Desire

Sandy sat down on the small walkway in front of, what was now her, small motel room.

Men, she thought to herself, always demanding things from her. So what if she left him alone for three days? He had come looking for her after all. She didn't owe him anything and if he got his heart broken, it was his own fault.

She liked being the object of desire. It felt like a deliciously warm liquid being poured over her. The interest, always seeming to be on someone else, somewhere else, was on her. The heat that would normally have required some release now sat within her, content.

What's more is that she now understood how to control this facet of herself. No longer would she consider giving in to someone else's needs before her own. The only thing in the world, her world, was her. She could still picture him, sleeping on the ratty couch, looking at her. How pathetic.

She thought about her ex-husband for a moment. The drunk. The womanizer. She wondered if he really meant to tell her he wished she was like some other women that he had seen or that he wanted all of them more than her. Perhaps he had let it slip to try and force her to do kinky things with him, if so it didn't work.

He fantasied about them, she knew. He would whisper their names in bed with her. He would spend long hours out chasing after them and come home, half drunk and sexually needy and she would take it all in. It was like she was a balloon in some ways, taking all the nasty parts of him into herself. Unlike the a store bought balloon though, she hadn't popped but just stopped after a while.

After the needy period ended she suspected he was having an affair, which didn't bother her as much as she thought it might. They moved to separate corners of the house and eyed each other warily after that. All the unspoken things between them became a bleak wall and in the end, neither of them wanted to create a door there.

She felt stupid now because she had asked permission to divorce him. How laughable was that? She had left, finally, when he had drank himself nearly to death one night. All she could think about was what would she do if he had died and blocked the door so she couldn't get out. Touching a dead body was the worst thing she could imagine, even if it had belonged to a man once loved.

Men were replaceable, that was easy to see. Easy to push aside when they demanded or wanted something more than they deserved.

Now, staring after someone else, she laughed as well, imagine him thinking there was something left between them after 20 years. All that she had now was a middle aged body and a tired heart. That heart ran on anti-depressants now, the modern cure for growing older.

The only thing remaining was desire and need. The only that mattered was how these two twins could help Sandy along her way.

Finding

He woke alone in the small room they shared in the town they stopped at. After leaving the city neither of them had any plans on where to go or what to do and had wandered around several states looking for a place.

This little town was quiet. After ten at night you didn't see anyone about. He didn't recall seeing a bar in town.

He rubbed his neck in an absent minded fashion, the couch was not meant to be slept on for this amount of time. Still after all the weeks they had been traveling together, they hadn't slept together. Some things didn't change. Some things did change as he wasn't proud of it this time around. He didn't understand it - they had so much in common, their lives had twisted in mirror images of each other.

After sitting back down at the tiny table, he tried to recall her leaving. He wasn't a heavy sleeper and couldn't recall her stepping out.

No whispered words or breeze from the closing door three feet away from where he had lain.

She obviously had meant to leave without waking him.

He refused to be surprised. Surprise meant that something was wrong with them and he refused to see that.

Still, she was gone and no note.

He waited there for three days, walking around the city in the hopes he might see her. Every time he saw someone who looked like her his breath would catch until he saw it wasn't her. Like a deflated balloon he returned to the motel room.

He packed his bag once more the following morning, resolved to try and forget the past and her. The steering wheel felt cold against his forehead as he got ready to leave. Such a sorry place, he thought to himself. Everything is empty here and hopeless. You could really see it in the eyes of the people on the street. They did't know why they stayed here and couldn't tell why anyone would want to stay in such a dark place. They had reasons though, some pretty thin, but there were some. Perhaps family or lack of money played a role. Most likely though was that they were doing what someone else though they should do.

Still, one place is like another and if you can get away from streets and houses you can forget everything attached to them.

There had to be a place that he could be in and wouldn't make his skin crawl.

On the way out of the hotel parking lot he saw Sandy. She looked worn and tired. Her eyes matched the others in town in their perfect emptiness.

