He sits there inside that car of steel. There's nothing to feel. It is as if feelings were frozen in a compartment that is falling. There is no sound, no orientation, no direction that is obvious until the compartment crashes.
A minor few seconds of bravery. They didn't even bother to say goodbye. The last words are barely visible inside this cage of steel. "So this is the way it is?" "Yes. And for you too?" "Yes." And she continued walking on that sidewalk while he crossed the street, fully aware that there was no embrace, let alone a smile frosted with a goodbye, before their departure, and that it was precisely because of the cold, inflexible nature of this departure that made its finality obvious. They won't see each other again, and it wasn't because she was moving away. She was moving away far enough that no sentimental regrets could just push them back together. Distance was never great enough if two people really cared about each other. But it wasn't about lack of love here. It was something else that made neither one of them turn even a little.
For a minor few seconds he felt satisfied. He felt he did the right thing. They hadn't seen each other for over six months, and then a few weeks ago they started talking. There was no bad blood, it seemed. He had always been like this, since he could remember. He would be resentful if someone hurt him even a little. And hurt in a specific way, hurt him by making him think he wasn't loved. He would not forgive that person, or he told himself so. But then much sooner than he expected, a simple connection would bring a warm smile back to him, and to the other.
So a few weeks ago they started spending time together again. He knew she was leaving, but he felt he could live the moment, give all the love he felt for her and not worry about phantom consequences. It was a departure from when they were having many nasty fights, where he demanded to know, basically, the future, to know she would stand by him, never disappoint him. For those few weeks, they were truly friends who didn't care what any of this meant, caught up the past as simply stories to share, and shared visions of personal future while dispensing advice.
How did all that become this cold, unbending departure?
Now he sits in this cold cage of a car already filled with the late autumn air that chills the bones. Then a truck, made of much harder steel, much thicker, much more weathered and colder, strikes his meager cage with the full force of regret. His fleshy, fragile body is completely disintegrated. The compartment of feelings finally has crashed after a long free fall onto the hard surface too familiar but still amorphous and ineffable. And in this explosion of feelings, the disintegration of the self, he discovers not some amazing truth, but rather, simply, that nothing made sense. The regret makes no sense. The nature of departure makes no sense. The stubbornness on both people makes no sense. That the two people care about each other can find no room in their love makes no sense. In this void that is created from his former entity there are no words, just, at most, the evaporating ether of feelings.
It helps a little that he calls his friend and complains how painful it is. But he can't explain anything. Can't think. All the time, the only image is the departure. Watching himself walk away, walk across the street, not turning back, not for one last look because that resembles too much like the movies, refusing to admit sentimentality, refusing to give in. He still believes he is right. He believes she was wrong. And the divide in their opinion apparently has bridge built by any perceived, at least, love.
After hanging up the phone, he calms down a little. The atoms are finding their relative addresses, little by little. And he thinks, maybe there was never really a lot of love. Maybe love is just a feeling, not some force that can build bridges, that can bend steel. It certainly has no words, can't put letters together to say sorry, to wash away pride. Whatever it was that allowed them to be so casual, so caring for a few weeks is best left as some mystery not worth investigating.
He turns on the engine now that the pieces are slowly assembling themselves. The engine starts. He drives farther away from her.
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