Air

Its late in the morning,I peek through my eyelids and catch the glimmers of sun passing through the shutters.My legs are aching in pain for some reason,a wave of negative thoughts hit me like a migraine as soon as I'm fully conscious-maybe if I lay perfectly still,relax my limbs and think only of plain skies I'll fall asleep again.

But the damn phone rings.Like an alarm,reminding me an outside world still exists.Its B,when I pick up there's only silence for a few seconds-then she says "Are you busy Al?"-this is almost never a good sign.B knows I wake up late on Saturday,what she sometimes does is call while I'm still blur and fuzzy-then yells into the phone until I get up and wash my face,or at least pretend to.Finding the politeness extremely suspicious,I tell her I'll be there in 20.

She answers the door and immediately hugs me,tightly.We remain like this for sometime,I stand there rubbing her back for comfort-I can feel her tiny,hard chest heaving slowly against mine,breathing in and out calmly.Eventually we get around to talking,I sit cross-legged on the floor and listen closely as her mouth opens and closes,sentences dropping like dead leaves off a tree-soft and quiet,vague and missing.I gather bits of what she says,try to sum it up but to this she says "No,its not like that".

Finally she gets me to understand,and I don't know what to say.Or do."We'll survive this I'm sure",I say somewhat sadly,failing to hide the feeling of absolute doubt.Again we hug,this time she feels more alive than I am,but barely so-void and powerless,two corpses in tango.

(And all my worries,they simply cease being real.)

...