Silent Watching

This morning is a dark one. The light from the sunrise is muted behind the grays and blacks of clouds, which converge across the horizon. Amnia wakes quickly and she watches the shadows from the ceiling fan, flickering as the clouds pass, shift shapes. Lightning flashes. In the brief illumination, she sees herself. Her tears are reflected back to herself by the small mirror in her bathroom. Jarred by the sight of her tears, she reaches out to the unoccupied side of her bed. Her hands only feel the cold, dry empty sheets.

John.

She tries to push his name out of her mind, struggling to hear anything but the quiet of the room. She counts the seconds, anticipating thunder. Anxiously, she rubs the covers. Moving out from under them, she feels her naked body shiver slightly. She turns onto her stomach, feeling her breasts crushed under her weight. Finally, the thunder pushes the silence out of the room. Only to remind her...

Far.

There had only been one night without silence, one night where she felt the warmth of another body, and heard her own voice out loud.

"Why do you have to leave?" I have no shame--her mind screamed quietly. Please don't leave. I want more than one night.

Without acknowledging her voice, John had continued dressing.

"Can't you tell me when you will be back? Why don't you answer me?" Why don't I stop? He doesn't care--he doesn't know--how much I want him here.

John had then slowly sat on her bed, pausing to look at her only for a few seconds. "Amnia, I don't know when I will be back." He started to put his socks on. "But, if you make a big deal, I won't want to come back."

Amnia voice caught in her throat, preventing her from her from asking,"Why didn't you tell me that you were only to stay a day?" I will just lay here huddled in my little corner of the bed.

The night before he had called to tell her that he had finished a project. An important project, he emphasized, "I didn't want you to see me frantically trying to finish. That's why I didn't call before."

"But I could have helped. Been some comfort." Perhaps, he answered, but tonight, let's just celebrate.

They went out to dinner, at her favorite place, and talked about school. He excitedly said how this was a great turning point in his research. She watched him, being filled with his excitement.

I will push this doubt away--it doesn't matter that he needed time apart. His work is important. I know that. I love that. And he's here now. "So how long will you stay with me? There's this movie I have been wanting us to see. Now that your project is done, I want us to-" He wasn't listening. She noticed him staring off in the other direction, not looking at her face.

"John?" He tells her, I am leaving in the morning, I only have this evening. She said nothing in reply. She had vowed to enjoy this one night with him, regardless of the silence in the morning.

Amnia gets up from her bed. She listlessly walks around, almost stretching, almost ready for the day. She picks up her philosophy paper, which is due today. She sets it down and notices her journal. She reads the journal entry from the night before, and tears it out. Thunder rumbles off in the distance.

***

A man and woman on screen discussed a very important discovery. At least this is what she assumed--the sound of the TV was off, so Amnia didn't know for sure. She was curled up, a blanket cozily wrapped around her. She had been lying there, in the same position, all afternoon, except for getting up once to get a snack.. She told herself, when she woke up that morning , that the day was too bleak to go outside, explaining to herself that she could drop off her philosophy paper, or that there weren't any important class discussions she would miss, just lectures, which she could later get the notes on. Anyway, she decided that she deserved a day off just for herself.

Her journal was beside her, open to a blank page, her books were unopened, and her phone had not rung once. She just laid there popping some chips into her mouth, examining the man and the woman on the screen, noticing the puffiness of the woman's eyes, and the strange outfit of the man. Her mind wandered, and she shifted onto her side, curling up into the fetal position. Her back felt cold, even with the blanket tightly around her body.

So she indulged in fantasy. She imagined John walking into the room, casually sitting on the couch beside her. She could almost actually really see him. His body sort of shimmered, waning in and out of existence, like a phantom or ghost. She imagined her nonchalantly nodding at him, then continuing to enjoy her movie and eat her chips. He then slipped under the blanket, and held her tight. His body fit perfectly, her back pressed up against his hard long bony chest, his breathe warmly, softly brushing her neck, his hand cupping her breast. She would continue to pop chips into her mouth, imagining the two of them laying there, quietly watching the movie together.

Then she would ask, "John , do you remember when we first met?" He would whisper yes.

"Do you remember when we first had sex?" Yes, he would answer, again.

"Well, I was remembering the first time we met, how we listened to each other for hours, so intently, then finally we ended up saying nothing. We just held each other." He would reply, that wasn't what happened when we first met. That was a fews weeks later, when we had gotten to know each other better.

"Yes, and you held me just as tightly as you are now. Except you would pull away sometimes, and look at my face, examining bits and pieces of it, pointing to a freckle, or my nose or eyes, telling me, 'This is why I love you.' I giggled, insisting that my freckle or nose or eyes or whatever weren't that valuable. But you went on and insisted that was what made you love me." Then, she imagined the lying there, holding each other, silently remembering together.

"What I remember," John would then say, "Is how I never wanted to leave. I thought that if I got up and walked away and ended that day, our time together would be over forever. That you were a temporary gift, given to me. I could have you as long as I stayed and never left. But, the very instant I would finally have to go, and even after making plans to see you again, poof you would be gone, you would disappear. No--it would be like it never happened. As if I had never met you, had never held you. So I held you as tightly as I could and --remember--you finally had to thow me out. You were very calm about throwing me out. I admired that. You explained that you loved me and all that, but you needed to have some reflection time, or something."

