This short story was published in Cahoots Magazine in 2006. Text below. Click HERE for the original version.
________________________________________________________
She is the Night
It's 9 p.m.
Riiiiing... Riiiing... She picks up the phone on the second ring, like she always does.
"Yell-ow?" she answers, and I smile.
All I have to do is grunt and she instantaneously recognizes that it's me. I still marvel at this familiarity between us. Like I only just realized it a second ago.
"Harro, Jeemy, my polar bear!" she chirps, calling me in that accent she finds so amusing. I don't even remember how I came to be called a polar bear and neither does she, she admitted to me once. That's her, though. She has recently begun to call me "Mr. Kitty Cat," providing no reason as to why, although I have a sneaky suspicion that she doesn't really know. No matter what, though, she claims I will always "innately be her polar bear."
Tonight, our conversation carries a different air. It's just like always: us playfully teasing each other, telling random jokes, singing to the song currently playing in our CD players, however incongruous the two may seem together. Yet, there is an undertone of something else--still partially camouflaged within the folds of tonight. Maybe she senses something, too. After all, she does often claim that we are psychic with each other. We both may be in store for something more than what our conscious thought can decipher at this precise moment.
It's 12 a.m.
She needs to get off the phone, but promises to call me back in a bit. I am told to finish some homework. It's good for me, apparently. That's her authoritative voice, that, once in a while if concerned about me, she will use. Well, no work will be done. It can't be. She will depart, and leave me with that impending, indiscernible feeling.
"Good-temporary-bye, my dear!" She hangs up reluctantly, I can tell.
Maybe I've left her with something, too.
It's 2 a.m.
The phone rings. Perfect timing, I tell her. One of our favourite songs has just begun. I let her know, and she gets excited. She's listening to that song, too. It's because we're psychic, she states firmly. Then, she immediately wishes me a happy daylight savings time day and also asks me if my homework is completed. I say no, how could I? Maybe she will pick up on why, but all she does is give me a disapproving "tsk, tsk" and one of her looks. Yes, I can feel her looks and expressions.
"Jeemy, what is your view on abortion? Euthanasia? Hey, do you think that trust plays a role in the acquisition of knowledge?"
I am surprised that I am surprised. With her, I have learned to expect just about anything, but she has proved me wrong yet again. She is fierce, enveloping me from all angles.
She wants to explore new areas of interest, she once told me. Tango lessons, cake decorating, a professional family portrait with my pillow (it's her favourite one: two dogs kissing, affectionately dubbed the "kissy dog pillow" by her). She once requested me to wake up at six in the morning to have breakfast. She has just asked me if I would ever wear tight, metallic, royal purple, spandex biking pants in public for her. What about carve her a potato in the shape of a dog? Not even if it was in honour of that pillow?
"You're crazy," I declare, but she only giggles. She is relentless and manages to coerce half-hearted answers out of me in response to her every whim. Of course, I would not take tango lessons or family portraits or wear purple pants or create potato carvings. I can feel her pout, then smirk when she informs me that secretly, I would do all of those things for her.
Tonight is different. I [don't know how I] know it.
"Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you, you are my only one," I sing, half-mumbling, half-humming to that song.
"I let go, there's just no one who gets me like you do, you are my only one..." I can feel her grin as she completes the chorus. We reach a consensus that this will become yet another one of 'our songs' in our rapidly expanding repertoire.
I am cold, I tell her; my usual three blankets are in the wash so I am using a flimsy comforter. She says she's hot, burrowed in her two warm blankets, so she'll teleport one of them to me. After a moment of what seems to be deep contemplation, she deems that as an insensitive suggestion and instead, tells me to come over so we can burrow together. I can sense her eyes becoming wide as she bubbles over with fervour at that last suggestion: "...Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women), but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman). Milan Kundera," she proudly emphasizes.
* * * * *
This night is untamed. I want to harness its wildness and learn of the places it's been, the stories it knows, the rolling hills and jagged mountains of its landscape. I want to know the way it works and thinks, its every passion and every crevice where there resides dark corners and all things kept at harbour. I want to excavate it until it lies before me as I am now.
* * * * *
(I would rather feign madness than have her see me like this.)
* * * * *
It's 6 a.m.
We agree to go since I have to wake up early tomorrow--no, today. We laugh. It takes another 20 minutes to actually hang up.
"Good nighty-night...er, morning, hun! It was swell."
"Yes, good morning. Sweet dreams."
"Sweet dreams...of you," she concludes.
"Vice versa." And I mean it. She knows I do.
"Jimmy," she says seriously, "do you realize that we are never on the phone for less than two hours at a time? And every time, we take so long to leave?"
This night seizes me and clears away the fog and uncertainty that surrounded that feeling. The one that, maybe, just maybe, she felt, too. We are psychic, after all.
"It's because you are irresistible," I say breathlessly. I can feel her delicate features soften. Her eyes water. I have started something here.
There is no need to pursue this further tonight, we both know. I could see hints of the morning, roused by light, breaking into our night.
For once, the prospect of summer did not seem so forlorn. For once, time is suspended somewhere between myself and her. For once, I could have the world if I so dared to take it. I took it. She knew I did.
