“The world stopped,” he says. We are in bed and it is late, almost at an hour to call early. “Listen, don’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“Nothing, it’s silent.”
He gets out of bed and goes to the window. I stay put, seated now, blankets pulled up to my chest.
“Come here,” he says. I go to stand behind him, taking the comforter with me.
“Its dark,” I say. He shakes his head and points to a car on the road.
“It’s not moving.”
“So?”
“It’s not moving because the world has stopped.”
I put my hands on his back, just below his shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“You don’t understand,” he says, still looking outside. The window is fogged where he is standing, his breathe creating a hazy curtain on the glass.
“You’re right, I don’t.”
He turns around and my hands fall, the blankets with them. He walks to the door and then disappears down the hallway. I hear his feet on the stairs and then the swing of the front screen as it slams behind him.
I pull on my robe and start after him. When I get to the door he is standing on the lawn, his hands by his sides, staring up at the moon. I slip on some boots and walk towards him.
“Why don’t we go inside?” I say, “I’ll make some coffee.”
When he doesn’t respond I follow his gaze. It is a cloudless night and the stars are brilliant, specific; I think for a moment that if I tried I could count them.
My neck pinches and I drop my head down, closing my eyes and kneading my shoulders. I realize that I am tired, annoyed.
“I’m going inside,” I say, “it’s up to you.”
“Just wait,” he says.
“I’m leaving,” I say.
I turn and my eye catches a maple tree on the sidewalk just a few yards from our lawn. I know without squinting or looking again that what I see is not a trick of the light. There is a leaf, detached from the tree’s braches, suspended in mid-air. It looks like a hand, palm facing up, waiting for something to hold.
“Do you see that?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, keeping his eyes on the stars.
“What does this mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Is it good?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, “I think it is.”
I hear him inhale and then exhale, slow and metrical. I used to lie awake at night and think the rain on the roof, the tides of the ocean, even the beat of my own heart was set to the rhythm of his breathing.
“How long will it last?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“Did you ask for this?”
He pauses for a moment, tucks his hands into his pockets.
“Yes.”
I want to touch the leaf, pluck it out of the atmosphere, but I think if I did it would fall to the ground.
“When?” I ask
“Just now, when you told me.”
I nod and glance around the yard and street, trying to gain more evidence. The neighborhood is still but I can’t imagine anything being different at this hour.
“Come on,” I say, “it is still silly to stand outside.”
I’m not sure if he will but he turns back around and follows me indoors. “What do you want to do?” I ask him.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“You have me now,” I say, “so think of something.”
He walks over to the cabinet and takes out the scrabble board, placing it on our coffee table. We are still standing in the dark and I reach to turn the light on but he catches my hand.
“Lets light some candles,” he says.
“Will they light?” I ask.
“I think so,” he says.
They light and we sit on either side of the table, feet crossed.
“I don’t know if I remember how to play,” I say.
“You’ll remember,” he says.
He deals out the letters and we play. He spells “Madrid,” I spell “Polaroid.” We don’t really talk at all. I wonder if this is how it will be now. Darkness just before light and us, playing scrabble. He would be happy, I think. “Didactic,” I spell and he smiles.
“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asks.
“Of course.”
“That’s what it felt like then.”
“What?”
“This.”
“Oh.”
“Anecdote.” Good job, I say. We play for another hour until the candles burn out.
“Should we go to bed?” I ask him.
“Ok,” he says.
We climb back up the stairs and into the bedroom. The covers are still on the floor where I left them and I pick them back up, shaking them heavily before laying them down.
“Lets make love,” he says.
“Ok,” I say. We do. It’s nice. It’s long. Is it long? Probably. I don’t know. The clocks will not move. The sun will not rise.
“This is wonderful,” he says.
#
When I wake up it is still dark out. He is breathing beside me, asleep, unconcerned. I walk into the kitchen and pick up the phone. I dial a few numbers but they just ring and ring. No voicemail even. I want to ask where everyone went but I know there is a better question.
“Where did we go?” I ask when I hear his footsteps down the hall.
“We got busy,” he says, “we didn’t care anymore.” I nod and he opens the refrigerator. “Would you like a sandwich?” he asks me.
“What kind?”
“We have cheese.”
“Lets grill them.” I drop a pad of butter into the pan and watch for it to sizzle. When it does I put the sandwiches inside. I add olives to our plates, even pour us some wine. We get a little drunk after the first bottle. We start to laugh.
