A Great Distance
an excerpt

Upstairs I put on a little music, soft, just some chatter in the background. Every sound I imagined might be you. The stretch of hours started to feel thin and tired; every second moved you farther and farther away from me.

I tried to remember the last time I'd seen you. Had I spent some of last night awake? I thought I had; I thought I had woken up for a while and watched you, hoping it might lull me to sleep with you. Your hair needed a trim. I couldn't see your face. The line of your shoulder, the freckles on your neck, were familiar. But I am romanticizing. I did not think this last night; I had not thought about your freckles and the line of your shoulder for a while. Or perhaps I had; or perhaps I needed to feel that I had. It was all part of something that was feeling more definitely, stiflingly, as something past; something not so real as brought to life through memories, second-hand impressions of a life.

I walked through the house; I left the lights on. I was haunted that night. Writing seemed impossible, but something pulled me toward it. I found my best fountain pen, solid red and gold, a pleasant weight. A small scrap book went with me as I moved restlessly through the house, now to the kitchen, now the living room, now my study. I read a little, scraps. I wrote in fragments, sometimes a word, sometimes a line or two. I rearranged some of my papers. I thought about the book I was writing, let ideas flit past; I didn't write them down. I let them go.

Every second took you farther away.

It was late, nearly three in the morning. I had to sleep. It was heavy upon me, the way I felt as a young boy, sick with a fever. It would make things better. I would sleep and things would be better.

Every second took you farther away.