Seeing the credits roll by on the television screen, for some reason, jarred her fantasy. She felt cold again, John's body suddenly gone, his breath disappeared from her neck, the room eerily empty. She picked up her journal, poised to write, listening to the silence of the room.

***

At first he called it fascination. All it amounted to was a few stares, some stolen glances. He watched her long neck, slightly bent forward, as she wrote furiously during an exam. Her legs, almost sticks, poked out from under skirts, feet tapping nervously. He watched her walking across campus, dropping books, absently walking into the wrong classroom. He saw water dribbling down her blouse while she drank at the water fountain. He began following her, smoking his pipe, walking amiably along, commenting to students along the way. He was just taking a walk--with one purpose in mind. Watching.

He kept this new hobby to himself--a part of him knew it was kind of odd, particularly for a man of his stature. The other part avoided even considering what he was doing. A self-divided, he laughed, to himself, for that was the title of his new book. A self-divided, a new perspective on modern philosophical thought, 1860-1910. It was still being looked at by his editor, one more draft to go. Perhaps I will dedicate the book to her, To Amnia, the otherside of myself considered.

Listening, watching, distracted, happy--he was content following along, an impartial observer. For as long as she kept coming to class, he was satisfied. Along the bay they walked--in his mind, hand in hand--watching the sunset together. He laughed at his somber fascade while he taught class, and then imagined him stealing a kiss, catching her in the shadows, and then their planning their lives together.

This is so good, he thought. 50 years old and he finally found happiness, and ironically enough, it was contained in the most easy, passive and simply activity of watching. His wife noticed his change, commenting on his good mood., asking him if he had indigestion or something. His therapist, of course took credit for it, and his best friend at first said that the Prozac must be kicking in, but later asked what the name of the hooker was. In response he only chuckled. Their sarcasm couldn't puncture his mood.

Students began coming up to him after class, actually trying to make conversation with him. One group even invited him to go to a cafe after class, sit around and shot the bull, drink coffee, be friendly. He declined, in an amiable way, because he feared it would interfere with his watching. The only person who didn't notice his change was Amnia. She continued to challenge him in class, disagreeing with him, her beautiful words out of her ferocious red lips. She walked the same path after class, and, he presumed, lived in a world completely oblivious to anything except her own thoughts. He completely understood this--in fact, he realised, he adored this.

But today, she didn't go to class, he noticed, but just dropped off her paper. Even so afterwards he walked the same path. He had been lonely, with nothing, no one to watch. Then, while he was grading his papers, he came saw a handwritten piece of paper. It was ripped out of some kind of notebook, and looked like a journal entry and tt was underneath the paper that Amnia had written, so he thought it might be hers. He considered for a moment that perhaps Amnia knew about his fascination for her, and so had decided to reveal herself to him. He decided that was ridicules, and that it must have been an accident--a discarded entry that she had mistakenly turned in with her paper. He felt like it was a blessing, something to make up for the fact that he didn't get to watch her today.

April 21, 2:34 AM

This is love. That is what I realised when I was first with John. It was so different from any experience, any emotion, with anyone else. Everyone else I either feel to distant to care, or with my parents, or Mary, too close, too filled with anger and disappointment, to feel the longing I feel with John. I tried to explain this feeling to Mary, but of course she had only nodded skeptically, "Just wait until he fucks up, leaves or whatever." Or Mary would grill me about what I loved about John. "Look, we are best friends because we are so alike. We have everything in common, or what is different, is so insignificant and only a matter of taste. But you are a writer, into the humanities, and John's a linear scientist--I mean, how do you bridge that gap? You don't even like the same novels--for god sakes he loves the Hobbit and you can't stand it. So you will just have to explain your love to me."

But I didn't want to. I wanted to announce that I loved John, to everyone I met, and to everyone else I will ever care about, but really only to make a note, a small one, to say, see you fools, this is love. It needs no explanation or elaboration. It is beyond doubt. It is happiness and inloveness all rolled up into one big fat emotional ball, which fuels my existence. I want to lecture Mary on the nature of love, but of course I kept my mouth shut. I imagined my standing at a lecturn, while she took notes, "You see, love isn't simply loving yourself, loving your clone. It isn't simply a mirror--it is feeling complete, feeling whole, and also feeling yourself growing, to become more of yourself in the process. John and I fit, we are an unit. Don't you see how complete and good that is?"

But I know that Mary wouldn't see. This is her huge blind spot, and those blinders keep me from turning to her whenever I feel hurt by John. I don't want to be told, "I told you so." No matter how implicit it is. I just want comfort, just a friend, not judgment. No matter how much John might ever hurt me, it will never be in the same way Mary lets me down. I know that John loves me in a way that doesn't require me to be an extension of himself. Mary only fills the needs that we have in common. Otherwise, I am alone, and you, journal, are my comfort.

***

"This is so wonderful, so unexpected," she exclaimed when John woke her up, sliding into bed next to her and laying a bunch of roses on top of the covers, "I wrote about you in my journal last night."

"You did?" He replied, placing exuberant kisses on her neck.

"It was about how I fell in love with you. The first night. Remember?" She moaned with pleasure.

"About how I didn't want to leave and finally you kicked me out?"

"Yes." She said, smiling, pulling him under the covers, knocking the roses onto the floor.