“When was the last time we did this?” he asks.
“A long time ago,” I say.
“This is perfect,” he says, putting his arm around my waist, “we got back here.”
#
We wake and sleep to night. It is endlessly that morning before dawn. I cook and listen to music. He eats and reads.
“When will this end?” I say one night.
“Do you want it to?” he asks. He is content here, in this house. We don’t leave, not even for a walk. What would we see? What would we find? There is an expanse of nothing outside. There is an expanse of nothing inside.
“Lets get high,” I say after putting away the dishes. He is sitting on the couch, making a parade out of the Monopoly pieces. He gets up and I follow. He has some weed tucked into a sock in a shoe at the top of his closet. There is some money in there too.
“I never knew,” I tell him.
“Just a couple of dollars,” he says.
We get high in the bedroom. I smoke too much, I feel sick. He wants to make love, I don’t.
“I need to lie down,” I say.
We lie down side by side, not touching.
“This wont change it?” he says.
“No,” I say, “It won’t.”
He puts his hand on my stomach and I run to the bathroom. I throw up, over and over. He doesn’t come in to check. Not even to watch.
“Could you ask again?” I say when I come back.
“No,” he says.
“Could you try?” I say.
“It wouldn’t work,” he says.
I lie back down. I look out the window. The car is still parked in the middle of the street. It is the neighbor’s car. She lives across the way from us. I wonder what she was doing driving at this hour.
“What’s the point?” I say.
“Were together here,” he says.
I stop cooking. He makes soup from jars in the pantry, boils pasta from boxes. He sets it down on the counter and we eat in silence. We stop making love. The days are punctuated by sleeping and waking.
“I’m leaving,” I say over canned corn and rice.
“You can’t,” he says.
“I won’t stay here,” I say.
“Where will you go?” he says, “there is only here.”
“I don’t know,” I say, “but I have to leave.”
“This isn’t what I want,” he says.
“Standing still won’t help us go back,” I say.
He clears our plates and puts them in the dishwasher. He leaves the room and I hear the bedroom door close upstairs. I take a quilt out of the cabinet where the board games are and lie down on the couch. I am surprised at how tired I am. All I have done is sleep.
When I open my eyes it is light. It is so bright I shut them immediately. The sunlight shines through my lids, making negatives of what I have just seen. The cabinet in front of the couch, door slightly ajar, and a game of monopoly on the floor. I am downstairs. It is daytime.
I sit up and toss back the covers. I rub my eyes of spots and stand up, heading for the door. When I open it I am met with a chilly wind, fall has begun. The car is out of the road, parked neatly back in the driveway and the neighbor across the way is raking up her leaves. She piles them into little mounds, every one the same size. I used to like to jump into those piles when I was younger. I wonder if she has children. I should probably know, she has lived there for months now.
She waves and I wave.
“There is too much to do!” she says, gesturing to the life around her.
I pick up the paper. September 10th, the day after yesterday. There was a fire five miles up the road, a car wreck on Route 11. Someone won the lottery and there is no chance of rain today.
I go back inside and put on some coffee. He likes it black with two sugars, as do I. I put in two pieces of bread, too, and take out the butter. There are so many things I want to do. I can get dressed and put on makeup. I can meet friends and go to the store. I can take the car out. I can leave now.
I take the cups upstairs with the toast between my teeth. There is dust in the hallway, little piles of hair in the corners where the walls meet. I must not have seen, it has been dark for so long. I stop at our door and lean my ear against the wood. I smile because it would be like him to sleep through this, to not know that the sun has risen and time has begun again. But there is no steady breathing, no sighing. Not even the slight ruffle of covers.
He is gone.
The bed is made and there is a note on his pillow. I don’t read it, I already know what it will say. I set the coffee cups down on the dresser and take the toast out of my mouth. I go over to the bed. I pick up his pillow and hold it to my chest. How long did we lie here for? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? It was no time, I think, it wasn’t even a moment.
The clock on his nightstand is ticking loudly. I pick it up and turn it over. I flip open the back flap and snap the batteries out. I turn out the lights. I close the blinds and draw the shades. And then, when it is dark, I climb back into bed. I hold the clock to my chest, squeezing tightly. The beat of my heart can almost pass as the second hand, marking the minutes as they pass away.