THE RIGHT TIME

It felt like I had been there forever, just waiting on the other side of the door. And at times it seemed like it was just a moment, a flashing, fleeting moment that repeated itself constantly. It had no beginning and no ending, apparently. Though I wished for an ending of some sort, or at least something that would take things further, farther from that enclosed space.

The knock on the door shook him up as if it was the first time he heard such a noise. Maybe it was. He turned his head, but his body seemed numb. Just like a painfully slow realization, his chest made a forward gesture impelled by the door itself. His watery eyes accompanied all the motions with a detachment that seemed impossible, but it was there, somewhat accentuated.

He stopped short all of a sudden, doubting his own senses and had to be reassured by a second knock that would come just as the first one did. How could he be that confident that it would come again? He was. And it did. It sounded even louder and startled him to his very soul. It came from the inside and he was alone in the apartment.

After advancing a couple of steps, he remained still and listened, the door was slightly open. He reached his hand towards the knob and simply pushed.

That my presence in that room, seating by the window, would go undetected by him came as no surprise, but I thought that day, or in that moment, things might be different. For starters he had heard the knock, and it was certainly not my first time doing that.

Nothing on the other side... After a few moments of searching with an isolated semblance, he decided it was enough.

There was very little I could do, he would have to meet me halfway or nowhere at all.

He moved away and closed the door behind him. He lingered on the hallway though, hesitant, and a knot on his stomach began to develop unhurriedly. He could measure his own lethargy and was slightly taken aback. What was it? That perceived distance inside himself? His own destitute self? Some form of neglect suddenly becoming tangible? But why? Was there even an actual knock on that damn door!

I suddenly felt like crying, I really hoped something amazing would happen on that occasion, it had to. But once again, it did not. I wanted to yell at him or even throw something, but my disillusionment was too overwhelming. How could someone live with that much timidity and fearfulness! I longed for a look, something, but no, not that day.

Repetition had worked though.

There is so much to repetition, to things coming back, to words finally reaching their destination, to an image slowly catching up to its meaning, to sidewalks, doorsteps that finally seem to make sense, to wandering through a perpetually familiar place and yet something different, something that only the passing of time could factor in. How can time be so unforgivably underestimated! When it is all there is, all we have and it molds us like no other thing in life… Repetition had done its magic, he was there because of it. The knocks had always been there, he only just listened to them by way of sheer insistence, just… time being time.

He would forget all about that incident of course, he would actually convince himself that it had never happened and he was successful at that. But the knot in his stomach got more intense and never left him. And the eyes… the light behind them was gone. I would like to think that I took it from him. That was the least he could do, just leave it with me, I would take better care of it and he knew that too; that was the tragedy of it. But then again, he believed in tragedy, he felt more at home there, at least he was safe from foreignness.

I guess the connection I longed for was better left alone in another moment in time. And it was there, somewhere, very much alive, repeating itself eternally.