Monday 5 August 2013

Mind Ghosts




Lizbeth smiled coyly and took a sip of her gin and tonic. For a moment I was transported back to the summer of 88, the Crown pub, hot, smoky, crowded. Lizbeth had smiled that exact same smile that night. Back then it had been a real come and get me smile but me being me I didn’t go and get. Instead I just stood and waited; too shy, too scared, too tongue tied to do what I’d dreamt of doing throughout my final year of school. That was my chance to kiss the most perfect face in the world and I let it slip. She was the one that got away, the best lover I’d never had.
I’m not sure how many times I’d thought about her in the intervening 25 years. But it certainly wasn’t single figures and definitely not double figures either. She’d drifted through my mind like a ghost unable to rest until an injustice had been put to right.
Now thanks to a chance encounter in a shoe shop she was sitting opposite me, sipping gin and looking almost exactly the same as she had done all those years ago,  except for a few added crows’ feet around her eyes along with the golden band on her left ring finger. A golden band that suggested that she would remain to be the one that got away. As we chatted about people from school I looked at her and wondered if I’d featured in her memory the way she’d featured in mine. Whether I’d made cameo appearances in her fantasies and whether I’d satisfied her in the way she’d satisfied me down the years. 
It was her that had recognised me, and initially she’d seemed pleased to see me, it was her that had suggested the drink but now she looked nervous, a little uneasy, it looked like itd be one drink and then off. Especially as I was regressing into my 17-year-old self; my hard-earned confidence evaporating and my silky tongue getting twisted around the simplest of words. I guess it was not meant to be.
The click of the door woke me from my slumber; I reached out my hand to feel the empty bed, still warm from where she had been. I smiled at the thought of what had happened, from that clumsy first hour to the laughter, the kiss, the fumble and then, well you don't need me to tell you. There was a note on the pillow. Cliched but cute.

‘Glad we laid those ghosts to rest, call me.’
I felt 17 again.



2 comments:

  1. I had no drinks, remembering laughters, fumble nor a clichèd note. I have neither crow's feet nor ring..
    I had a superheroe's dream becaming true for good memories.. So why I feel now an infinite sadness, why?

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  2. It's nice when you feel like a teenager :-) smiles, kisses, little touches, shivers, laughs...so pure :-)

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