"Where are you going?"

He laughed at that, again like at her apartment in the city he thought she was trying to say something beyond what was here and now. She was simply stating obvious words. No concern for him or them for that matter, just a vague statement.

"The room is paid for until the end of the week."

With that, he drove away in what he hoped was a random direction.

As he passed the sign announcing the tiny town he wondered how many people had tried to recreate the past, and failed miserably. It's an old rule about going home again.

That place is not only destroyed by our memories but the ruins of it are hidden in the changes that take over all of us. The only possible place for anyone is in the future with a new place and people.

Found, sort of

Sandy asked, "If a fish were caught in a fresh water lake would it still be considered sea food?"

That was the first thing she said to me at her open apartment door. She often asked questions like that. Seemingly meaningless yet, later, found to be full of incredible insights.

I was still stunned though. Braving this city to find her. Wondering about her all these years.

And here we were.

"Of course it's sea food, a fish is a fish no matter where it got caught."

She smiled and said, "I knew you would say that. Even back then you were the literal minded one."

It's my turn to smile, although I'm not sure exactly why and say, "We are what we are, labels don't matter to the one that's labeled it's always those pesky people that apply the labels that get you into trouble."

"Oh that's where you are oh so wrong, labels are the only thing that does matter. They define us. Where would we be without them?"

I still smile, it's as if we were suddenly back in our little camp site in the rain, talking. Strange how the years hadn't touched her. The eyes were still the same as well as the personality. The spark was still there and so big that we were both afraid of it. That electric gap between us seemed at times to be bigger than the both of us. It both enclosed and separated us.

"If you try to define yourself through what others say and think you've already lost yourself. You might as well be the perfect son slash daughter, wife slash husband."

She opened the door then. "I don't know if I like the over use of the word 'slash' but its good to see you again."

I had forgotten for a moment that she had been a teacher and language was always a touchy subject. One I used to tease her about it as English is a very poorly put together language.

We sat down to coffee in the quiet apartment. I still held the stone in my hand, unsure if I should show it to her. I was worried she might think the worst of me for holding on to something for so long.

"Short summary, married then divorced. Married again and divorced sooner. Now I try not to inflict myself on others."

I sense the challenge in her eyes then. Suddenly all the years fade away like some bad dream. For the first time I feel the crush of regret at not pursuing her then.

"I was married for 18 years and suddenly it was over and in the midst of that wreckage I find this stone and I thought of you and what we had. I have to know if I made a horrible mistake then and if there is still some time for us."

Sandy looked at the stone for moment, lost in her won thoughts. "I don't know what would have happened. Maybe we could have made it. As for now, I'm a broken thing, a bird with two broken wings.

"I want to get out of here though. I'm tired of labels and false dreams. I'm sick of twisting around in garbage every day to try and fill out some plan that someone else made for me.

"I want something for me." She hissed these last words.

"I've got nothing but the clothes on my back and this bag and a stone. It's enough I think. It's all I want."

"Let's go then, tonight. I'm not going to sleep with you though, at least for a while."

I laughed at this, "I wouldn't want to ruin a forgotten memory, Sandy. But can I tell you I love you? Would that mess this up?"

"How do you know this isn't a rebound thing? You might just as easily love the first person you met after the divorce."

"Well the doorman was kinda cute but not my type."

"He is a looker, Bet they were saying that back in world war two though.

"Here, help me pack."

City

He stood there near the intersection of two major streets amidst a tidal flow of people with the stone in one hand and a bag in the other.

People streamed around him like he wasn't even there. He felt like some ghost, Earthbound in a garish place where the wind whistled through empty trees. Sound like dead laughter echoed along the dingy buildings. Everything was gray here. Everything was foreign.

He was empty though and standing in the middle of the crowd only highlighted the loneliness he felt. All these strangers who moved so close were gone again soon after, never to return. He was alone, here in the center of a mass of people.

