Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean

During the couple of days leading up to his departure, I rehearsed those lines every night in my head. I had convinced myself that those were the words I want him to have in his head the moment he turns and walks away from me. I always dealt with anger in my own terms; that’s the only way I manage it.

This evening, I sat calmly at the viewing gallery, taking in the smell of the still-new terminal, the shrill screams from the children running up and down, and remembering what sitting at the viewing gallery meant to me in my past life. A strange calm came over me. Strange because it came at the most unexpected of time. Strange because immediately after, I received his text message on my mobile.

I went down to meet him with lightness in my heart. Even as I walked with him to that little Bermuda Triangle right before where the officers stood, where all travellers disappear for any indefinite amount of time, where friends hugged and lovers kissed, I was sure what I would do.

I didn’t say what I had wanted to say. Those words were very clear in my head, at the tip of my tongue, but he kissed away my weakness. I watched resolutely as he was swallowed behind the jaws of the technology that separated us. As I turned around to make my way home, there were tears in my eyes, but they didn’t fall. I was glad I found peace—peace within myself.

These six days will pass like a breeze.