I posted this a few days ago but I realized it wasn’t finished. This piece of writing, I am most proud of, here is A Gleam Of Light
A gleam of light from the street lamp up ahead radiates and reaches her eyes as she looks into his. It’s the twenty-seventh smile she’s shone his way this night but he’s trying not to count. Smiling back like he had a choice, the twenty-something year old man looks down at his watch and sees the night is closing. Another hour and the sun will show the darkness its light.
Any other given night he would have been in a deep sleep until the droning noise from the alarm clock sounded. The sound signaling it was time to be an adult yet again.
However this night, this night is a night to be a child in love. It is conflict free and littered with happiness. The details of the relationship are void and serve no purpose to this night. The only thing worth knowing is that it had been years since he saw her; and he had no idea how he made it that long without seeing a face like hers.
Her bright blue irises were a syringe injecting a drug into his blood and he didn’t want to stop the addiction. She had even asked him why he looked at her the way he did. He told her he never saw eyes that quenched all his worries before. Her face turned red and he stole a kiss on her cheeks.
He took her hand when he saw snowflakes melting on her bare skin. A light drizzling of snow continued on, covering the roads and sidewalks with a thin layer of white. Friction is created between their palms that turned to a spark when the beating in his chest couldn’t be contained. He raises her hand and kissed just above her knuckles. It is a move that proved again he isn’t after her body but her heart. The smile that pressed on her face and rosy red cheeks told him he already had it.
Their light back and forth conversation went on talking of yesteryears and days gone by. The memories of the past remind him that his timing had always been unfortunate in all ways; too early, too late, somehow too in the middle. But this night seemed quell those times because nothing else mattered compared to her. She is the object of his desire – his obsession.
Upon passing the street lamp, a darkness appears on her face that is more than just the absence of physical light. He asks her what is wrong but she stays silent. No words are needed anyway. He knows what’s bothering her so.
It was the separation of years between them. It is knowledge that after this night is over, the reality of life will take the place of the peaceful bliss. It is the belief that their lives aren’t meant to stay intertwined.
Sometime later still during the waning minutes of the night, they sat at a bus stop bench. Their hands were no longer together. The quiet has haunted him ever since it began; ever since they passed the street lamp. He yearns to go back to when the ray of light stretched across her face.
People always asked him if he wanted something fast or forever. Thinking upon the hours that led him to the bus bench with her, he thinks that it was a flash faster than anything he experienced before.
He wants to say something, say anything to give her some measure of comfort. Never did he want the night to end this way. He searches for words but they escape him in the way that eye floaters evade direct sight. Abandoning the comfort of words for touch, he slides against her and puts his arm around her. She leans her head against his shoulder and by the look on her face, is soon asleep.
It is now that the first sign of light peaks over the horizon. Down the street, a bus turns onto the road and drives towards them.
He holds onto her as if he would never get to again. The fear in his heart tells him so. Taking the precious last moments he has, he presses his lips against the top of her head.
The night is over.
Morning is here.
The fear of today and tomorrow had been ridden away earlier but now they return.
Speaking her name softly into her ear, he wakes her to enter the bus. He stands next to her with a heavy heart.
People always asked him if he wanted something fast or forever. When he thought on the night that brought him to the morning, he knew what he had was entirely fast.
He wonders a question he can’t find the answer to.
Why can’t he have something fast and forever?
He disregards the question because there is no answer and follows her onto the bus.
1/22/15
Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn
ZinnWrites 