Paul Hughes - An End

an eternity between

Walking into a moment…He was.

He shut the door. The wind was trapped outside. A newspaper fluttered and a hand went to it, held it to the tabletop. Nirvana. He smiled, remembered how she actually had smelled like Teen Spirit. Decades of absence…That memory had been buried half a century before, during the first war, in nights of futonsnuggle and Cowboy Killers. Pain supplanted by reality. Impossibility erased by

He walked to the counter. She was already sliding his cup toward him. Black, no cream, no sugar, just black. He leaned over and windburned lips brushed the dimpled cheek.

It wasn’t a literary crowd, but they were trying. A quick survey of the customers revealed books and newspapers, cigarettes and cloves, coffee and cappuccino. Anachronism in the world of the new future.

Sip.

It really wasn’t as bad as the kids thought. He’d tasted worse mud.

“How’s your day been?”

He shrugged. Pale blue-green eyes squinted, tried to dig behind his own. “You know.”

“I thought you might enjoy that.” She tilted her head toward the back of the shop.

“What?”

“The book. That girl has your book.”

The young woman was much too entranced with her beau to notice the middle-aged couple staring at her. He noted with some concern the black glove on the table, the silver ring now gracing silver hand, and he knew, he just knew.

There was a copy of “The Stillness Between” on the table.

The young couple held hands…There were still tears in the girl’s eyes.

She leaned in close from across the counter and whispered. “He just proposed to her.”

“Ah.”

Sip.

President Jennings was on the link. We will take this jihad to the stars—

Shivers.

“Paul?”

His hand shook as he placed the cup back down. Chattering staccato before complete contact. She put her hands over his, made them still

ness between

books, you have so much time! Are you sure you’re okay?”

He blinked, confused. More and more…More and more. He was losing moments. He was somewhere between now and worlds of impossibility.

He smiled, not convincing at all. “I’m okay. I never get used to seeing people with that book.”

She grinned. “At least you’re in good company. That couple over there was looking at Hesse’s Demian and Hayes’ Deus Ex earlier. In fact,” she leaned in, a conspirator, “he looks just like Hayes. Your protégé might be in my coffeehouse.”

Something that he didn’t want to acknowledge crawled up and down his spine for a while, then settled in at the base of his skull, tickling, raising gooseflesh. His grip tightened on the coffee cup.

“Yeah. Good company.”

She squeezed his hand. “Hey. You sure you’re okay?”

Nod. “Yeah. Just déjà vu.”

Eyebrows furrowed. “Again?”

The young couple walked out. The man looked at Paul for an instant, smiled. There was something in that glance

i contain multitudes

that broke his heart.

He reached into his front pocket and pulled out his marble. It rolled across the uneven countertop and she picked it up. The iridescent patina was scratched by half a century of travel and abuse. Four bright distortions winked in the afternoon light, scarred onto the surface from the pocket companionship of a brass Zippo with an engraved floral pattern that had long since been lost to the miles and decades of his life.

“I need a cigarette.”

“You know you shouldn’t—”

“Ever feel like you’ve lived too long? Like you’ve lived it all before?”

He hadn’t intended to hurt her with the statement, but he saw the wound develop in those eyes. At seventy-eight, they were both just over middle-aged, but still…Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t supposed to be there anymore.

“Not when I’m with you.” She withdrew the small glass bauble from her own pocket: a marble of her own, with its own scratches and a chip, given to her on that night when hopes and dreams became.

Snippets of conversation, and then laughter from behind. Maggie was laughing. He knew her name.

He knew her name, and he didn’t know how.

drifting and drifting, he resigned himself to the urge to look back. their eyes locked for the briefest of moments, and the tear-wet surface of her face revealed to him the secrets of futures now long long. they had abandoned everything they had known, and for that reason, they were damned.

the dialogue kept rising to the surface of his mind, and those prophetic words became universe upon universe. she reached to him, saw his unrest, and tenderly touched him.

you know we can’t go back

i know

it was for the best

i know

we will survive this

he let her words attempt to echo in the dead expanse. his silence screamed in the void, and they embraced, each an anchor in reality for the other.

you know i have to leave.

i know.

deconstruct

and something left me. sometimes the only things left are the torn page and the indentation of bic micro metal scrawling your life on a page for a stranger. we departed. hell, i never really knew her anyways. so why do i feel this way?

when did the exclamation points and devotion disappear and the introspect and long sophisticated yearnings take their place? when did i love you become i am sorry? “I think too much.”

“No such thing.” She squeezed his hand. “Just one of those days.”

We will take this jihad to the stars, and make them suffer the consequences of creating this horrible—

“Today’s the day?”

“Yeah.” She turned the channel on the link. She’d had enough of Jennings for now.

“If I were younger, I’d go too.”

“I wouldn’t let you.”

One-cornered grin, metal-on-ceramic clink as spoon followed its habit path.

“I’d go.”

“You’ve fought enough wars, old man.”

“I need a smoke.”

“Yeah.” The one dimple appeared in her smile as she reached under the counter and placed something on the top. Rectangular box, red and white and black.

“Jesus—How did you—?”

“I have my ways. Happy birthday.”

Marlboro 100s. He smelled the pack.

“It’s fresh. Been kept in airless for—”

“Decades. Sweetheart…Thank you!”

She came from behind the counter and they embraced, forgetting for the moment the customers, the rain, the impending war and an end, of sorts, lost in that perfect moment, remembering a time of bohemian lovemaking and a world in hesitant watching, the uncertainty of young adulthood in the ghetto, rooftop stargazing and balcony summers, futonsnuggle and the way that her

lithe fingers remove the cigarette from the pack, and i lean in with gold zippo, floral pattern, butane scent fighting against the scent of

scratch, flame, click.

she inhales, pale green eyes locked on my own muddy nothing. her eyelids draw together. the tip of the cigarette glows, releases as she releases. lips still pursed, breath still inhaling until the slight pause. smoke escapes from those lips, those lips that i can still feel, still taste. they smile.

i light my own.

casters slide across hardwood floor as i roll myself and the ashtray toward her. she sits on the leopard futon, leaning forward to tap ashes into glass tray. i roll closer, knees on her knees, ashtray balanced on my leg. i tap my own ashes into that receptacle of our addiction.

inhale, exhale. the dimple revealed.