her waist.  He whispered about loving her new hair cut, about dreaming of her in evenings and she smiled slightly as she watched the moon come up behind them and she wondered if there was a time when the daylight literally stood still.  She wondered as it collapsed around them.