Secrets

Look up, look up, the sky is open.

Look down, look down, your footsteps leave no trace here.

Under cover of darkness, all manner of secrets find refuge.

In distant places, new thoughts take root, and old stories find new chapters. Driving through the rain, threading your way between two huge tractor-trailers, the image forms of what would happen if you slipped a bit left or a bit right. Sudden demolition of all that has been. A release.

How did it happen? the voices would ask, but they would be too late.

***

Back in the City, walking alone until suddenly you have a companion. Where did you come from? Is this a dream?

Is anyone watching us? Does anyone know you're here? The rain closes around you protectively, keeping all the rest of the world at length. This is your place, just you two, making amends.

***

"This never happened," she breathes into your ear, stepping on her tip-toes to do so.

***

Once a writer poured his heart out, not onto paper but into cyberspace, a keystroke at a time. There is nothing remarkable about this; people post to blogs all the time, and much of the content is so intensely personal that it strains credulity.

But now I must return to being simply a journalist, just recounting the facts.  Even I have trouble accepting what I am about to divulge.

How can it be that a man can be alone in his house, writing, when he suddenly senses a new presence? Someone new is listening; she may be close or she may be far away, but she is there, he knows it.

Suddenly it is as if an invisible presence has taken over his hands, his fingers, willing him to say things he otherwise might not have said, not like this, not here, not now.

It's a spooky sensation, as if he, the writer, no longer controls his story. Then again, maybe that isn't so strange; writers often don't know where their writing is going until it gets there.

Still, this time is special. His unseen visitor is encouraging the words to tumble out of him. "Tell me, I'm listening," she whispers on the eastern wind. "Do not fear, I will appear in the flesh," she whispers from the west.

He looks up, he looks down. There is nothing, not even a shadow.

But the words begin.

"I'm sharing my secrets with only you. I know you are there, reading them, reading me. You see me as no one else has ever seen me."

He waits for her answer. It comes in the form of a whisper from the north: "I know, I know. Just keep telling me. I'm waiting."

"Okay, this is making me feel odd but I'll do it. What else do I have left to lose? I've already lost everything my heart held dear -- a sweet loving partner whose eyes looked upon me with kindness, whose lips met mine in long embraces as our arms held each other in an embrace that neither wanted to ever end...But it did. End, that is. She had to go, I don't know why. Maybe she told me, maybe not. I've searched back through everything, but the evidence, if it exists, has vanished, just like her."

"What was she like?" comes the breath from the south. "I'm here, all around you, just let it flow."

"Okay, okay. She was like a feather floating in on an unseen breeze. Her eyes big as moons but dark as the night, hiding as much as they show. Her tongue soft and wet; her hands soft and warm. She folded into me like my long-lost other half; we kept each other warm when the air grew cold."

"Yes, that's good. Tell me more."

"O-o-okay. I liked to run my hands over her; first her face. I would cup her cheeks in my hands as I kissed her lips. Then, very softly, I would stroke her arms, so soft, so warm, so small compared to mine. In fact, the all of her was so much smaller than me, I could pick her up off of her feet and swing her about like a child."

"That must have been fun."

"Once I did this in front of her friend, who was shocked. She wasn't accustomed to see her swept up by someone much bigger and stronger that way. We were on a sidewalk in a strange city, outside a car. We were saying goodbye or maybe hello, I don't remember now."

"Keep telling me."

"Then...It was a summer night, we were in a cafe. I was looking at her and she was looking at me. Somehow we both knew this would be the night. As I walked her back toward her place, my arm was around her waist and hers was around mine. I felt my excitement grow, there's no other way to put it. I said, 'let's take a drive," and she readily agreed. Up, up we drove -- to the highest place in the city. It was a beautiful night..."

"What did you do up there?" The whisper now has become ever so slightly constrained.

"Um, well, I don't want to say that now, not here, not out loud."

"Then come here and whisper in my ear -- I'll hear but no one else will discover your secret."

And so he did.  Now, just the two of them know.

***

The rains pounded down that night. Propelled outdoors by some unknown force, he forced himself to walk to the appointed place, appointed by whom? How did he knew to go here?

Our rendezvous. After all that's transpired between them, maybe it is not so surprising.

As she caught up to him, the rain stopped, or at least it seemed that way. Just the two of them standing alone in the dark, outside of a darkened building where no one suspected what was happening below.

"I've been listening all the while," she started. "I knew now was the moment to come to you. It's just that simple. I'm here, just for now, maybe for the last time, I don't know."

Now she had become the one racked with uncertainty.

"But, but, I thought you were with..."

"Shhhh," she pressed a hand to his lips. "Don't ask any questions. This will all become clear to you later on."

But, his mind raced: How to account for these things -- is this a new betrayal, now of someone else, or just the righting of a balance between the true two?

Next, a kiss that lingers. Does it matter whether anyone saw us?

Who knows what's right any more at the beginning of a night that never happened. The rains definitely returned, of that much he is sure, but where they lay,  it somehow remained dry and warm.

And nobody saw. So nobody knows.

-30-