Felt Through A Phone Line

The image was downloading; sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven percent of one hundred complete.

With each progressive bar, his heart pounded with angry fists upon the walls of his chest. Harder and harder, it pounded— pounded; trying to break free, screaming to get out, trying desperately to burst from his body.

Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one percent of one hundred complete.

He could see the palpitations of his heart through his shirt now, and it hurt. The thought of this muscle actually breaking through disturbed him, scared him. He felt weak. It crashed up against his chest again and again, each time more intense then the last.

Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent, then it paused.

In a last ditch effort to save his life, he pinned his hand over his heart, begged it to stay put, but it fought back— fought hard. He felt it thrashing about inside and thought, 'how sad, my death by e-mail.'

Finally the screen read: Download complete.

Her face consumed his screen and he saw her for the first time. She was gorgeous.

His heart stopped, his breathing ceased. The world around him fell silent, faded into nothingness.

Her eyes. Her eyes, they drew him in, drew him in fast and forever. He felt as if he was there now, before her, staring at her soul through the panes of her eyes. He really knew nothing of her, but now, somehow, he knew everything; her secrets, her troubles, her failures, her desires. It was all just so maddening.

There was a pain there also. A hurting. A sadness— a great sadness. Inside. Deep down in a place where she kept it locked away and hidden, out of sight from others, with no keys or combinations for the door. But now — for him — she had opened that door; had simply let him walk in. For some reason, she had let him see it— all of it. And as troubling to his eyes as it was to see, it was beautiful and he could not look away.

His lungs now burning, eyes wide and unblinking, he drew a deep breath. The air charged him and somehow he was brought back, back from her, from deep inside her being. He leaned back into his chair, drew another breath, then settled and drank her in.

Her hair was black— black as pitch, jaw-length and pin-straight; the tips of each strand teasing her chin ever so gently. Her lips were thin, but a warm blood-red; the perfect hue against her skin which was a pale-white. Her head was turned slightly to the right, but her gaze beamed forward—towards the camera.

The entire package sat coyly cock-eyed atop a graceful, swan-like neck which led his eyes down to her equally milk-white chest. The black sweater she wore was open, revealing not enough to call her fresh, but enough that he wanted, no, needed, to see more; a fine line well drawn by her strategic use of a photo cropper.

Though he knew not how it got there, a tear sat quivering upon his eye. With a trembling hand he reached out for the screen, for her photo— for her. He pressed his thumb upon her lips, traced them. He traced her cheek, her hair, her neck, her chest, down between her breasts, all the while imagining her warm flesh against his.

She was magnificent.

The hurt he found buried so deep inside of her, he now found in himself, and he understood it. The sadness of the distance between them was immense. He had found it in her, let it out, and now it was in him— now it had consumed them both. The terribly agonizing pains of sadness, love and distance— all felt through a phone line.