The Unclosed Window

I have grown accustomed to walking quickly.

The slower one walks, the more the world begins to speak, 

And I have heard enough of what the world has to say.

So I hurry through mornings, through familiar streets

Through afternoons that have forgotten my name

Better than I have forgotten yours.

Or so I believe.

One summer noon

A tree stood by the roadside,

Laden with fine-grained summer fruits.

Their fragrance was strong enough

To leave the branches and travel after strangers.

It found me.

I lowered my eyes, lengthened my stride,

And pretended it was only another scent 

wandering through another day.

Some fragrances, however, know precisely whose absence they carry.

So I ran.

Not towards anything.

Away.

The road curved beside the old pond.

Men stood in the afternoon water,

Their shoulders bare

Their laughter breaking against the ripples.

I disliked walking there.

How convenient, I thought,

if my feet were wheels —

if I could become a passing motorcycle,

cross the place in a heartbeat,

before the road remembered what I refused to.

The pond watched me pass.

Water has always known how to keep secrets.

Work welcomed me with its dependable silence.

Answer scripts, blank margins, a faithful pen

Emptying itself into blue confessions.

I buried my hours beneath handwriting,

Hoping enough sentences might finally

Compose a life that had misplaced yours.

Then someone called a name.

An ordinary name.

Common enough to belong to half the neighbourhood.

My head lifted before permission arrived.

One face.

Another.

Then another.

Five men answered.

I searched for the sixth.

Only afterwards did I remember

I had not been searching at all.

The phone flickered.

A small square of light upon the desk.

For one impossible heartbeat

My own heart forgot its discipline.

No message.

No familiar words.

No impossible return.

I smiled at my own foolishness.

I had expected nothing.

Expectation, it seems,

Has a habit of arriving before truth does.

Evening gathered people into little circles.

They spoke.

They laughed.

They traded stories that were perfectly true.

I tried to join them.

Their honesty had no rough edges.

Nothing to tease.

Nothing to question.

Nothing to answer with an exaggerated nod

And a laughter that belonged to two conspirators.

Truth is a noble thing.

Everyone says so.

Then why does it feel so quiet?

No.

I do not miss beautiful lies.

I miss nothing.

Perhaps,

I thought,

the trouble is not memory.

Perhaps I have been searching too low.

Beyond truth, beyond lies, beyond voices,

There must exist a silence that belongs only to me.

So I folded my legs, opened my hands, closed my eyes,

And began to follow my breathing towards a place where no name could enter.

The room settled.

Even my thoughts grew tired enough to sit beside me.

Then —

The window behind me slammed open beneath an impatient gust.

The sound struck my shoulders before it reached my ears.

I startled.

My eyes flew open.

For the briefest instant,

I almost turned as though someone had come behind me, 

Laughing, ready to startle me by calling my name.

There was only the wind.

Only the window.

Only an evening pretending to be ordinary.

I steadied my breathing,

Closed the window,

And quietly resumed the ancient practice

Of convincing myself

That I do not remember you.