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:[We Meet...]:
author: marxandengels
rating:
P.G.-13 for that which is not described (Ooooh!), but then I'm terrible at rating things, so who knows.
disclaimer:
As for copyright, it's all mine through crafty and evil failure to use proper nouns. ( That aside, it's O/f )
archive:
Archive as you see fit.
author's comments:
Nods of inspiration to Germaine Greer and Iris-Wildthyme-out-of-Doctor-Who. It's less than 900 words, so you might as well read it, eh?.
We meet, as such acquaintances do, in a café near the city centre. The passing traffic competes for attention with the jukebox nestled at the back of the room, next to the facilities. I slip the book I have been reading into my bag as he arrives, and he raises an eyebrow at the title as it slips from his view. I meet his gaze. He is the first to falter. I smile, it's irrelevant. Smiles diffuse tension so well, I find. Has he been taking care of himself? Yes, eating and, yes, sleeping healthily. I show surprise, not entirely insincere. Well, there's the boy to think of, is his answer. Got to set an example, you know how it is. I nod yes. He has a beard now, the undisciplined sort that suggests a lack of intention. I sometimes wonder if men know how women feel about beards. His hair, by contrast - Deliberate?, I muse - has been trimmed recently, but still brushes his shoulders. We negotiate our way through the usual formalities of weather and health, and he asks where I've been these past few months. I recount my recent adventures, filling in some details since our last meeting. He responds with interested nods and polite questioning, the occasional laugh at the more humorous interludes. Is there a hint of jealousy as he listens? I prefer to think not. His tales are more domestic. Caring for his young charge, the trials of the parental role. But so rewarding, he assures me. To help another grow and learn, a symbiotic relationship. Giving something back to the Universe. He tells me these things with enthusiasm, selling a lifestyle. Don't you want one?, he asks. I shake my head. Too much responsibility, too much regulation, too much damned effort. I value my current freedom, I tell him. Maybe later, but not at our age. He gets an odd look in his eyes. Well, yes, but still...there are different kinds of freedom, he falters slightly. This is so rewarding, so challenging. And as he gets older, well, there are opportunities even now. But maybe I need a break from all that adventuring. It gets a little selfsame. And this is so rewarding, of course. No mention, I note, of a promise of care extracted in exceptional circumstances, of a relationship seeded in failure. Or of a fear of further failure when success may bring redemption. Is it our surroundings, or am I no longer considered close enough to cry on? This has been my worry where he is concerned. At the time he needs support to acclimatise to his new life, his contemporaries are moving off into their own worlds, his path one we plan to tread later, once we have had the chance to explore existence for ourselves. The very nature of his new life deprives him of the help he needs to understand it. Meetings like this will become rarer, I know. He knows this too. Distance has many meanings, and alas they often converge. This is the context in which one of us casually asks, and the other one responds in the affirmative, and we leave the café together.
The rooms in this establishment are rather pointedly available to rent by the hour, but there isn't much alternative. He has the boy to consider, and my place is not an option. Does he know why? So, seedy it must be. The proprietor hands over the keys with a deliberate glance at the clock on the wall behind him. Your time starts now.
Objectively, it's good but nothing our kind can't get easily elsewhere. The mental communion we sought to balance the physical has a few awkward false starts before we decide not to bother. The uncertain silence afterwards is broken by constraints of time. The keys are returned to knowing innuendoes and a filthy grin.
Another café, because a return to the first seems conspicuous. There is no change in interaction - the union during our bought time was a recurrence rather than an alteration. Our kind sees these things from an unusual perspective, I suppose. We talk of old friends and new plans, watching the world go by outside. We run from laughter to solemnity and back again. Time imposes upon us once more. We exchange platitudes, and arrange to meet tomorrow, as I will be in town for the next few days. We walk out into a slight rain, and part for our respective homes. I have to start getting packed for my next journey, he has to take care of the boy he chose by circumstance. He mentioned, as we sat in our second café, that travel didn't really appeal anyway. That the boy was company if nothing else, and that gallivanting off on his own would have been too lonely to contemplate even if he'd had the choice. Isolation, he had maintained, would have been worse. He said he didn't know how I coped with all that solitary travelling. He has direction, stability and purpose, what else could he want? Oh, and...speaking of travelling...since we're on the subject...he was just wondering...did I know if any of the others would be passing through the city any time soon?
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