Goodbye

She stood in the doorway, lips quivering slightly. The sunlight was sneaking through the open frame silently stealing a kiss on her cheek. I’d seen this scene so many times in my head before, but this time it was real, and there was no changing it. She wore a summer dress I had bought for her last year. It was a deep azure blue, which set her eyes ablaze. The cut accented every part of her body in just the right ways. She held one hand on the doorknob and the other resting gently on the doorframe.

A breeze lapped against her hair, pushing and pulling the blonde locks like waves crashing on a beach. Every once in a while a blink of her tiny perfect ears would slip into view and quickly disappear again. In a single moment I thought of all the good times we shared. Beaches and camping, traveling to far away places, blindly meandering around new and exciting villages, spending time doing nothing at all, watching television and movies, having picnics, daydreaming. She exhaled slowly.

I returned my gaze to her face. It was composed of a strong sense of sadness and stern detachment. She wasn’t looking at me per se, but more through me. I could feel it. It was unnerving. We felt stuck in a moment. I have no idea how long it lasted, but it was broken by the sun finally finding some refuge behind a lone cloud playing in the sky. Her lips parted slightly.

“Well?” It emanated from her lips with shocking indifference. I looked into her eyes and found them considering me in a way I had never seen before. I felt lost.

“Well, what?” I replied, not sure what to say anymore. I decided my best plan of action was to get as much information as possible.

“What do you mean, ‘well, what?’” She retaliated with fire, “don’t you have anything to say? Anything at all?”

“What can I say?” I thought out loud. She rolled her eyes to this answer.

Then it all hit me in a wave. The other half of our story, the nightmare nights of pain and sorrow, the agony we had put each other through, the fights, the scrutiny, the derision and ridicule. We were not good for each other at all and we both knew it. But what was left at this point? She stood there in silence, waiting.

“Well the way I figure it, there really is only three words I can say anymore.” I was making my gambit.

“Three words, eh?” She said sarcastically, “this ought to be good.” I wasn’t entirely sure what she was expecting, but a fire was building inside of me. I took her hand from the doorknob and placed it gently in mine and looked deeply into her eyes.

“I don’t care.” I said it softly but with plied earnestness. In the briefest moment I watched her jaw drop a little as she turned and rushed through the doorway. When there is no winning, no going back, you may as well go for mutually assured destruction.

-V-

Cloud Surfer

Walton was lying on his back alone in his favorite park. He could feel a light fleeting breeze kissing his cheek and moving on to rustle the tree leaves nearby. The sun was playing in the clouds shining rays of light all around him in erratic patterns around him. Birds were busy adjusting their nests chirping greetings to the rest of nature playing around the grounds. Walton let the day wash over himself as he let his mind wonder.

He started imagining his future. What would life bring him? Where would he go? What would he see? Hundreds of different lives passed in front of him powered by his imagination. Each one fully lived and realized in a matter of moments, brilliant and beautiful.

Something shifted in the clouds above him. It caught his attention almost immediately. It couldn’t have been a bird, it moved way too capriciously. Darting and dodging in the sky in ways he had never seen before. Then something incredible happened, the object started falling, and falling fast it was heading right at him. He only had seconds to roll out of the way as the being crashed into the ground where he once was.

Off kilter and a little disoriented, Walton stood up and stumbled back to where he was once lying on the hill. A young girl was crumbled up in a scar left in the soil by her impact. She barely moved, but Walton could see her mid-section slowly heaving to take in breath. She needed help, and he knew he was the only one around.

“Miss?” He tried lamely. He knew she was hurt bad. “Miss, can I help you?” He tried again with a bit more zeal.

“Urrghmmmphff…” was all that the being could manage. She then spit out a bunch of earth from her mouth, coughed and tried again.

“Ugh… That hurt! Did you do that?” She pointed a finger at Walton. “It was you wasn’t it! I was doing perfectly fine and then you, you, you,” she seemed to be stuck searching for the next word, perhaps the crash had affected her mental capacities as well.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said defensively.

“Of course not, you saw me, you pulled me down here! Stupid human.” She seemed really upset.

“I don’t get it.”

“Your kind never does. I’m a cloud surfer. We are a great race of people that control and work the clouds above you. We control the storms and the skies as we have for millennia. As children we are told to be careful of your kind, and now I know why. Jerk!”

“Well what can I do?” I asked feeling upset that she was blaming me for this.

“Nothing. That’s what you can do. Stupid human.” She hefted herself up and started hobbling away.

“Wait!” I yelled after her, but as I was hollering she dispersed into a lighted mist and floated up into the sky. Some days I think I should just stay inside.

-V-