Dearest Kit

Chapter Thirty Two

   “That’s never going to happen,” he assured me. 

   “It still scares me,” I scrunched up my face and then rubbed my hands across my cheeks, giggling and leaning back, so I was staring up into the night sky. “I think we should get some food,” I jumped up all of a sudden and put out my hands for Kit to take. 

   “What kind of food?” He asked, standing besides me and following me towards one of the brightly lit, iridescent food kiosks. 

   “Something greasy and terribly synthetic.” 

   “Sounds like an ex girlfriend of mine,” Kit snapped back, making me laugh again. 

   “Donuts!” I exclaimed, starting to skip happily to the front of the stall. 

   “What would you like?” Kit chuckled, removing his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. 

   “A pink one please,” I pointed to one of the miniature donuts, with pink icing and multicolored hundreds and thousands. 

   “And?” He prompted, I frowned, “You’ve got to have more than one!” 

   “Fine,” I gave in extremely easily, “Two pink and a plain, please.” 

   “Great,” he ordered his as well and the overweight man working at the stall started to prod the donuts onto wooden skewers, so they were easier to hold. Every now and again he would eye us with a strange kind of curiosity, almost admiration, as he saw us giggling together. 

   “Young couples like you make me feel young again,” he said, his voice rough and grainy, as he handed Kit his change in one of his chubby hands. “Have this, on me,” he handed Kit a token for one of the rides, made of cheap plastic, in a ring shape, with a hole through the middle. 

   “Thanks Mr Donut man,” Kit said, although as I write this, it sounds mean; it wasn’t. 

   “No problem, have a good evening,” he gave us a meek salute and we walked away from the catering stall, towards the sea once more, the icy cold wind biting at our cheekbones. 

   “He seemed nice,” Kit said, twirling the fairground token around one finger, simultaneously munching on one of his donuts. 

   We walked to the very far end of the pier, where the structure met the sea, where the only thing you could possibly make out in the darkness was a barge on the horizon, a light which seemed to scan past us every now and again. We continued to eat in silence, the grease and the sugar congealing in my mouth in a way which was rarely acceptable. Kit nudged my arm, as we lent against the balcony, our hands parallel. 

   “You know, my mum used to call this place infinity’s end,” I said beneath my breath. 

   “Why?” Kit asked. 

   “Because doesn’t it feel as if you’re at the end of the world, that if you fall, you won’t hit the ocean, you’ll just continue to tumble into oblivion?” My eyes roamed the darkness, trying not to be frightened of it, trying to relish in the open space and not draw away from it. 

   “I realize why you chose this place now,” he whispered. 

   “Thank you.” 

   “The world does seem infinite from this position, like it’s never ending.” 

   “I think that’s why I liked it here when I was younger, if I was stressed, it calmed me down. It puts into perspective how tiny we are, doesn’t it? In comparison to the world, to the universe and everything in it, we’re so insignificant.”