It was strange to be free after so many years of being something else. Tied down in many ways but free in others. Now he had finally detached himself from being a husband, father, and friend. There was nothing else there now, except for a bag and a stone.

Some people talk about coming around full circle, but the ones this has actually happened to rarely speak of it. Such a thing is too personal and somewhat embarrassing to admit. You find yourself at a place you never though you'd see again and seeing it once more doesn't make it any better. All the lies you told yourself about those early times are thrust upon you with no hope of escape.

Sandy always did like to try and force him to do more than what he wanted. He remembered how she would dare him to make some romantic gesture to her and then pretend he had gone too far. Once he had yelled at the top of his lungs that he loved her in a crowded high school gym and she refused to speak to him for a week afterward.

He wondered at that here and thought that the same thing was likely to happen. History always repeats itself.

He had to be sure though. No more running away from what could be. If it was in this crowded and dank place that love might return to him, he would take it gladly.

If the answer wasn't here, he would accept that just as easy and continue looking.

Freedom was like that. You had a moment in time to be at that right place and if you missed it, the event passed and left you behind to sink among the faded possibilities.

To be there though and take a shot... That was enough. It had to be enough to wrap a remainder of a life in.

The Stone

He held the stone in the palm of his hand for a moment. It looked so innocuous sitting there, but like most things the meaning it carried was tremendous.

How strange it felt to find this relic from his first relationship as the current one was ending. He was getting ready to move away from a life he had occupied for nearly twenty years when at the bottom of a box he found something he had not only forgot about, but didn't even remember forgetting.

The rough outline of an 'S' was still visible on the stone. Some weird layering had taken place on it a long time ago. It too forgotten.

That mark though brought him back to the first real love of his life.

Sandy.

First loves always set the tone for matters of the heart later in life. The beginning relationships always seem to fail though which only invites us to enshrine them deeper into our hearts. Later, we allow ourselves to forget the real reasons for failure.

He chalked up his loss to the simple fact of being young. Youth doesn't let us see that somethings only happen once. We get older and think we get wiser but we often forget this simple fact.

Looking at the stone now brought him back, suddenly, to the place he found it while hiking with Sandy in the mountains. The tail end of summer was warm enough to seem like the middle that year. Even the animals were a little confused by the high temperatures. He remembered imagining them running around not knowing if they should be preparing for winter or not. Much simpler to stay here in the moment. Let the heat caress the heart for at least one more day.

Sandy though, she did set the standard for which he would judge beauty for the rest of his life. Her long black hair and dark eyes still haunted his dreams, even now. He could also just barely hear her behind him on the trail, commenting on what she believed the future would hold. Her voice was lite, like a fresh breeze on the mountain. Full of hidden delights and half imagined secrets. That too remained with him.

He turned around, now, as he had done all those years ago half expecting to see her standing there. To him, she was still in the sweat drenched t-shirt and loose fitting jogging pants. There was more there though. She had a presence that was more than what you could see. There was a glow around her that reflected off her to shine on others, helping them be better people. He thought it might have been imagination playing tricks on him in the heat of the afternoon and carefully tucked that memory away for a far off place.

They had both agreed that they wouldn't sleep together. He had agreed only after some resistance and took pleasure in pretending to grudgingly dislike the idea. He did regret the lack of physical intimacy but was not only proud of the fact he could control himself but that it was the right choice for them. Somewhere deep inside he knew that they probably weren't going to be a couple forever. The paths before them split into opposite directions. Being young, they thought they had all the time in the world anyway. If they split up, they would always get back together later.

The stone dug into his hands as he struggled to fit all the memories into place inside him. Those faraway times suggested something to him. He thought that perhaps there was enough time to find Sandy again. Read to her as he had at the campsite lost to the past and the mountains. Try and reflect her light back so she could really believe she was someone and that she helped those around her be better than what they thought they could be.

He would offer up the stone as a sacrifice. Another chance to find something lost an age ago. Some hope that in finding her would heal the empty heart in his chest.