The Shape of What Remains » Entries
Another day, another midwestern city. And yet everywhere feels like exile. Well, except home. But if home is who rather than where and if I have no means to reach them, isn’t that, too, exile? Not as punitive cause, but as lived effect. To be barred from another by mere incarnation alone. A prisoner of my own knowing.
8:49. Another security checkpoint.
The conveyor has stopped moving. Not broken — just full. Jammed actually. By neglect. Empty trays from passengers long gone sit end-to-end, an unmoving logjam blocking the ones still coming through the scanner. People stand waiting, watching their bags sit just out of reach on the other side of the partition, as though the problem might resolve itself if enough of us stare at it.
There was a time until quite recently when I would have watched, too. I would have stood behind the other travelers, arms crossed, curious to see who would move first. How long it would take. What it revealed about people. I would have found it interesting. I would have written something sharp about it later. It’s what you do when all the world is a window, and you’re always on the wrong side of the glass.
Always the seer. Never the seen.
I step forward, stack the empty trays, slide them to the side. The belt resumes. Bags appear. People collect their things. No one notices me. I don’t need them to. My tray comes through. I take my things, stack my tray with the others, and walk toward the gate. No one in that line knows what I carry. No one needs to.
1,500 miles later, the hotel restaurant is empty. 4:30. I’m early. Seated for dinner immediately. Nothing but light jazz overhead. I’m hungry. The menu lists items I’d like but nothing I need. Mine is an extraordinary hunger. I order, eat, go through the motions of a night in another city.
The music changes. Kiss of Life. Sade’s voice begins — then dissolves, and another takes her place. Seamless. Intimate. Beloved.
Part lullaby.
Part plea.
All reminder...
“Sir, are you okay? Can I get you another drink?” The server’s voice is warm but careful. “No, I’m good.” He lingers a beat, head cocked — not quite believing me. The song ended long ago. Long enough for him to have caught me mid-trance. Mid-world. Mid-coincidence?
No. There are no coincidences.
Not anymore.
Night fell. I know not when. The room is dark, save for a lone corner lamp. Midnight shimmers on the bedside clock as I rise to draw the curtains.
In the glass, where my reflection once transposed across the years, another looks back. I place my hand to the surface. Our hands almost touch, millimeters yet worlds apart. Nothing but cold, earthly glass between.
My chest tightens. A seizing ache no one can see or treat. Almost no one.
A high price for heaven. One I’d pay again and again. No fear. No regret. But long are these days of bitter empty.
Heavier still, this weight of absence.
And as I stare into the window, I know — there has only ever been one road.
This road.
Home.
Dean Bowman
Dean Bowman
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