Noise (30 min a day writing challenge, day 1)

The noise was like TV static slipping through every open space in the city. It hung low and alert, alive and aware. The footsteps of heel clad and painted feet, of sneaker wearing athlete and flip- flopped youth gave the city its cadence and demure. He waited. It hadn’t been the perfect funeral. It had been stuffy and thick. The quieted sobs of hysterical women and the shuffle of uncomfortable men caused it to never be truly silent. Yet, now here he waited. He stood at an outside patio of a corner bakery and coffee shop. He watched the men, women, and children go about their lives, death a fleeting thought, a nightmare that left one in cold sweats but was a faint memory by morning. He smiled at the naiveté of the citizens, their complex of immortality, the chosen ignorance of the condition of man. “have you waited long?” The voice came from behind, placing a strong hand on his shoulder, forcing his body to turn. “I’m not sure.” He replied honestly. Time had gotten away from him in the days that followed the death. He’s not sure he would have even know to make the funeral if his house had not been crawling with strangers paying condolences, distant relatives cooking and cleaning and prodding in the corners of his life, reminding him at each turn of his loss, of his next step, of how he should grieve. The woman he faced as he turned was a neutral woman. She seemed grey and lacking distinction. Her face lacked line and shape, her matte brown hair lacked shimmer or style. Her eyes were patient and sad as she led him to a small table away from the pedestrian traffic. “Are you sure we should be doing this?” she asked, as she set a folder, bulging from its contents on the metal work patio table. “It feels like an invasion, like in here are written things we weren’t supposed to know.” He ignored the woman’s concern and began to pull out the loose pages, bound notebooks, napkins and clippings that were held together in the file. The deep, looping handwriting sprawled along the pages in margins, sometimes with form, others just streams of thought with no explanation. He imagined her writing, her long fingers wrapped graciously around a black ink pen. Her teeth biting into her lower lip softly as the squinting in her eyes and the curve of her face showed obvious concentration. He had watched her like this many times, careful not to disturb, afraid to even cause the wood flooring in their home to creak under his weight. In memory, he could hear the hum of the air conditioner, the dripping or the coffee pot, brewing its second pot. He could her slow steady, sleep like breaths of her attentiveness to her stories. He had never read even one. He respected that she chose to keep the worlds she created to herself, though he had no secrets. From the moment that their love first began he had the fault of telling her everything. Her open face, bright eyes, and kind smile made him trust her instantly, instinctively. She was the brightest color he had ever seen. She had spent too much time listening, he realized now. At some point he must have become just background sound to her inner thoughts. She was not so easily swayed to him, he remembered. He worked hard to learn the tiniest things about her. She hid well behind sarcasm and feigned aloofness. She wore a tough exterior. One might blame and absent father, or a bullied past, but really he believed she just like most to keep the pieces of herself to herself. She once told him that only she could properly care for the parts of her that mattered most, so she did not feel required to give those parts to anyone else. This had felt unfair at the time, the rush of anger had filled his body, his muscles tense and he felt almost tantrum like. He had given her everything, but she constantly left him in want. He felt a pang of guilt in his thoughts. She had been right he could see that clearly now, as in just ten days after her death he found himself about to immerse himself in the things she held dearest. He was exposing what she had longed to keep private, raping those very precious parts of herself that only she could keep safe. His hands fell limp to his lamp and the neutral woman stared blankly at his face, as if waiting for the next step. He began to put the scrapes of paper and decorated notebooks back into the file folder. The city seemed to have gone quite as each story, each memory and thought that she possessed was filed neatly back where it belonged. Handing the folder back, “I knew her how she wanted me to.” He offered, without bitterness, without anger, without love. Just as a fact. He slowly rose from the table and walked out into the street letting the noises of the city overtake his thoughts.