Pillow Distance

 

 

 

 

 

It never waned.

True, there were evenings that it was a lead weight.  It was a blackened scrap of paper hissing in a rain after being caught by flame.  A remainder.  A left-behind.

It was a pilot-flame in a darkened garage…if you knelt down in the darkness you could see its blue tiny fire….remaining.  It was persistent. 

He tried to tell her that…sat awkwardly on the porch with the bent nails and wood splintering off into him if you rubbed against the grain.

I’m not so sure why I think of you like a season…like a fifth season…definitely not winter.  Pretty close to a fall…maybe an end of summer.

She stayed in her side of the place, a glass of bourbon melting ice into liquid in her hand.

That’s called an Indian Summer then…when you have a nice day in the usually cool fall.

He glanced at her a bit.  You’re more than a day…it’s like recurring.  Not random. 

Well there are only four recognized seasons so I think you’re out of luck.

At times he chafed at her distance…he knew

(thought he knew)

How she felt…she had even told him for fuck’s sake…

But the actions were imprisoned.  She held storms inside of her that rivaled those on Mars, great tempests seen from space…but from her slight distance he couldn’t see a hint of them.  She wore a placid face…that rarely fell.

Did you know Phobos is failing?

He asked the question completely out of the blue so he could re-boot her line of thinking…the negative angles of his seasonal discussion.  He was frustrated, but couldn’t just say that.  She was too much in a struggle and she wasn’t offering up much.  In these moments she could be almost unkind…it was in the pillow-distance moments that she revealed. 

There were no pillows on the porch.  He had already checked.

What?

Phobos.  The moon of mars, well at least the largest and innermost one.

She didn’t say anything…he lifted himself up off the step and took the two down to stand on the lawn.  He looked up but saw nothing…some light fog had peeled in as it did this time of year.  No sound of the ferries…they had stopped their runs hours ago.

He may have been on another planet…in another season.

So yeah, he began…gravity is slowing pulling it apart…this object that for years has been circling Mars, drawn by its pull, constant in its returning, constant in its distance….if you were standing on the surface you could see it rise and fall each day.

He walked a bit further out on the lawn but the sky remained blank…unblinking.  He saw her shape on the porch.  It remained blank…he couldn’t see if she was blinking or not.

Anyways, the way Phobos is made up with materials is that an interior like this can distort easily because it has very little strength and forces the outer layer to readjust.  Researchers think the outer layer of Phobos behaves elastically and builds stress, but it’s weak enough that these stresses can cause it to fail.

Why are you telling me this?

He started walking back towards her.  As he got closer the porch lighting draped itself around her, softening her shape.  But he could sense the burn of the stare and he suddenly knew how Phobos felt.

His steps brought him back into her orbit.  He could feel her pull against him, the usual sensation whenever he happened to drift into her atmosphere.  The familiar.  The tug of energy.  If he were to turn and walk away he would feel it on his back for awhile before fading. 

He hated that fade.

I guess I’m telling you that sometimes I need something beyond orbiting you.  Something beyond a distance.

I know…it came out as a whisper.  I’m sorry.

I don’t want sorry.  I just want maybe tiny things.  Whatever you can give…but maybe…just more frequent?

In the yellow light of the porch her head shook slightly…once again the storms she kept away from him were in full strength…but even in this close distance he couldn’t see them clearly.  He just knew they were there.

I can try…but you know it is hard.

I know…but something bottled up eventually dies.  It eventually grows stale.  And that frightens me.

She looked up at him when he said that.  How much time does Phobos have before it fails?

He smiled.  Well, they think 30-50 million years.

She reached out to him and pulled her down to him, holding his head and kissing him.

I’ve still got some time then she said.