Intricacies.

Have you seen that film, Cashback? The lead character in it finds a way to stop time when he wants to, freeze everything and he can walk around while the world is still. He uses it to get a good close look at the women where he works, he exposes and sketches their naked bodies before redressing them and cracking his knuckles to start time again. The most magical situation in which he finds himself is a heavy snowfall brought to a standstill - at this point he manages to bring his sweetheart into his frozen limbo with him and together they run through the glittering suspended snowflakes.

There is often talk of ‘freezing time’ in a moment when someone is really happy, or had a brilliant day, or when everything in their life is coming together. Cashback was less about preserving feelings than creating them by intensifying something’s beauty - feelings that were made all the more wonderful as unfamiliar details emerged from familiar scenes. It wasn’t long before I had in mind the moments I’d choose if I could, and of course they only ever feature him. The nighttime hours are long but I could lose myself forever in his sleeping next to me. His breath always comes in wide, gentle waves from his parted lips onto his open palm which rests beside his head. His lips can be rough from cold weather and kissing. The swell of his bicep is pushed to and fro by the movement of his chest and his eyelashes move in tiny waves when his eyes twitch beneath his lids. The ambient rock band Future of Forestry’s song If You Find Her contains the lyric “deep inside her dreams is all the beauty that she keeps” - how true, of everyone. He is sleeping on his side facing me, but it is his body when he faces away which truly captivates me. When he lies like this it is easy for me to drape an arm over him and fall asleep with my stomach in the small of his back and my lips in the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, on his left hand side which is against the bed. We prefer to sleep this way around instead of him behind me - he’s a bit more protected from me lashing out painfully in a dream.

My favourite place is between his bottom rib and his hip - one of only a few soft edges on a very lean and muscular person. Many a frozen moment could be spent circling this place with a fingertip. If I could stand a moment still I could kiss it, pull on the crook of his elbow to turn him over, stroke the line of hair on his lower belly and softly press my thumb to the dent in the centre of his chest where his ribs meet. I would lose myself in the stories of his fingers which I would brush against my cheek, fingers rough from handling guns and squash racquets and garden tools; lay my own fingers in the grooves of his ribs with his heart stalled mid-beat, pressing up into my palm; trace the outside edge of his ear; all without once worrying about waking him up. It’s like he’s under a spell, and I am too - suddenly I have to explore and learn and absorb and savour before the moment has passed, and a split second just isn’t long enough.

My God, I love him so much.