Sunday, August 21, 2011

Walking With J.

Hey Chris, if you're reading this, I lost your email. This is the one that says everything I want to say...

I am walking along a stretch of sand. By squinting into the bright sun-light, I can see that it extends as far as the eye can see, both before me and behind me in a pristine beach fronting a tremendous expanse of water. At the present, this is all I know, all I want to know, save for the cherished companion by my side.

I feel a realisation growing within me. It is something that has been ripening for some time and I can tell that she senses it too.

Jodie," I begin. She looks at me, open, saying nothing.

"What if we just leave our packs here, and go," I continue, forming the thought. "What if we just start walking and keep on walking? And go! Away, far away!"

She nods. We drop our packs. Until now I had not realised how heavy it was. Our clothes fall from us like used skins and we start to run, laughing. Her body is lithe and muscular from sport, but her skin is tender and pale. I look at my own soft, white skin, like a mole or a termite, hidden for too long from the light. Dark, black hairs stand out grotesquely from its surface.

But soon we stop, grabbing each other's hands, suddenly paralysed. I look back at our packs, carcasses upon the beach.

"I'm scared," says Jodie.

"But are you happy?"

"I've never been more excited!" she cries.

"Isn't this what you've always wanted? That's why you took off with that f iref ighter, the one you hopped the train with. But he left you didn't he?"

I long to just go, to run, to be free with this unimaginably beautiful woman. Past the city dwellers and their vulgar gossip, past the farmers and their brutal subjugation of animals, past the tourists, looking at everything with eyes that never see.

There is a trail that leads from the beach, up and up. We cannot ascend it fast enough. We pass hikers and backpackers, laughing, running, but they do not see us, for we have already passed beyond them, into the trees, into the wind...

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