fingers against the glass

Jeff rode along in the yellow taxi, feeling each bump, grind, and pothole of the trip beneath him. He glanced at the driver and concluded this one was a quiet and brooding type, evidenced by his demeanor and gruff rebuffs to Jeff's salutations upon first entering the vehicle. The idea of mentioning the hard ride to the dark skinned man entered his mind but he dispelled it as probably a fruitless entreaty for assist from someone that could not care less whether of not the trek was enjoyable or comfortable. Despite the No Smoking sign that hung, in clear and promiment view, in the front seat upon the dashboard area, the navigator puffed away and Jeff could smell the stink of it throughout the filthy vehicle, intermixed with the equally polluted city air. He didn't mind though and took it as an invitation to freely partake in the now demonized practice himself. To him it didn't really stink at all and was an aroma that he had come to relish, and even hunger for, as the years passed. Reaching into his overcoat he pulled his own supply of the vilified ones out, reached again for the lighter, coughed, and lit his own.

The window, filthy and dirty and smudged by
fingertips and soot, was halfway down. A fly
buzzed about, touching down every moment or so before being caught in the maelstrom of the swirling air in the space and was whisked away out of the window. He reached over and rolled the window the remainder of the way down and stared into the expanse that was the place he called home. His thoughts were not of the happy kind as he watched the massive pieces of metal go by; in unison they flew, each as quickly and uniformly as the one before it. Almost hypnotically they paraded before his eyes and he allowed them to take him deep inside his own head. Farther and further, away.

The search had been going on forever, it seemed, since the first realization that love, that alluring and most elusive of emotions and prizes, was in the world. He had been lucky once before and had been to the moon and back. The ride had been glorious and rough, unexpected and unpredictable; and everything he had heard it would and should be. Nirvana, paradise, bright colors and stars, skyrockets, and warm currents of delight pulsing through each corpuscle of his being, day in and night out. Nothing could be better, or sweeter and its departure from his life had been equally as powerful; devastating, heartwrenching and truly heartbreaking. Years had passed as the wound tried to heal and the conflicting emotions that it brought almost took him to depths of which he had not been able to survive. The pit of darkness; swirling, angry, encompassing hopelessness and despair which enveloped him as completely as the joy he had felt while in the throes of romance and commitment, and love. Yes, love. Love. Love. The realm of which he must return. Someday, he knew it would return so he searched for it, day after day, month after month, and year after lonely year. Someday, one day, he would love again; he knew it as surely as he knew the world was now and the certainty of that return pushed him to survive, to try, to go on.

It had not worked out as easily or as truly as the dreams, the hopes, or those prelapsarian fairy tales had foreseen and the true form of that of which he searched was so long gone that he oft forced himself to believe that he wanted to be alone and needed no one. Settling was an option and though he saw others do so, he could not. Life alone was better than that for if it was not the real thing, not the end of his journey, not resplendent happiness, he would stay in his solitude. Bitterness and depressive realism took him at times but he held on to the dream and would not let it depart, so much so that at times he feared the importunate ringing of the importance of such would drive him to madness. No, he would not let it go. Never. For to do so would be the end of him and he knew it.

The jolt, of another pothole not missed,
brought him out of his mind and he saw that the bridge was no longer in sight. They were now tied inside a jam of traffic, the fumes from which caused him to raise the window though he did light up another cigarette after doing so. Tired he was that day, from work and life itself, and leaned his body against the side of the door and stared, almost hypnotically, out of the window, thinking little if anything, as if that mechanism inside his head was being piloted automatically. Slowly, like slow motion, his eyes focused upon what was before him. A face was there, looking back at him. It smiled. Instead of simply smiling back, he turned away, quickly. "Who was it? Why was he smiling at me? What does he want? Should I smile back?" His thoughts swirled around inside his head like a whirlwind. I'll look like an idiot if I smile back now." But, then.... he did, he looked back. Expecting the face to be gone or to have been looking somewhere or at someone else, he turned his head to the side, slowly. But it was still there and as it saw him turn back to it, the creases of it raised even higher and farther into a smile of understanding and longing. The almond eyes set there were more perfect and beautiful than anything Jeff had seen in his life; transfixed upon them he could not stop his own smile rising up before he sent it off, out the window, through the glass. A hand appeared and waved at him and impulsively, without hesitation, he waved back. Waves of emotion, tides of excitement, and oceans of pure, unadulterated and unfettered wanting filled him up.

Those eyes, that face, that gaze. He had seen them before, many times, countless times, over and over again. He had seen them in his dreams, in his mind, and in all those late night fantasies as he gazed out the open window from his bed. He knew them well. This was the one. The lover he had waited for, forever. Fate had finally turned his way and his time had come. The waiting was over and the ship had docked, for him. For them. Throwing aside all trepidation, he reached for the door handle. This time he would not look away, he would not wait too long, he would not wait for it to come to him. He would take it. It was his and he knew it. The vehicle lurched forward and they were moving again. The face kept pace, beside him, looking when it could, smiling, waving. Jeff yelled to the driver of the cab to slow down but he accelerated away from the trapped angel. Ignored, Jeff looked back and saw the blue car drift away, felt the pain begin inside his gut, placed his fingers upon the dirty pane, and longingly watched his chance fade away.

It had happened again. Once again, he had been robbed of love. What was wrong with him? Why did love come so often to those who didn't really want it, didn't need it, and didn't take care of it, while he languished in a perpetual state of aloneness. He knew he would never see those eyes again, except in his own mindseye; experience had taught him that. This time, unlike the immeasureable amount of times it had happened before, he was not going to let it devastate him. This time he would take a deep breath, look to the sky, and not allow himself to slip away into the dark place. Despite his attempts at strength, in minutes he was sad, dejected, and ready for nothing more than the bed of his apartment. It was his forever friend and always welcomed him to its breast. "Fucking dumbass", he heard the driver shout out of the cab window at another. The fly, or one almost identical to it, returned through the window and then disappeared from sight once again.

Destination found. He paid the brute, took his attache case and overcoat, stepped out onto the dirty curb, and threw his now dead cigarette there. He had tipped the monster despite its poor performance and the car had driven away at break neck speed, away from his street. Jeff turned and looked up at the highrise in which he lived and began to climb the steps to enter the building that it was. He heard the sounds behind him but didn't bother to turn around and look for he had expended all energy he could that day on anything else but mere functioning.

"Hey", the voice said. Jeff continued on, ignoring it and allowing his cortex to displace it with the other noises of the city. "Hey", he heard again. Jeff turned and looked, disinterest genuine, and his eyes quickly left the image he scanned for the moment, infinitesimal it was. Disbelief clouded his remaining consciousness and then shock took its place there. Could it be? This cannot be real? You are dreaming. Foolish one. He turned back to make sure he was imagining what was there. But he had been wrong for it was there. That face and those eyes were on him, only he, and the beckoning words of that one he had waited for, for so very long, were doing just that.