In The Hollows

The Tea Letter, Part 2

The brisk air swept through his unbuttoned coat; he had been too displaced to think to button it.  She did not follow him, it was only his boots that slapped against the wet pavement as the sun set over the lake.  He knew the cement was icing over as the night set in, and he walked faster.  Across the lawn, the cool water, held under the grass, reached out to him from under the weight of his boot.

His eyes remained on the grass and then pavement as he crossed the sidewalk and street to his dormitory, the familiar smell of dryer sheets greeting him at the walkway to the side door.  Inside the heavy metal door his wet eyes felt strange in the yellow light, and grasping the staircase’s railing, he felt his boots, now soaked, pull towards the linoleum floor as he attempted the first step.

Leaning forward over the first step, the tip of his boot caught the lip of the step and, surprised, he stumbled forward onto the staircase, landing with a sharp pain as his shoulder landed dully against the lip of a step.  He began to cry.  His shoulder hurt, but it was only minor; the feeling in his chest, previously cold and still, throbbed red hot and burned.  He felt broken.

He fumbled for his bag, which had twisted under him, and forcefully pulled out his notebook.  Removing the pen from his shirt’s front pocket, in the yellow light of the staircase which flowed gently through the window next to him into the night he scribbled:

Thank you.  I do not regret anything, I gave you a third of my life and you helped to define me and who I want to be.  You taught me how to love, and how to love wrong, and how to treat myself.  I am sorry for every bad thing I ever did to you, and I am sorry if I ever told you something that was not true.  I am sorry for lying to you about being drunk, about saying it was okay when it was not, about telling you I was sure in everything and that I was not scared.  I am always scared.  There is only one thing that I am not scared of, and that is to remember you.  I will always remember every inch of you, every moment we spent together, and that is what hurts the most.  I do not mean to suggest this is a goodbye letter, for nothing is ever forever, but I need a time of my own to define myself.  I like to think we will meet again someday, somewhere else, and we will be different people and we will see each other anew.  I will keep my heart on a rooftop, and if you happen to make your way up an old metal staircase and find me there, hopefully we can share a hug and a smile.  I forgive you, but I do not know if I can forgive myself.

He placed the notebook next to his foot and leaned back with a sigh against the steps, stretching his body out.  He did not feel better.

The Tea Letter

The door swung open heavily.  He bounced tiredly down the staircase and into the fluorescent-lit hallway which stretched before him.  It was 4 o’clock, and the end of the day was wearing him now with a hefty bulk that forced him to resign to make it through this class and be done.

He signaled his entrance into the empty classroom with a knock of his boots on the mat lying inside the doorway, frowning as he noticed the salt from the sidewalk outside drying against the leather.  He would have to clean them when he made it back to his room, he thought, as he walked across the front of the classroom, whose chairs were  slowly filling, taking his seat against the side wall.  Eyeing the clock so as to avoid making the glance of a fellow classmate, he pretended to daydream about the image of a cabin in the Alps he attempted to draw from a book he found earlier, but all he could produce in his mind was the image, ghostly and transparent, fixed over the classroom before him.

The professor, a tall man in his mid-forties, strode into the room wearing his usual sport coat and jeans.  There had been a rumor earlier in the term that he had left his wife for a student of his, but the students seemed to like him all the same.  The ghost of the Alps vanished as the professor began roll.  He was still staring at the clock, but as the professor called her name, he glanced over to the speaking podium, staring with contempt at the professor, who had finished roll and was removing a piece of chalk from his leather briefcase.

The dull-grey board began to fill with characters, and, noticing the lines of ink accumulating on his neighbor’s page, he began writing.  The Alps soon appeared before him, vibrant and strong, their white snow juxtaposed brightly against the cream walls of the classroom, which remained faded in the background of his eyes.  He was no longer pretending; he felt it now.  It was real now and it hurt cooly in his chest.

His eyes wandering now over the ravines of cloth and forests of hair before him, climbing over brows and rolling down the slopes of noses, he saw her nestled in a valley.  The daydream was gone.  For that which he could not possibly imagine possessing was seated across from him, across a vast desert of carpet and hidden feelings.

She met his eyes in a warm embrace, offering a smile.  He looked away hurriedly, the feeling in his chest growing acute.  His heart beat faster.  He noticed the professor, now back at the podium, rubbing the chalk from the creases of his hands onto his sport coat, as books shut and his classmates stood.  He slammed his notebook shut, quickly shoved his pen deep into his shirt’s front pocket, and stood.  Pushing his way across the room and through the crowd of leaving students, he stopped suddenly as a hand grasped his.

He turned instinctively, and was surprised to see her before him, her eyes soft and a cool blue.  She held a sad look on her face as she said “I am so sorry, John, can I just talk to y-” He interrupted her as he jerked his hand from hers, turning into and out of the doorway, holding back a river of tears.

“‘Sanchica, my daughter, [said Sancho], will bring food up to our flocks.  But wait! She’s a good-looking girl, and there are shepherds more wicked than simple, and I wouldn’t want her to go for wool and come back shorn; love and unchaste desires are as likely in the countryside as in the cities, in shepherd’s huts as in royal places, and if you take away the cause, you take away the sin, and if your eyes don’t see, your heart doesn’t break, and a jump over the thicket is better than the prayers of good men.’”

Don Quixote

The truth brings no man a fortune.