Girlfriend

I’m sitting on a pier at the seaport of the small village where my girlfriend used to live. The sea is still, the scent of marine life, fish and sea-weed is very pleasing. I’m holding my cellphone, searching through my contacts to try and find her number, although I know it’s not there. I try retrieving her number via an SMS service. After a few attempts I recieve her number, but instead of calling her, I just get up and start walking to her house, a couple of hundred yards up the road. I’m thinking about the fact that she is married now, that her mother, who she used to live with before she got married, is 10 years older now, and that the cat we used to have has died – things I was never there to see.

On my way I meet people I got familiar with back then, but they all seem like strangers to me now, and they behave like strangers too. Some are doing some gardening and pretending not to notice me. Others I meet almost face to face on the road give me cold stares.

I reach my girlfriend’s house. A car I don’t recognize is parked in the driveway. The house has been painted blue, and I can see that it has layers and layers of paint underneath, applied there after my time. Slowly, I walk up the stairs to he front door and open it. She’s standing right there waiting for me. She’s very thin, very sad and a bit anxious. She gently bites her lower lip. I remember her doing so all the time, and it pleases me, both watching her doing so, and the memories of it. She says we have to hurry and run away.

We’re running. We’re desperate, we just want to find a shelter, somewhere to lay down, some peace. I feel happiness, loss, sadness and hope, all at once. I can’t stop looking at her, and I can’t get her image out of my skull. And I can’t wait to touch her again. But we have to wait until we’re safe.

We end up in a small shed. The sunlight comes in through cracks in the wood. At first we just sit there next to each other. I can feel the warmth of her body, the running has made us both damp with sweat. She starts undressing me, so I start undressing her. All the while she’s looking straight at me, while her beautiful green eyes tell me that she’s been longing for this since we parted. When we’re both finally undressed, our surroundings have suddenly changed – we’re now in bed in her room at home. It’s warm and delightful, and we kiss for a long time, which feels just as good as I had wished – her kisses are incredibly sweet and I’m feeling even more happy and content. Watching and touching her body again is so fulfilling, I feel almost absolute bliss. Then we lay down, and we make love.

We’re walking downtown. She’s strutting with pride and she’s bombarding me with compliments; mostly for coming all this way to save her, but also for my features, my good kisses, my whole person. I’m perfectly silent. I just enjoy watching her. Her figure is back to normal, her face has got it’s colour back. All around us I can feel the envy of everyday people. We stroll for a long time, sharing thoughts on the matters we used to care for, talk about music and movies, and stealing kisses all the time.

We move inside the local cinema. We walk upstairs to the projector room and I sit down. She starts feeding a reel of film into the projector. The lights go out and she starts the projector. It’s a film showing her and her new husband. At first it all seems very romantic and nice, but then, suddenly, disturbing images of him beating and torturing her appear. I start to cry. She’s crying too. Now there’s a sudden coldness all around; it seems that somehow, her husband got inside the theatre, looking for her. He wants to kill us both. We try escaping down the stairs, but halfway I lose sight of her. For a long time I just run and run downwards, and I can’t understand where I am. I can hear her calling my name far away. Eventually I reach a door. I burst outside into the sunlight. I’m back at the pier.

I realize that I’ve been dreaming the whole thing, which makes me so very sad. I start fiddling with my cellphone again, feeling desperate…

… and then I wake up.