One in-between Moment

We sat together. Shadows and shapes colliding in the fog, a wool blanket covering the golf course. For a while, no one said anything. It was nice to just live in the quiet of the moment. It seemed as if the city itself had fallen asleep, or left us behind in some strange in-between slip of reality.

I felt like I was floating.

Like if I let my mind go for just long enough, I could have sunk into the ground as if nothing was there.

He never spoke much, or at all really, but right now that was okay. It seemed fitting; he had taken us to his “sitting log,” so that’s exactly what we were doing. Sitting.

The silence broke quickly though, because she hadn’t slept in three days, and there was so much noise competing for attention inside her head – like radio waves – that she just had to let it out.

Time seemed more like a theory and less like a concrete thing constantly looming over our shoulders. We were above that now; the hour wasn’t important this late at night. It – time – could have stopped completely and we wouldn’t have noticed. We were too inside ourselves. I was both oblivious and all too aware of my body, like I had evaporated into the mist, but I could still feel every goose bump and hair that pricked my skin. I think my mind and body were two separate things in that moment, connected by this thin string linking each to the other.

She spoke about everything and nothing all at once, and his silence made me anxious. I couldn’t seem to catch any coherent words that were coming out of her mouth, but that was okay, I just enjoyed the sound of her voice. I would have asked her to record every half-formed thought that entered her mind if it meant that I could listen to her speak forever. Looking back now, I wish I had.

The air had a vexed energy to it I had never felt before. Like the edge of a cold razor blade, sharp and crisp, scaring me to a point of interest, as if daring me to lean into the wind, see how deep the cold could cut my skin.

I don’t understand how her skin wasn’t tinged blue and purple. She was only wearing a tank top so thin I worried the threads would blow away, leaving her heart bare. I think she was so tired she was beyond any feeling at all. I tried not to sleep for two days once, hoping the same would happen to me, but I feel too much to stay awake for that long.

I wish I could go back to that moment and relive how non-existent I was. We could have stayed there forever; I thought no one would remember us, like we’d faded away and melted together all at once. It felt like a lifetime, but was really just one evening, one night, and one in-between moment.

There was a point where so much had been said, I thought he might leave, and take this place with him. But he didn’t. He stayed and listened and understood. We had each tuned into the same frequency his thoughts resonated on, and knew every barely-there smile, blink, and blank stare for what it really was.

I never realized it was possible to be so close to a group of people, but so far away from everything at the same time. In that moment we had created our own, where only we existed and nothing else seemed relevant, or even real. It made me realize all of the distractions around me, all of the people, cars, buildings, airplanes. We’re on every wavelength all at once.

Except for then, in that in-between moment.