I've been going through some old stuff that I wrote back when Bruno was away in Italy and I found this piece. I had forgotten about it, yet I love it so much. Maybe one day I'll expand upon it and see where it goes, but for now it is simply a vignette. I call it "Samba".
She watched the candle flicker, the light dancing off of the cracked crimson glass that housed its flame. She found its jumping erratic movements intoxicating and stared at it until her vision became white and she was forced to look away. It took her eyes a moment to adjust and she found her every view obstructed by the image of the flame, it’s spirit lingering on and refusing to let go. The backs of her retinas ached from the brazen intrusion of the candle. She wondered why she had stared at it when she knew that it turned out the same every time- blinding and painful. Yet she knew that she would do it again. She would do it thinking that maybe this time things would be different. Maybe this time…
The thought haunted her so she picked up the closest thing to her, a sugar packet, and busied herself reading the label. When she caught a flash of the waiter in the corner of her eye she dropped the sugar and attempted to make eye contact with him. Feeling her eyes upon him, he turned and recognized her signal for another round: a finger pointed to her empty martini glass. He mouthed the question, “One more?” and she nodded her consent.
The waiter disappeared, the entire exchange taking less than 10 seconds. It was the most contact that she’d had with another human being since, well, since her last drink had been ordered. But before that, it had been days.
She hated her isolation and she hated herself because she was her own captor, her isolation self-imposed. Some prisoners had lived their entire lives behind bars, dreaming of a life on the outside, yet here she was, on the outside, and jailed by her emotional walls, her self-loathing the key to her lock.
She caught her reflection in the mirror behind the bar and stared. “How could that be me?” she thought. Only her eyes belied the truth within her soul. They stared back at her, dark yet hollow, devoid of warmth or emotion or the sparkle that had occupied them once upon a time. The rest of her face was pretty enough. If she wore sunglasses, she could even be considered beautiful. But her eyes stole her beauty. There was no light in her prison and no room for beauty to grow, to flourish. Nothing was nurtured where she was. She was where people came to die, as she herself had been slowly dying, each day bringing her one step closer to her final freedom. She smiled, the thought of the end bringing her a sense of melancholy happiness.
The waiter placed her drink in front of her and, thinking that she was smiling at him, smiled back.
“Thanks,” she offered, unsure if it was for the drink or the attention.
“Your welcome,” he gave back and smiled one more time. He looked into her eyes and paused, a look, of sadness clouding his face.
A silent question lingered in the air between them. He wondered what had caused her obvious heartache. She thought he must be wondering what was wrong with her.
She looked away, but he did not. Uncomfortable, she stirred the olive in her martini glass, fascinated by the waves that it left in its circular wake. Her eyes clung to the bottom of her glass, as if all of life’s questions hid in its depths.
He knew that she was aware of him. He didn’t want to walk away, but he didn’t know how to stay.
“It’s on me,” he said, an olive branch extended.
She looked up, and for a moment, her eyes softened.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes never leaving his as she gently took hold of the branch.
Simultaneously, their hearts leapt, neither of them aware of the other’s imperceptible shift.
He walked away, back to his job, and she sipped on her drink. Thoughts rapidly invaded her head and bounced around before shooting back out as she absently stared at the flame flickering brightly before her, awed by its movements, its magical free flowing samba.