Time and Space - part one
She couldn’t remember why having more time and more space had seemed so all important?
This story springs from a 50-word tale I posted last week. Seems there was a little more to tell…
What’s he doing here? She stopped and stared at him across the distance.
She had jumped off the cable car at Market and Stockton, walked up to Union Square, and there he was, standing alone on the top steps at the far side of the plaza. He looked as if he were waiting for someone.
He surveyed the palms, the flower beds, the lawns, the troops of tourists huddled together, and suddenly he saw her, standing alone up there on the opposite corner. What’s she doing here? he wondered.
They looked at each other for a long minute across the wide space, above the throngs of people. She wanted so much to talk to him, to tell him she was sorry, that she’d been wrong and would he please come back home. He wanted to talk to her, too, and plead with her to just give it one more try. But, like useless pawns on a chess board, neither made a move. Finally, they turned in opposite directions and walked off into the city.
~~~
The excuse she’d given him back then was a pathetic cliché — embarrassing to remember. “It’s not you, it’s me,” she’d said. “I just need a little space. I need time to be alone, to just be myself for a while.”
“Yeah. Okay. I get it,” he’d said. “Frankly, I am exhausted trying to make you happy. It’s killing me. And, truly, it hurts too much to keep going. I feel like I lose a little more ground every day.”
Then he was gone and she was free. She could do and be whatever she wanted.
~~~
She found herself this rainy morning sitting in her tiny apartment, trapped once again in the vortex of Tik-Tok. Two hours went by and she was still scrolling through videos, mesmerized by snoozy cats, dancing guys wearing suits, one-minute pickle recipes.
At one o’clock, she was still sitting there on the sofa in her pajamas, wheels spinning, only half conscious. On the wall was the small painting that she’d given him for his birthday. She wasn’t even sure he liked it, but he’d left it behind, so maybe not. On the coffee table were the music CDs he’d mixed for her, along side a variety of unwashed coffee mugs and muffin crumbs.
She couldn’t remember why ‘more time and more space’ had seemed so fucking all important? What did she think she was going to do with all the time, all the space when he was gone? She was going to write, that’s what! And she would begin painting again. And she would read all the books she’d bought but had never opened. She’d post flyers in the neighborhood offering to walk dogs on the weekends. Join a gym, get healthy, meet new friends, go out in the evenings. That was her plan.
Instead, six weeks later she was sleeping with his abandoned blue sweatshirt that she found in the bottom drawer, the sweatshirt that she won’t wash because it smells like him.
*The opening quote about Greek gods, is from the film Feast of Love (2006)
For Part 2, click HERE
I enjoyed seeing this expansion from the original prompt response you wrote!
These two need the laughter gift right now! And maybe they need the blunt cab driver who helped me once, early in my marriage. I momentarily felt like leaving because I felt I had lost part of my own time, space, and self within marriage. So I anguished it all out to a poor cab driver who listened. After I paid the fare he turned to me and said, “Who else are you going to find? Who would want you?! Who would have you!” 😂 And marriage is incredibly deep after forty years, with plenty of time and space.