What was abnormal to her was normal to him. He’d thought he’d noticed something a little different in the way she walked, the way she held herself. The way she favoured her right leg. Seeing her prosthesis was actually a welcome relief. Finally, someone who knew. Someone who’d experienced something major. Someone whose blessed life had been marred by the reality of something that ‘only happens to other people’. Not that he’d wish trauma on anyone, and not that he didn’t wish April hadn’t been through whatever she’d been through, but as morbid as it was, it was reassuring to find someone who in some way might understand the life he’d lived.
Zac went back inside and looked around his sparse house. Still more to do, but no rush. But there was something missing. Something he needed to do soon, to make the place feel right.
He went to the corner of the living room and opened a box marked ‘personal’. He retrieved a tattered shoebox and opened the lid, memories gushing out and hitting him like a blow to the head. Although it hurt to look at the photos, ignoring them would be worse. He would not do that to his best friend, the person who’d been the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had. Zac placed the framed photo of himself with Johnny, when they were about eleven years old, on the mantle above the fireplace. All goofy grins, skinny limbs, and tanned faces from many Australian summers spent in tropical Far North Queensland. Next to it he placed the photo of Johnny in his army uniform, taken before his first rotation in Afghanistan, and another of himself with Johnny, before their second rotation, and only months before …
The visual memory formed with painful clarity then shattered into thousands of tiny shards. How had Johnny gone from alive to dead so quickly? At what point had he ceased to exist? What was his last thought, his last sight, his last feeling? It had all happened so fast. It was so incomprehensible, so unfair, so …
Zac’s thoughts and memories never finished themselves, never rounded out, always broke off and hung about in uncertainty and disbelief, without the closure he needed. That’s one of the reasons the poems helped. He could finish a poem, he could try to make sense of things and give it an ending. That elusive little dot at the end of a sentence. September first, in just under five months, would be that little dot. It would mark the end of one thing, and the beginning of another. Getting there in one piece was another matter, but if there was one thing that growing up without a proper family had taught him, it was to rely on himself. Get himself through. He could do it. He had to. If not for himself, for Johnny.
Zac straightened up and that familiar pull of the muse beckoned him. Or was it resolve? Resolve to not just get through, but try to make the most of his existence. He’d been the lucky one, though the guilt had paralysed him for too long. Maybe now it was time to not only survive, but thrive. He owed it to the ones who didn’t come home. Somehow, he would find a way to live for all of them.
Zac opened his laptop and typed into his blog. The subscriber list had grown by around a hundred in the last week alone. He didn’t know how. He didn’t do much promotion. But word had gotten out. Who is the mystery poet? some would comment on his posts. Who was he, really? That, he was still figuring out.
THE ILLUSION OF TIME
Life is fleeting though we realise too late
Before we know it we’ve sealed our fate
We think that forever will take much longer
But time grows weaker and our regrets, stronger
An affinity for infinity has always ruled my mind
But here in this body, time is my bind
I believe in the eternal, for the soul not the flesh
And so while I am here, body and soul I must mesh
Live bravely with passion, don’t let pain make you numb
And don’t rely on forever, it will not come
Life is in the now, that’s where we have to live
Don’t wait, don’t hold back, give all you’ve got to give.
* * *
He seriously got you to lay on his lawn and look at clouds??!!
Zoe’s text reply to April’s detailed summary of her lunchbreak spent with Zac came with several emoticons showing varying states of surprise and shock. She’d also sent the same summary to Olivia, who’d replied:
Reading bedtime story to Mia, will reply properly later!
April lay in bed, her bedside candle glowing a light pink, though not as bright as her phone. She replied to Zoe: Yep. What’s he doing to me!
Zoe: Seducing you with his charm and quirkiness by the looks of it. Can you send a photo?
April: No! How am I supposed to take a discreet photo?
Zoe: Who said it has to be discreet? Waltz on over there and take charge like he does, tell him to smile, and bingo!
April: I don’t waltz. And that’ll only spur him on.
Zoe: Exactly. A good fling will set you free.
April: ‘Uncomplicated’, remember?
Zoe: Ape, complicated is living next door to a guy who is as hot as you say he is and not making the most of it. You’ll send yourself mad.
April: Zooey, there is more to life than hot guys and flings.
Zoe: I know, like hot neighbours and flings. Seriously, he sounds intriguing. Go with it. Get to know him. If he flirts, flirt back. See where it goes. Enjoy your life, girl.
He was intriguing. And the whole cloud thing was kind of cute. Not to mention him being the only person to treat her like a normal person after seeing her leg. Who was he, really? Some philosophical blogger poet dude with plenty of time on his hands. But what else? Finding out could be more interesting than television, or Facebook. She would give it till the end of April to suss him out further. If he seemed to be just a perpetual bachelor looking to charm his way into her life only to weave his way back out and leave her emotions in a mess, she’d forget the whole thing. But if they had the potential to be friends, then that would be worthwhile. Anything more than that she couldn’t comprehend right now with someone she barely knew, but … images formed in her mind and she shook them away. Just a normal human response, imagining someone naked. Not that she had to imagine too much, after the three am naked-in-the-kitchen Love, Actually incident. She had barely thought of anyone of the opposite sex since Kyle, but the accident was over two years ago. Maybe things were shifting, and like Zoe said, it was time to enjoy her life … get her glow back, like her mother had said when she suggested April take up a new hobby, or do art therapy, or group therapy for amputees, or something to help her deal with what had happened and get that natural spark back in her daughter.
Her phone beeped and she jumped.
Olivia: Your life is so interesting, why can’t mine be like that?
April replied: You have a beautiful daughter, you’re a lucky woman.
Olivia: I know. And here’s a pic of her sleeping, isn’t she adorable?
Olivia often sent photos of Mia, or posted them on Facebook. Mia, and the bookstore, was her whole life.
April: Takes after her mum.
Olivia: Aww. Hugs. Sooo … read any of that book yet? Might help take your mind of Mr Neighbour. Or make you think of him, one or the other!
April withdrew the rural romance book from her bedside drawer, laughing that it was on top of the unused condom box she’d bought at her friend’s insistence.
She eyed the cover model’s bare chest. Not as nice as Zac’s, she thought, then replied to Olivia: I’ll start reading it tonight.
And though she tried to deny it, she knew that deep down she also meant that from tonight, she’d start enjoying her life more. And if that enjoyment included a certain man with a name starting with Z, then so be it.
* * *
As Zac allowed the water in the bathtub to surrender his tired muscles to the welcome feeling of weightlessness, words floated through his mind. Random at first, then related. Phrases, joining and merging together like one drop of water connecting with another. He’d thought it was another poem about Johnny, or about his tumultuous journey, but no. This time, the words were different. Unfamiliar. Dangerous. But they came anyway. He got out of the tub, not bothering to dry himself off as he walked to his laptop and allowed the words to spill onto the screen:
UNTOUCHED
We’ve smiled, we’ve spoken
Though you don’t know that I’m broken
I’m already caught in your net
But we haven’t even touched yet
The feel of your skin
My yang to your yin
I want it. But I’m scared
I’m open. I’m bared.
He stood, suddenly naked, vulnerable. Then he closed the laptop down hard and went to his room. The calendar next to his bed reminded him to stay focused. No complications, no risks, and that meant no women. He had to keep the status quo until September first. But how could he strike a balance between making the most of his life and making sure he didn’t risk going back to his old ways?
It was time to call someone he hadn’t felt the need to call in a while.