Sleep

It's dusk. The windows are slightly open, but I don't bother to get up and close them properly. It is with a tinge of sadness that I see the last rays of sun disappear.

It's night. The blinds are half drawn, but I don't bother to get up and draw them fully. It is with a sense of dread that I see that darkness has fallen.

I'm lying in bed, flitting in and out of sleep. I tell myself I have to get up, I have things to do, so many things to do. But I don't move. I don't want to get up and face the things I have to do.

And with each passing moment, the sense of sadness and the sense of dread grows. I don't want to deal with it. So I close my eyes, and allow myself to drift once more to sleep.

Sleep, is where I am free.

Despite

... everything that has happened, and everything that has been said,

... the temporary distractions, and the temporary life,

I miss him.

Cheeky

And of all the things she liked about him, what she liked best, was how alive she felt when she was with him.

He had that look on his face again. So she grinned and asked what he was thinking.

You know, you have this very cheeky look on your face. Makes me wonder what you're thinking.

And she laughed, delightedly.

Because no one had ever described her as cheeky.

Expecting

She woke up and switched on her computer.

You have no new messages.

She was surprised, even a little disappointed. She had gotten used to daily banter with a stranger, and the delight that accompanied each new message. Each new message that made her laugh for different reasons.

She lingered for a while... then she sighed, and switched off her computer.

Eyes wide closed

I sat down on the tiled bathroom floor next to him and lifted his head, so that he could rest it on my thigh. He looked slightly happier then, resting his head on my thigh. And as I spoke to him, I stroked his head. Ever so gently, just so he would know that he was loved.

Sometimes, he'd close his eyes, only to open them later to look up at me. I'm here darling, I'm here. Do you know how much I love you?

And then he'd close his eyes again.

Walking with Grace

He watched her eyes sparkling with mirth and mischief, as her face lit up now and again with the brilliance of her smile. The setting : the backdrop of the Singapore skyline, and the ever increasingly noisy New Asia Bar.

It had felt like a quiet little pub when they arrived, rather along the lines of Que Pasa... but as time flew by (as it always did around her) the music became ever louder and the beat began to pound. Girls were standing up to dance... and somewhat insiduously, they had been transported into an upmarket reveller's night club.

He had always hated struggling to make himself heard at clubs and watching people's lips move silently in stark, frustrating incomprehension. Other people always seemed to have the gift - he suspected he was born a little deaf.

Yet somehow they spoke effortlessly through the din, engaging each other with their eyes and thoughts.

Afterwards as they walked, and talked their ways back to the car enjoying the crisp coolness of a rained-out night sky, their hands brushed once or twice. They spoke, and laughed, and teased each other as they always did.

Something she said sparked yet another in the mounting chain of mock-retaliatory-tickles and counter-pokes-in-sides they had been sharing, and then, rather naturally they found themselves walking hand in hand.