Delicious Ambiguity | the rainbow named trust

Chapter 20 {Virile}

N O T E

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The way she wore the moonlight, as if, the universe, which so rarely worked in perfects, had let this moment slip through.

Virile: (of a man) having strength, energy, and a strong sex drive.

Dedicated to Desi;

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Zaahid

If this is life, then I don't want it anymore.

As the night closes in, the autumn trees shimmer in the lasts of today's vibrant hues. Winter is almost here. A chill creeps into the air and nips at our skin as I drive to Harry's. I have skewness towards autumn for I find myself in the same plane as the pumpkins which get gutted and carved out every year, to portray a smile that doesn't belong to them and having only a small flame inside to keep their dying bodies warm.

In autumn the smoke from my cigarettes blends in with the smoke coming from my fireplace, and I breathe deeply, filling my lungs before the flame flickers out. In autumn the leaves have the last shout of rebellion before they die in the cold hands of winter, covering the world in an angry fire of red, yellow and orange.

Maybe it's not the autumn I love, rather the idea of being dead.

I'm careful on the accelerator. I can feel Maira's tension as she sits on the edge of the seat. Her breathing is rapid and I can tell that's the last thing on her mind. Her hands have gripped the seat belt so harshly that I know she's scarring her palms with crescent moons. I reach over and guide one of her hands to release the belt and lay on her lap. It's a novelty that she doesn't flinch and allows me to hold her hand. In our innocent intimacy, we have our private conversation where instead of talking we hear each other more. We share not only the heat radiating from both of our hands but our hopes for a possible future together, dreams that may not develop, goals that would not be checked off and all the disappointments life threw at us in our time apart. A quiet calmness surrounds us.

Things will get better eventually, for her, for me, for us but not everything ever will be. Acceptance is a quiet, small room and she gives me mine as much as I give her hers. We don't worry about each other's judgement when it comes to being open; either of us have seen and been through enough to be better than that. Our bravery looks a lot like vulnerability. Sometimes, we step into it with both arms wide open and broad smiles crowning our faces, but sometimes—today—we tiptoe around it. I bring her hand to my lips and kiss it softly. With Maira, life seems worthwhile and we bring hope and security into each other's lives.

She heaves out a deep breath and I intuit her tiredness—our tiredness—and not just in the physical sense. The world that we live in is an exhausting place to be. It is wearing. It is thankless. It is endlessly trying and scarcely rewarding. We're tired simply because we live in it. We're tired of loving too much, caring too much; to a world that never gives anything back. We are tired of investing in indefinite outcomes. We're tired of uncertainties—tired of grey.

Maira anchors her hand to her lap again and also allows me to intertwine with hers. Over the years our optimism has been overweighed by our cynicism and has eliminated it like an irrelevant outlier. All of us have been chipped away—a broken heart here and an unkept promise there. Luck hasn't always been on our side and we've lost more rolls of die than we have ever won. As if she can hear my thoughts, she brings down her other hand from the belt and rests it on top of ours. I see it is bloody red and shaking from the wrath Maira has brought on herself.