Adrift

         He walked, slowly, looking about with the air of a little boy at the toy store window. The bustle of the city was so different from his home. Dusk had settled upon him, but it was no matter—the lights were bright and all around, comforting in their vague intimacy. Snow was falling, and it caught his eye as passing cars spun the drifts into tiny dervishes, dancing across the ground before settling into the thin layer of slush which lay upon the city. He tried to catch a few flakes on his tongue but the wind whipped them violently around him, and he realized self-consciously that he looked like a fool. His eyes were drawn down the tunnel to light stretching far into the distance, rows upon rows of sharp reds and yellows. Bearing on against the stiff wind, the sights and sounds pressed down around him. He was tired.
         Stephen’s mind wandered slowly toward his purpose here. Oh, Emmy! And had it been so many years since he’d seen her last? He remembered now the Miller fields, at the top of the hill overlooking their home town of Aberdeen. The boys met there to play football and soccer; the girls sat on the side, picking flowers and giggling as their glances strayed from each other to the activity on the field. The grass had been green, the sky clear—a portrait of his youth.
         He had met her there, first with awkward smiles and nervous eyes, but years after the others had left they remained on that field atop the hill. They spent afternoons together climbing the crooked oak and lying among the grasses, and as evening fell they would climb down to their favorite spot: a small break in the trees where the power lines cut across the field, facing west, affording them a narrow view out into the world. Stephen would gaze off across gently rolling hills into the sunset as her eyes peered anxiously into his. Their talks were chatty then—full of trivial details of their daily lives. He’d hop down into the bushes below them and pick raspberries for her, and present them with a sardonic smile and bow: at this she always looked delightedly confused. They’d been so young, yet so happy.
         He realized that he could scarcely remember what Emmy had looked like. She’d been tall, yes, lanky, and a bit awkward as they walked. He could see her icy blue eyes floating before him…still her figure was elusive, incomplete, merely the parts of a synergic beauty. She’d been described as homely by his friends then. He had never known what the word meant, really—he had liked it, but the faint sneer in their eyes hurt him. He had always found her form beautiful, yet always doubted the truth of his feelings on it.
         A sharp car horn beside him tore his mind reluctantly back to reality, but it was not against him. The city seemed to have a life of its own, and he a tiny speck of dirt in that enormous writhing field. It was so different from Aberdeen—and could the snow still falling all around him be the same as that which had blanketed his home long ago? The steel canyons were so unfamiliar here. He could hardly believe people lived their lives in such a place. But perhaps he was just ignorant of this new world.
         He stopped for a moment at the next corner, his thoughts drifting across those last few years, images flashing before his eyes of the simple life he had led. Had it been so different? He woke every day, toiled in his fields, and went to shop and joke with the townsfolk in the evening. They had had holidays and feasts and dances—a simple life, yes, but there was the rising sun across golden hills in his face every morning. On this thought his eyes instinctively fell to the horizon, and again saw nothing but the endless train of light and sound. Perhaps, though, she had learned to love it here, had left her home and never looked back. Perhaps he could do the same.
         He could almost see her figure in the distance now, girly and childish as it had been, beckoning him on. His strides lengthened as he felt the city pressing around him. He felt as if it had stolen her, placed her in its tallest tower, and swallowed the key in its endless depths. But he walked on, against wind and snow, through this great machine reluctantly carrying him toward his destination.
         Stephen remembered their high school days. Emmy had moved into the higher track, he to the lower. Their paths rarely met, but they stole occasional minutes from mornings before she rushed off to class or on late walks through the night. Their manner had changed; he’d all but given up on idle dreams for their future together. Their conversations, brief and pointed by necessity, turned toward their new, graver concerns. She worried about University, of her great dreams and her nightmares. She’d wanted to be a lawyer then. And he came to her on those nights, listening in his simplicity and enjoying merely the spark he saw in her eyes—the glimmer he saw when they met, and when she talked so earnestly of her future, the moments where they’d catch each other in knowing, nervous smiles.
         Summers came and went; they both worked hard, more to her distaste than his, though she had seemed to enjoy his company much more out in the sun. More carefree, they talked openly. He’d resigned himself to this very life, after all, and he was happy in Aberdeen. They remained friends only, but they joked now about being together, tiptoeing around the subject with wry smiles, as he wrote her short, sweet notes and poems…
         He felt, pulled back to the city again, the folded paper pressed against his breast. He was self-conscious of it now; worried it was not good enough. He had worked endlessly at his messy desk, on top of the mountain he’d written through the past years, poor and hasty poetry of no value. The words had come slowly this time, in jerks and starts—and it was so hard to capture, after so long. Even after the poem was to his satisfaction, he was unsure how to present it to her. He’d first gone into town to buy a specially embossed envelope and stationary but, wary of mimicking her urban sophistication, had settled on a simple handwritten note.