As I placed my hand over my chest, I felt the steady rise and fall of her breathing.
She is the Night
It's 9 p.m.
Riiiiing... Riiiing... She picks up the phone on the second ring, like she always does.
"Yell-ow?" she answers, and I smile.
All I have to do is grunt and she instantaneously recognizes that it's me. I still marvel at this familiarity between us. Like I only just realized it a second ago.
"Harro, Jeemy, my polar bear!" she chirps, calling me in that accent she finds so amusing. I don't even remember how I came to be called a polar bear and neither does she, she admitted to me once. That's her, though. She has recently begun to call me "Mr. Kitty Cat," providing no reason as to why, although I have a sneaky suspicion that she doesn't really know. No matter what, though, she claims I will always "innately be her polar bear."
Tonight, our conversation carries a different air. It's just like always: us playfully teasing each other, telling random jokes, singing to the song currently playing in our CD players, however incongruous the two may seem together. Yet, there is an undertone of something else--still partially camouflaged within the folds of tonight. Maybe she senses something, too. After all, she does often claim that we are psychic with each other. We both may be in store for something more than what our conscious thought can decipher at this precise moment.
It's 12 a.m.
She needs to get off the phone, but promises to call me back in a bit. I am told to finish some homework. It's good for me, apparently. That's her authoritative voice, that, once in a while if concerned about me, she will use. Well, no work will be done. It can't be. She will depart, and leave me with that impending, indiscernible feeling.
"Good-temporary-bye, my dear!" She hangs up reluctantly, I can tell.
Maybe I've left her with something, too.
It's 2 a.m.
The phone rings. Perfect timing, I tell her. One of our favourite songs has just begun. I let her know, and she gets excited. She's listening to that song, too. It's because we're psychic, she states firmly. Then, she immediately wishes me a happy daylight savings time day and also asks me if my homework is completed. I say no, how could I? Maybe she will pick up on why, but all she does is give me a disapproving "tsk, tsk" and one of her looks. Yes, I can feel her looks and expressions.
"Jeemy, what is your view on abortion? Euthanasia? Hey, do you think that trust plays a role in the acquisition of knowledge?"
I am surprised that I am surprised. With her, I have learned to expect just about anything, but she has proved me wrong yet again. She is fierce, enveloping me from all angles.
She wants to explore new areas of interest, she once told me. Tango lessons, cake decorating, a professional family portrait with my pillow (it's her favourite one: two dogs kissing, affectionately dubbed the "kissy dog pillow" by her). She once requested me to wake up at six in the morning to have breakfast. She has just asked me if I would ever wear tight, metallic, royal purple, spandex biking pants in public for her. What about carve her a potato in the shape of a dog? Not even if it was in honour of that pillow?
"You're crazy," I declare, but she only giggles. She is relentless and manages to coerce half-hearted answers out of me in response to her every whim. Of course, I would not take tango lessons or family portraits or wear purple pants or create potato carvings. I can feel her pout, then smirk when she informs me that secretly, I would do all of those things for her.
Tonight is different. I [don't know how I] know it.
"Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you, you are my only one," I sing, half-mumbling, half-humming to that song.
"I let go, there's just no one who gets me like you do, you are my only one..." I can feel her grin as she completes the chorus. We reach a consensus that this will become yet another one of 'our songs' in our rapidly expanding repertoire.
I am cold, I tell her; my usual three blankets are in the wash so I am using a flimsy comforter. She says she's hot, burrowed in her two warm blankets, so she'll teleport one of them to me. After a moment of what seems to be deep contemplation, she deems that as an insensitive suggestion and instead, tells me to come over so we can burrow together. I can sense her eyes becoming wide as she bubbles over with fervour at that last suggestion: "...Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women), but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman). Milan Kundera," she proudly emphasizes.
* * * * *
This night is untamed. I want to harness its wildness and learn of the places it's been, the stories it knows, the rolling hills and jagged mountains of its landscape. I want to know the way it works and thinks, its every passion and every crevice where there resides dark corners and all things kept at harbour. I want to excavate it until it lies before me as I am now.
* * * * *
(I would rather feign madness than have her see me like this.)
* * * * *
It's 6 a.m.
We agree to go since I have to wake up early tomorrow--no, today. We laugh. It takes another 20 minutes to actually hang up.
"Good nighty-night...er, morning, hun! It was swell."
"Yes, good morning. Sweet dreams."
"Sweet dreams...of you," she concludes.
"Vice versa." And I mean it. She knows I do.
"Jimmy," she says seriously, "do you realize that we are never on the phone for less than two hours at a time? And every time, we take so long to leave?"
This night seizes me and clears away the fog and uncertainty that surrounded that feeling. The one that, maybe, just maybe, she felt, too. We are psychic, after all.
"It's because you are irresistible," I say breathlessly. I can feel her delicate features soften. Her eyes water. I have started something here.
There is no need to pursue this further tonight, we both know. I could see hints of the morning, roused by light, breaking into our night.
For once, the prospect of summer did not seem so forlorn. For once, time is suspended somewhere between myself and her. For once, I could have the world if I so dared to take it. I took it. She knew I did.
As I placed my hand over my chest, I felt the steady rise and fall of her breathing.