Waiting | Fiction

I’d tell you I had been waiting, but that wouldn’t exactly be the truth. You see, the day was getting darker. The pigeons were already finding their freedom in the dusk of day. The room I stood in was empty, devoid of any persons, except the lingering spirit of her complex flushed sweet sweat, something like the sweet smell of (name of flower: araonda?) flowers in the south, and the youthfulness of her beauty powder.

I played with the beaded coil in the immaculately clean night shade, turning it off and on until the very tips of my fingers bruised red and numb. I wondered what could have been on her mind when she signed that paper. Her sleek silhouette leaned over the desk gracefully. The silk of her floor length dress scratched against the wood. She bit the pen between her teeth and smiled as if there was something I should have known. Her eyes twinkled as if I was in on it too.

Moments earlier, I mean for years really, we reenacted our passion far after it had been a crime. We stumbled into the room, clothes gliding across our bodies, as we resowed our trust in each other over and over again. It was a mess. A mess I wasn’t particularly proud of, leaving me in bliss at first, and then miserable in longing. That would only bring a heated argument where she’d storm out, thinking I couldn’t hear her crying behind the door.

And now, I unburden my awe as the light shifts in colors across my face. In seeing my reflection across the room, I remember the rage that shattered the mirror; splitting me into a million pieces. Tears don’t come, but the hint of drool from my gently opened mouth does as I linger here, still in shock.

I consider strolling across the room with a blazee manor and ripping it all up. Ending the agreement, making null and void. But that’d make me a crazy man, and you see, I’m not crazy. So I wait, pulling at this string; the only sound in the office besides the occasional resetting of new broken glass.

A twitch appears somewhere on my solemn face. Was it my eye reminding me I’m still here? I consider how she floated out the room not even taking a moment to glance back at me leaving me heartbroken.

She shared a story with me once. It was about a spider. It could see so much because of its many eyes. Her father warned her to be careful of the pestering smile, as it may be an illusion. How one day it was caught by a young child and held under a glass cup where it was carefully observed. The young child with mesmerized by the spiders' many eyes. So much so, it released it, and unknowingly allowed it to climb up their shoulder, around the back of their neck, and onto the top of their head. As it got comfy, spreading out its legs like a fan, the spider had a new set of eyes.

I’ve come back to that story. To the real purpose. How she had used me and what I had truly become to her. I’ll admit, I went along willingly, but not quite conscious of her pestering smile.

Even now, I remember our passions. There, next to the entrance, on the ragged and dusty bed in the back room, and in a fit of carelessness, on the black metal balcony. In the fog of haze in my mind, I remembered the past and saw the spine of her back revealed as she leaned forward on that desk and did the unforgivable. How could I still love her? ( how could there still be room for love within me for her? )

She and her father were alike. They did what was needed to secure a prospect. I wondered if her tears were even real.

The lamp, the desk, the bed, this room, it’s all hers now. I was one of the few remnants of a time long past when this building was filled with the more deviant and colorful characters; myself included. There was nothing to call me a saint about. But I endured where others fell upon unfit-full demise. I thought being in law, a lawyer, would protect me, but I didn’t see her coming.

She signed it all away. In the broken mirror I remember fighting and screaming for her to not do it. Why’d she have me represent her anyway if she was just going to forfeit? She got in my head.

I clicked the lamp off one last time, bringing silence and darkness into the room. The only shadow cast was from the nearby moon. The heel of my shoes echoed across the room as I reached the door. I glanced at the memory one last time and closed the door behind me, knowing this place would disappear as if it never existed. One large empty parking lot. It’ll be no more. She doesn’t have to wait anymore.