They were walking through an unknown yesterday, and a visionless tomorrow.
Distance, as often as not, was presented as a constant. Traversing the limitless boundaries of will and resistance, the space belonged solely to them and spanned only their understanding. A routine: a glance, raking through the familiar shapes of long hours of casual, coincidental, mutual deliberation. And then the turn away, difficult to initiate, hardest to take.
She tapped her fingers on the table surface in a rotational circular pattern which only he happened to notice, and made him glad to know she was withholding, and yet divulging this most intimate gesture that spoke beyond words.
“What are you doing now?” Like time, the question was frozen in their space.
He considered the question and its implications and answered, staring to some point beyond her.
“Waiting,” A bland reply, as though the answer was not apparent enough. Yet the answer was the truth, he had been waiting, and for her alone. To live each day was the completion of one more day towards their meetings, to live each day was to inch closer to the savouring of just one moment where their space mattered more than anything else in the world.
He was surprised to find that all along, both the knowledge of her presence at any given moment and waiting was a form of security. After all, waiting had become something to look forward to. An airplane in the deep forest was waiting too, wondering for its passengers and its destination.
The memories, they will eventually become stale and wholly not alive. Better still to wait, and to live in the waiting.