Natalie Kane

Something Old.

When you are young, you think about death all the time. It is told to you through the death of things, of objects, your patience, your computer, your phone has died. But you think of nothing more than the death of time, wasting whole days lying in bed next to one another, proving your uniqueness and proving theirs, because there is nothing worse than seeing the same things over and over again. Not the same laugh as your previous loves, or the replication of their habits and neuroses, or the way they get into a car, but how human and replaceable they are. Sarah realised that James was not the one, and at most could bet on a few good years, because there is no unique, perfect person, and there is no certainty. There was a feeling of congratulation as she acknowledged this. This feeling kept repeating on her, until it finally jarred when she noticed that he had stopped talking. He hadn’t acquired a disorder or anything as dramatic as that, he had just stopped talking about things. Sarah realised, as she moved her hands around his body, curling slightly into his hipbone, that he had stopped talking to her. Days at work had ceased to exist, and all that troubled him and enthused him hung behind his lip like a gold tooth. She had become aware of her own talking, and like a woman who had begun to notice the necessity of breathing, she slowly found a reason to stop. You are always told about that wonderful achievement, to be around your loved one and not have to talk to one another, to feel that comfortable, is just wonderful. It’s a dream. Sarah did not believe in the power of dreams. She believed in death, and as morbid as that made her sound, she could acknowledge that the space between her and James resembled nothing, as death eventually becomes. There was a feeling of congratulation as she acknowledged this.