Bloom

It had been dark out since I woke up. The weatherman had promised me a sunset at five thirty-three, but it’s four o’clock now and there’s no sun to set. Just grey clouds rolling across the sky spraying freezing rain down. Wet leaves are being blown about by a wind so strong it turns umbrellas inside out, like flowers magically blooming.
I spun back to the counter and to my wheat toast. I had been looking out of the diner’s window for too long and the toast had grown cold and the butter turned it into a sopping mess. It goes to mush in my mouth and oils my lips. The waitress rushes by me in a flash of yellow dress and I bothered her for a glass of orange juice and another cup of coffee.
The diner is quiet; I suppose its because lunch is over and it is not quite dinner. The waitress, whose nametag reads Enid, sets a glowing tube of juice, a mug of coffee and two creams down in front of my elbows. I ignore the creams and stir in a few spoonfuls of sugar from a turquoise bowl. Several identical sugar bowls line the diner’s long counter. The one by me has brown lumps of congealed sugar from other patron’s coffee spoons, but I don’t mind. A black man with an orange vest walks in. He sits at the counter and I can see his hands. The pink of his palms are stained violet because of the newspapers he’s been selling and the rain that has been dripping. He speaks to the waitress and his voice is deep and smooth, like a car salesman’s. That make sense, I suppose, because he is a newspaper salesman.
The orange juice is done; I drank it in a few acidic gulps, but I’m in no rush. For now, my time is endless. The man looks over at me.
“Talk to me, love. Awful weather we’ve been having, huh?” he asks me, smiling.
“Oh, yes. I keep waiting for it to end, but it never seems to,” I answered and tried to smile back.
He laughed, heartily, “Ain’t that the truth.” He went back to talking to Enid once the food arrived. A gust of air hit my back as the door opened. A young mother dropped her little boy into a booth I could see in my peripheral vision. She looked tired and her eyes sunk down in a small nest of thin lines. She reached out a hand and ruffed her son’s golden hair. They both laughed and a different waitress came by for their orders.
“I wanna frappe, mommy.”
“I said you can have chocolate milk and grilled cheese and that’s it. If you are good maybe we can get ice cream tomorrow.” The little boy whined but his mother ordered for him and asked for grapefruit juice for herself. My mother used to bring me places, too. I don’t remember where we would go, maybe to the zoo to see the monkeys. Yes, that’s how she advertised it: ‘Let’s go to see the monkeys.’ But my favorite was always the seals. There was no way she could have known that.
Suddenly I felt very strange. The florescent light has started to hurt my eyes and my shoulders ache. I bring some crumpled bills from my pocket and set it next to my plate of uneaten toast. The door closes behind me with a twinkle of bells. I looked back into the diner and see the waitress and the man laughing together. I pause for a moment longer and learned that if I focus my eyes I can see my own reflection. A pale girl with grey eyes, hair matted with the city rain, standing slouched in white rain boots and a red woolen coat. My image is streaked with rain and dotted with droplets, and for some reason I can’t recognize myself the way I used to. The neon light of the diner’s sign shimmers pink on my skin and I have no memories of anything at all. Everything is quiet and blank. I pull up my hood and begin to walk up the street, grasping at memories.
People in raincoats with umbrellas blur together in the wind and I blur with them; colors melting into the rain and traveling in the wind. I would have panicked, but I wasn’t sure how. All I can do is walk and wait. After I pass some people and buildings, I remember his voice. It was a different sound than the man in the diners. Not as deep, not as strong. I remember his whisper, his scratchy throat because he was always getting sick, and then getting me sick too. I remember now. We spent days at the beach in the cold of winter, dipped our feet in, froze and got sick. So sick there were times I didn’t think we would last the night. But we always would, and the sun would rise and warm our faces and feet, so warm it would even give us freckles.
I think of his voice until I near the park, and then the memory of his lips, nose and eyes seep into my mind. It is bitter cold, early December and the trees have lost their leaves to the ground.
And of our midnight picnics once upon a time before the rain began…They were not really picnics but nights after being at the cinemas, or a friend’s house or a friend’s party and we’d be hungry. So we would go to a place we knew would be open all night and get food that stained the brown bags we carried it in. We could resist eating until we reached the park, usually, but when we got there we would sit under the willows and eat with our fingers. The night air was warm and sweet and the grass grew lush and tall. I remember talking with him, we always had things to say, but I cannot remember what was said. Beautiful things, I think, things spoken in whispers.
Summer is over and the rain has come. The park is all but deserted, and I don’t feel anonymous anymore, but I feel very alone. I am alone, after all. I am numb from the cold but I can feel everything.
Could that be- no it can’t. But is it? He is just over there, behind the tree on the edge of the lagoon! Stay a moment, let me see you! Let me hear your voice, let it fill me up because that is what I remember the most and I miss it so. Let it fill me and I will never feel lonely again. I move forward and he is gone. Disappeared into thin air- like a memory.

*Fall 2007