For it used to be the two of them, sitting back to back on the rooftop, leaning against one another like two paper-thin playing cards made to balance upright by a shared edge.
They played the silence effortlessly, muting the underlying sounds of the living world so one could strum the chords of the other’s presence, bound tightly and strewn densely around them both. When they spoke, their words would ride heavy on each cadence, notes sinking in the air to an isolated rhythm, the world they shared yielding so completely to remnants of the lone existences they lived before.
If either of them bent further at the waist, gazing down the side of the mansion, it was an unobstructed bird’s eye view to the bustling garden below, where for the world to see them it would have to tilt its head all the way back, staring fearlessly into the sun.
Standing in the middle of it all with a flimsy, half-empty cup lifted to dry lips every so often, he had smiled kindly all the while, listening intently to everyone who nestled in closer, arrivals to the front of the long, invisible queue made to spiral around his still figure. His eyes settled warmly on each new face, chin dipped in greeting, and for a few moments it seemed as if nothing would deter his observance of each visitor, as they shared a moment marked by the other’s existence. Yet when he was alone once more, his expression glazed over as he bit his bottom lip, his eyes flitting absentmindedly above the crowd until it met a pair matching his in shade that darted away, its tail end still snagged on his gaze. And each time, he would wait on a breath for them to swing back, as a hand came up to shoo his focus away or the shyness evaporated in a face of flimsy happiness, broken into a wide grin.
Each time feeling his heart lurch into his throat, rendering him a bit breathless.
Each time wondering if today was the day he would admit it.
When he finally stepped back into the shade of anonymity, letting out a deep breath, he felt a firm hand on his arm tug him backwards to which he yielded easily, the gears of his world shifting into place as the two walked, blind to any destination, until they found themselves alone, staring out at the garden bathed in the lingering remnants of the sun, the luscious expanse still as crowded as when the light first rose.
They were made for sunsets.
Though they lived for the sprawling wastelands and empty cities, crawling low to the ground and clinging silently to the shadows, what they were built for were the null moments - when, backs lined up with the wall and the rows they stood in lined up against it, they waited in darkness for an eternity they learned to count until the next cry to war sounded, calling them to fulfill their purpose. As flimsy hands swiveled around the invisible clock’s axis, dictating the rotation of night and day in the world beyond the walls, most of them slept, eyes clamped tight against the same sights. Yet when the dying light shone in unbidden through the windows, its vivid, warm colours in stark contrast to the warehouse and its perpetual shades of grey, he chased its lingering tendrils through the strip of sky with a horrible longing he could not explain.
And for the longest time, he thought they all knew the same sadness.
“But it’s just me and you.”
His long coat flapped tentatively in the wind, fluttering to the side, as he took a small step backwards, foot straying outwards, hands swallowed by his pockets, his ghostly profile waxing to full in the throes of twilight. As he turned, gravity draped heavily on his hesitant frame, time - amused by his restlessness - gently placed an invisible hand on the world, causing it to hang cruelly in motion.
In a moment that could thoughtlessly obey only the whims of fiction, the clouds were swept aside, drawn hurriedly from the moon they concealed, lighting its domain with a brazen glow that sharpened the haziness, awoke the world from its heavy slumber. The air, filled with a cacophony of nature’s thoughts crowning the empty expanse, stilled the silence with merely a held hand. Slowly, he breathed in deep, absorbing a full breath of air that blossomed in his chest, willing his heart to beat slower, persuading his mind to wait, staying still for just a little longer.
His ugly, selfish heart pulsating anxiety, willing a bemused, unmoving variation of an eternity he wanted part of to take notice of it, laid bare.
And in that moment, all the coincidences that occurred in his lifetime seemed miracles and all the accidents gained purpose, if only to culminate in the briefest of pauses in between shaky breaths, where his wavering voice could bound off the walls of his emptied mind, its faint echoes escaping outside, as he looked at the other, their hearts beating to a hidden rhythm, his world caught on the absent-minded expression rising to meet his gaze.
Breathlessly, he said it again, softer.
“Just me and you.”
The space encapsulating the moment was beautiful - the utterly black emptiness suspended above them, the sudden fringes of pale reds and vivid oranges hanging off its edges, a few pinpricks of white further scattering the monotony.
Yet all he could see were the widened eyes and other fresh cracks in a stone expression that wavered for the last time.
And he felt freed.
I have made great progress with my novel.
And out of everything I’ve written so far, I think this is one of the scenes I like the most.