Water Buffalos and Spiderwebs

The flames behind us made our shadow shape-shift like wind to a pile of leaves, scattering the form across the room with a complete disregard for traditional notions of aesthetics. Our shadow cast a shape on the carpet that looked something like a water buffalo. Or maybe a hippopotamus.

There was something cohesive about the way we sat, our fingers intertwined, our necks curving gently into each other, eyes unfocused in the same direction, as though we were caught in the same daydream.

It had been the kind of day that was too easy to disregard. Nothing so exciting that it would make cocktail party conversation, nothing so riveting that another generation would hear about it, but simple, easy joy found in eyes and smiles, elbows and sides, toe wiggles and head scratches, and the quiet feeling that it didn’t get better (but knowing that it must, or else we would end up like Enno and Eva, looking back on better times with “opaque” expressions on doorsteps), an unintentional high that left our eyes bright even with our heads backlit.

I broke out of the spell and freed myself from the embrace to face him because I wanted to see him, to have a visual for the memory because the feeling would only carry for four days, and I needed seven, and for a moment we looked right through each other, each stuck in some kind of orbit. Again I broke out of the spell and freed myself, this time from the trance we couldn’t help but fall into, to fall back into the same unfocused stare in the same enrapturing daydream because seven suddenly felt heavy, like shadowed forests and cold nights, like bitter winds, like walking through a spiderweb, and I needed the feeling. The memory would have to wait.