Fools and Lovers

You always think it won't be you. Definitely not. Certainly not. I could never be so foolish. But I am. You are. We all are. We all writhe at night in our sweaty bed sheets alone. We pace the room, fling the window open. Feel the night air flutter inwards tepidly, like a bath that's gone cold. Go back to the bed, punch the pillow in the dark, for comfort, to berate ourselves. I hug it between my knees. And I wonder. How? How could I be so foolish? Why? Why am I? Why do I give? Forget it all and sleep.

“Nell! Nell are you up?... Nell?! Nell!!!!!!”

I am now you squawking hen! Mothers make alarm clocks obsolete. Their love makes the time tick forward instead. My legs swing across the bed, my feet to the stained carpet. Cream once, I think. I see my thighs spread on the edge and come together. Like spilled custard. Fat. Fat again this morning. Great. He thinks I'm fat, he doesn't want them to touch. He’s wrong. Don't think about him.

How much time do we spend thinking about not thinking? How much time do we spend thinking, ‘don't think about him?’ Do men ever think that about us? I shake the thoughts like cobwebs from my mental catacombs. Focus. The one thing my erratic mind has always fought against.

Get up. Smile. You are beautiful, life is beautiful. Life is a gift. Why does it never stop before moving again? It just keeps going on and on like that drunk regular at the pub who likes to tell the room about his opinions, carry on unceasingly like a triangle that's been hit. The sound keeps ringing and ringing. Quieter and quieter until you think it might stop. You listen for the stop but it just gets hit again. Even when it stops the ringing melts in such a way that you think it might be carrying on. Now you're listening for a sound in the silence that no longer exists. Everyone accepts the old man in the pub, because he's there. He's always been there. He's supposed to be there, I guess.

Don't think. Don't think about the sardine can you're going to ride into work. Don't think about the people who'll stare. The ones who care and don't and might. Shoes. Think about the ones you should wear. Is it warm enough for sandals? Will it rain? It's summer. It's England. It's London. Boots it is. In the mirror. Wish I was shorter, slimmer blonder. So cliche. Why must I be so damn cliché? Who cares? I clearly don't. Lies.

“Nell, what are you thinking about?”

I'm startled, I’m at work. I look into her kind, passive blue eyes. The eyes of one of the managers.

"Oh nothing, nothing in particular.” I run my hand through my hair self-consciously. She smiles slightly. Politely.

“You seemed completely lost there for a moment… Did you get my email about the reports?”

“What? Yes.”

I glance at my screen.

“Yes,” I reassure her.

Those reports haunt me, they follow me into my dreams. My bed. His. I look at him. At his dark eyes and his dark brows. What? Yes. I'll try. I nod to marimba rhythms. ‘Yes’, I sing. ‘Yeeees’. He's in me. Hits me somewhere deep where it hurts. It's all in my mind. He looks at me still. I get up and hit my foot on the chair leg.

“Clumsy,” he mutters, shaking his head. Smiling. What a sweet smile he has.

“Are you ok? You look tired.” Tired of you asking.

Sometimes he visits me in my dreams too. Many men visit me in my dreams. Like male succubae. They can't leave me alone. ‘Don't touch me!’ A voice in my head screams. Don't touch me. But he touches me and his fingers knead into my flesh like dough. Like Katy Perry in that music video Bon Appetit. He must touch me. If no one touches me, do I even exist? Do I even matter?

He was cold. So cold. Such a confusing concept when his skin was so hot. His mouth engulfed me with heat. But when he did, it was as if, it was against his will. A vice he had given in to.

“I hate you; you know?” he announced.

“I hate you too,” I responded, as I nuzzled into his chest.

One second, he was affectionate. The next, a compassionless creature, a robot. It wasn’t the first time I’d ended up with one of those. Maybe it was my tendency towards self-destruction. Maybe it was something else. It was hard to tell. The bizarre thing was that I craved him, even as I was repelled by him. Did he feel the same about me? He said I was like a beautiful flower. Funny how women get compared to flowers. The only purpose of flowers, for the most part, is attraction for reproduction. Once the fruit is borne, the flower wilts away.

The next day melted into the one before. That day was different. He cried. And I felt the wetness on his smooth yet rugged, cleansed face with my fingertips. I traced the outline of his cheek and jaw. He did not allow me to lift my head from his chest, furiously wiping what he felt was shameful from his face yet unable to choke the sobs out of existence. I loved him then. I exalted in peeking through the crack in the wall. Though he denied it. He loved me. Even if he did not fully appreciate having me, he was scared to lose me. I was afraid. To harbour my own love is my problem. But the burden of his. What if he changed his course for me?

It could and should not be. I knew I had to run away. Move away quick. Here was a man and he had been nothing to me. Somehow still was and yet somehow was everything. Somehow turned my head like a sudden sound. An ominous sound. A clap of thunder far away. Count it. One, two, three. Lightning. One, two, lightning. One. He was a face on a boat. Bobbing, bobbing, floating away. ‘I'm not ready!’ I cry. Hold on to the rope as it rushes through my palms and cuts them. As I stain the stinging fibres with my blood. As I sink into the sand on the shore, with only the drizzle to wet my face. Only the salted, howling wind writhing at my side. It's over. It's over.

I must forget all about him. Forever. He must be gone. I click my fingers and he's a wisp of smoke. I adjust my skirt and he has dissipated into the atmosphere. Gone. He never existed. He was nothing to me. He was a shimmering mirage. As time went on, I moved closer and closer. The shimmering water was not water at all. Just a mirror. A reflection of the sky. Now I see it is true. Now I see how foolish I was. Moving closer. Hoping. Hoping it was real. Knowing it wasn't. Stupid girl. The stove is hot. Is it really? Burn our fingers to see if it's true.

I’m at my desk. The rain is lightly bumping into the window next to me and sliding down. I shake my head, trying to shake the pictures there out of existence. Of fools and lovers. One and the same.

Don’t think.

If only it were that easy.