the way sound fills

In the middle of the night we smiled and looked down the long parking lot. With our eyes I scanned for the both of us and felt that the cars were moving too fast. So I moved us along quickly and the horns were loud when there was no one else walking. It must have meant they were honking at us. I smiled again and felt the touch of her hand; it was cold and she didn’t wear gloves. I liked how she didn’t care and would rather feel the world around her than cover her tiny fingers in the warmth of wool or cotton. As if masking her skin would somehow diminish the experience of living.

When the moon was at its tiniest, we were far away from the parking lot, over the concrete mountains. In the back there was the distant sound of the street. Lights hummed and I could hear almost nothing except her shallow breathing. Then in an instant we fell…

Tumbling down and down. There was a lot of swishing past my ears. The sound of air moving so fast that I couldn’t even see or think. All I did was rub my nose as we fell. Because it was so cold that it became numb. Her hand was still in mine, and when we stopped we had stopped on a cold patch of wet lawn. The streets were so far away now. The lights were gone and it was almost nothing. Just the tiny moon overhead casting faint shadows on the green grass. She shined so bright. The stars were gone and it was black in the sky. A dull mist was high up and she told me all sorts of things. But I wasn’t really listening, just taking in the noise itself. She knew it, that’s why I guessed none of it was important. What was important was that we talked to kill the silence. It was like filling a city with people.

Empty towns can be one of the most depressing things ever she told me one night before. And that’s what I remembered now as I filled in the lack of streetlights and cars. The lack of any other people. When she let go of my hand and went home it was terrifying. Because here I was alone so far away from everyone. Her voice was gone and the world was emptying itself out again.

It made me truly understand how important she was to me. She was probably the most important thing in my life. And I meant it. I didn’t tell her but I knew. Mostly it was this great thing inside of me. Like when you try and size something up for someone and they do it with both hands. Stretching them out longer and longer until it reaches that perfect width and height. She meant this much to me and I stretched out as far as I could.

Then I walked home with the pale moonlight glowing, like those streetlights that now lined the sidewalk to my room. And from the window I fell asleep in silence thinking about her, bathed in the white light, making my dreams these surreal landscapes with no people, and only the sounds of before to fill it all up and make it worth dreaming. I think in that moment of lucidity, after having spent the whole night with her, all of this clicked. And it stained itself on the inside of my head. Like paint running along concrete and filling in all the cracks. It became this vivid message, and I clung to it like gold. It was the most valuable thing ever.

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the bear.