The Sub-Editor - Tears

TEARS

I knew we should be together from the moment that we met. It sounds fantastic, stupid, romantic, but I couldn't get the thought - get her - out of my head.

As we lay together with the TV on mute we let the tips of our fingers touch, and our toes as well. No clinging or grasping, no suffocating. Her skin was soft and her stomach flat. Her hair was long and messy. In the night it looked black.

She exuded love, but seemed not to assume or expect to get it back.

She told me a story; 'let me tell you a tale', she said with a smile.  Her camera lay under the pillow.

'There was this small child, a girl, who every time she said want she wanted, something catastrophic happened. Or, perhaps, if she ventured to say how she felt, then someone always felt it more dramatically than her.

'So, she decided never to say what she wanted. She learned to keep her feelings to herself. As she grew older she became even more superstitious and refused to acknowledge, even in her thoughts, her fears and ambivalence. Instead, she became the mistress of bad faith.

'But, then, one day she met someone she wanted. She met him the day he was going away. She wanted to say "don't go, please stay" but the words got stuck in her throat.'

I asked her why she carried a camera. She laughed and said it was so she could remember. She said she used it to describe how she felt; in the moment, before she re-wrote it into something else, something that didn't hurt.

'If I took a picture now' she said,  'it would be seen through tears.'

The Sub-Editor - Day Of Reckoning

DAY OF RECKONING

'The thing to remember is that nothing has changed. Except what I thought was the case. But my case was a myth and a fantasy; a lie combined with bad faith.'

My brother turned to me and asked, 'what do you mean by this?'

'The day of reckoning is, in fact, a re-positioning. A case of seeing the facts. A case of seeing the reality, and adjusting the way that one acts.'

My brother turned to me and suggested, 'perhaps you are pissed?'

'To believe in God is surely a vanity, but I must say I'm sad we've discarded Greek tragedy. The thought of the Underworld is strangely life-affirming. Posthumous reunion strikes me as quite charming. And I have to confess that the thought of love is calming. The thought of not having love is certainly disarming.'

My brother turned to me and said, 'can I offer you an olive or, maybe, a crisp?'

'Yes, it's one thing to hypothesize, it's another to enact. I, for one, can intelletualise, critique, interpret, analyse, but it's altogether different to behave as if you're wise.'

My brother turned on the TV.

'You see, emotions are immune to self-control and censorship. They're disruptive and subversive and, at times, are quite seductive; to be immersed in something abstract but so vicsceral, persuasive. Though I'm somewhat loath to say it, I would say it's quite addictive.'

My brother turned off the TV and shouted, 'so what you gonna do about it?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'You tell me. After all, let's face it, it's your reality.'