Steel Peaks

Glide wanted to crawl out of her own skin, go deaf, grab the butter knife and take it to her own throat; make a bloody mess to mirror the image of what she felt was happening. Slate had asked her here on purpose, the giant wooden slab between them, the metaphorical wall, maw, eternity that she intended to use to bolster her weak explanation of why it was over. The waitress set down two pints and then asked if they were ready to order. Slate said she wasn’t eating and then gestured toward Glide as if to say “did you want anything?” as calm as could be, as if they were just another two people out for dinner and drinks. Glide felt a red hot fury that couldn’t unfurl through the panic and fear, the confusion. Her thoughts attacked her like a mob: ‘Was she really doing this here? She has no plan on staying to finish that beer. This is an execution and my head is on the block. No, this doesn’t make any sense. This is not what’s between us, this is a mistake.’ The words were like rocks falling on her head. “Glide, did you want anything to eat?” she asked, just short of sweetly, oh so normal appearing. Glide looked up at the waitress whose image seemed to waver like the horizon over a hot distance, almost a mirage. Glide felt as if she was going to hurl. She shook her head no and the waitress gratefully disappeared.

When the wave of nausea passed, hope tenuously clung to Glide. She looked up across the table at Slate as she swallowed ale, put her pint down and was about to speak. She loved her, she wanted to reach across right into her chest and show her what was possible, awaken her from her own nightmare. Instead she saw the words gathering like an army in formation, prepared to march, to slay, to defeat and never look back. She knew this about Slate; her decisiveness, her mathematical calculation of emotions. She had been warned long ago and refused to believe this would ever mean anything directly to her. She gripped the edge of the booth she sat in, as if to hang on, to brace herself for the onslaught.

They began - the words, hollow, spilling first from Slate, explanations, simple, reduced, deduced and empty of the meaning used to describe her regret, her sorrow, her need. Glide refused to read the script and rebuffed, gently at first, strength gathering in her with the love she carried in her heart, but all Slate saw were the tears, which she read as weakness, desperate, clinging, and much too much emotion for her taste. Her own emotions were enslaved, locked away somewhere inside her she’d completely forgotten about when the world came crashing around her some 5 years ago. It was her talisman, her shield, her excuse.

As Slate watched the tears fall silently on the beer stained wood, she was vindicated in her decision and her resolve solidified into the sharp edged misshapen shape that it was. It should have been like a thousand year old steel blade being reclaimed by the kiln of Glides love, to be forged once more, folding the two of them 400 hundred times over until the new blade was the love between them; unbreakable and able to cut through all the difficulty life would deal them. But something fundamental was broken in Slate. Glide had seen it from the very beginning and she felt like an astronaut who’d been pushed off into the cold vacuous uninhabitable deep space with a momentum that has no opposition, the sense of Slate fading.

As she slumped to the ground at the edge of the Hudson River, she could not remember how she got here. She desperately tried to remember what had happened. All she could retrieve was the image of Slate as she rose from the table and calmly walked out the door; never looking back. She remembered the tearing sensation inside her, still there, relentless, despite how every other emotion seemed deadened. How long had she sat there? Who paid the bill? What was the point now? The wind rose up and tugged at Glides clothes that were soaked with sweat. She closed her eyes and wept with such force she was sure every vessel would rupture; she wished it would.

She stood suddenly and began running toward the water, tearing through the last wooded section before the precipice. She purposely grabbed branches as she ran, snapping them when she could, the skin on her hands being ripped from her when she couldn't; blood leaving a trail of her intention. The wind rose up again as she neared the edge and with gale force it pushed against her slight frame until she could no longer move forward. It made no sense, this cool summer eve, this wind, but what did make sense at this point. She waited for it to abate without ceasing her attempt to get to the water. It was as if she had walked into some giant web that held her there, tilted 45 degree’s off the earth’s surface, suspended. So focused on the pain and her destination, she didn't realize she'd been there longer than any northeasterly wind has right to blow. Only when she felt the wind inside her did she cease, slumped to the ground and abandoned consciousness, she surrendered; to what she did not yet know.