         He was close now, just a few more cross streets, but he felt as if he still had very far to go. His heart pounded against his ribs. As he walked on through the crowd, his eyes caught passers-by—but how ignorant they were, going through the motions of their lives, ignorant of his final moment of glory!
         Memories flew across his mind once more. That last summer night together, as Stephen lay close on her soft, familiar bed. Their warm smiles, the touch of Emily’s skin as she held his hand, reassuring him that University wasn’t so far away after all. And how, as their talk turned for a final time to the trivialities of young lives they’d grown excited, promising to meet again, to meet again today! To think that so long ago their thoughts had fallen, together, on this very day…their walk home, that warm summer night, hands tangled, and his swift, impulsive kiss, her lips red and warm…the walk back up the steps of his house, conscious of every movement of his body, his soul on fire, and one final glance back, a wave… He could not help the light smile which flitted across his face at these thoughts. Then his hasty phone call, realizing the week before that time had finally come. She sounded harried yet warmed at his voice. Their brief reminisce, their agreement to meet this night, this very night! And then the train ride into the city, his eyes caught up in the setting sun.
         He had arrived. Standing for a moment outside the door, observing the activity of the stylish men and women moving in and out, he felt as if on a precipice. But he’d come so far! He plunged onward.
         She sat at a high table, her shoulders slightly raised, eyes down in a magazine. They exchanged greetings, a look of relief crossed her face. Perfunctory questions, how are you, how’ve you been. She wanted to know what Aberdeen was like, was he still there—he was. She was busy. Too busy, and what was she doing here? She was writing—did it make her happy? It paid the bills. For whom? She did not understand, did not seem to hear him. No. No. He could feel their conversation flowing away from him. Not his past—their past. The future. But he couldn’t find the words to say, the words he’d rehearsed in his mind a thousand times, a thousand different ways. She was talking again now, but the sounds did not reach his ears. There was a barrier between them…why hadn’t he expected this? Busy tonight, places to go? Yes, I understand. Of course. He wanted to scream. Tell her, you fool! Tell her! Your dreams! Oh, this is your chance, you can’t sit like this, not again, never again!  But another voice told him: she was gone, already so far gone, he could not hold her to silly childhood promises. She was happy here, wasn’t she, wasn’t she—and he couldn’t ask anything of her, not now, not begging on his knees like this. Yes, Emily, it was nice seeing you…
         He sat on his high chair for a moment longer, as reality slowly hit him. He could not believe what had come now to pass. His eyes flickered across the door of the café bouncing closed behind her. He wanted to reach out, to grab it, to bound down the street and take hold of her, to shake her, to scream, anything—but he knew it was over. Her form floated over him now, easily, but he still could not understand the words she said.
         He walked to the door and out along the street, and felt suddenly again the weight of the poem against his breast. He opened it slowly and stopped to read as the crowd hurried past. The words disgusted him now. They were not enough, inappropriate and pathetic. He walked on again, but kept the slip of paper folded between his fingers.
         Stephen’s eyes fell now on those around him. Their faces, earnest yet closed. This horde, this mass of humanity, did not care for him, did not care even to realize what they had stolen and carried away. Their eyes looked through him, through skin and bone, and through his heart which he realized now was still pounding. He saw them, climbing the stairs to their cozy apartments, buying groceries from their open air malls, and in their corner offices looking out over the city but unable to distinguish the individual from this monster.
A passerby bumped him and, looking down, he saw the poem had fallen from his hand. He paused for a moment, as a rock in a coursing stream, and saw it lying in the street. It blended with the gray snow as moisture slowly crept across, destroying his inadequate ode to a life lost long ago. The words flashed before his eyes a last time:

For years we’ve lost, for nights we’ve tried
For time spent slipping, against the tide
Could we just fall in love again?
I won’t endure, I won’t pretend.

         Stephen weighed his heart once more and realized that regret had passed—had passed long ago. Tears still filled his eyes, but he knew that they were no longer for Emily. Tears for love, perhaps. He felt the crowd again, pulling him, and now he swam with it. He would let it capture him, entomb him, and wash him up at home in Aberdeen, the Aberdeen he remembered, of times past. There he would say to her, just a few more words, to end their story as every fairy tale should. He reached out now, he touched her hair, her lips. Her eyes peered for a final time into his. His lips parted, and he could see her looking now—but this was the way it had to end.
         “Emily. Emily. I understand. Goodbye.”
         The city rose before him one last time but he was immune now, he was safe. He set for home.