Lovers At The Station [fiction fragment]

"When people say, "I didn't ask to be born," they are wrong. I think we did. That's why we are here. We have to do something nurturing that we respect before we go. We must. It is more interesting, more complicated, more intellectually demanding and more morally demanding to love somebody. To take care of somebody."-- Toni Morrison.

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For the young girl, and so many others, who knew how to love. For a song that I did not sing.

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The bus station: Lovers waiting.

No tears of joy. No impassioned kiss from starved lips. No hug intense like making love. No two bodies merging, holding on, in that instant where they'd become one. No "Good to see you!" No "I missed you so much" either. No reuniting embrace.

Those two lovers, at the station. Waiting.
Those two lovers, at the station. Parting.

I watched as he held her tight. I watched her white fingers on his hairy nape. I saw his brown t-shirt absorb her wet eyes. I saw her head buried in the square of his shoulders: An animal begging, in a coffin.

I smelt the cologne off his throat. I smelt the sweat off his armpit. I smelt her tears on the brown fabric. But above all, I smelt her grief like the dead roses on her grand-ma's grave: "Is this the end?" I felt his arms tighten around her body. I heard him soothe her with entangled fingers and whispering words: "I'll never forget you." I felt the stubble on his cheeks, the warmth of his nose and I watched them kiss, those two lovers.

His embrace became tight: "I will never, never let you down." But through her tears I saw her doubts. She, the young woman who loved: she knew. She could hear the embarrassment in his pulse, she could see words in his eyes resonating like bullets in a cold night: "Stop crying. Stop embarrassing me. People. People are watching."

The bus came, and they parted. She climbed in and he left. On his way home, he sent her an SMS: "I'm gonna miss you so much. Raspberry mango coconut pear honey kisses." A tear on the screen of her cell-phone. And then, another and another... The bus moved.

All this while, I watched those two lovers, at the station. I watched and I spied on her feelings, I listened to his mind and disturbed their embrace by putting myself between their loving bodies.

All the while, I watched, I listened, I smelt and I thought.

All the while, I felt like singing to her... The song that I did not sing:

"Please run away, young girl, please fly away!
For me too had a lover, with whom I parted.
Me too had a lover who went his own way.
He left me as well: teary, broken-hearted,
Though he promised, young girl, always... never...
But I trust you, young girl, for you could smell
And so could I! Sense him gone... Forever....
He will forget you, young girl, and that I can tell.
So here's his answer to your dreaded question:
This is the end, young bird, this is the end."