Season of Mists

We walk through the park, holding hands, out of habit.  Together.  Apart.

The November air has that kind of stillness you only get in autumn.  Not just the air completely still, but the atoms within it.  It's like trying to shoulder your way through something solid. Sound is stillborn, muffled.

Because it's my decision, that means I have to take responsibility. He can claim the indignation, the victimhood, the pain.  I don't believe he really feels any of that, I think he wants out as much as I do, but I have handed him the role and he's enjoying playing it.

'But why ?' He asks. 'It's going nowhere,' I say.  I could also add It is nowhere and It's been nowhere.  But that won't help.

I kick like a sulky child at the leaves on the path.  Their rhythmic rustling seems to be saying something to me, but I can't quite catch the words. 

A small boy shoots past on a scooter, inches from my left leg.  I jump and say 'Fuck !' too loudly.  His mother walks past and glares.

'Christ, what is wrong with you these days ?', he snaps, dropping my hand. Not so much dropping it as throwing it away. Ah. There we have it. There has to be something wrong with me. That's the role I'm supposed to play.  The unhinged girlfriend, impossible for any reasonable man to live with. There's nothing wrong with the relationship, or him.  There's plenty wrong with me.  Apparently.

I'm so tired, I could just sink down into one of those big drifts of leaves on the grass, and sleep for a thousand years.  There are signs saying 'Keep Off The Grass'.  There are no signs saying 'Keep Off The Leaves'.

The mist drips slowly out of the branches.  And our relationship drips slowly out of me.