Freo

The floor is littered with CD covers, and I turn the blinds on a sinking sun. I slide the CD I have been searching for into the player and again, note the date on the calendar that hangs nearby. A bottle of red glistens from the light of the flame thrown by the candle that I have impulsively lit. It’s not dark in here yet but soon will be. The room is comfortably subdued; I am comfortably numb – until the song starts to play, and I start thinking of you. It is Deborah Conway’s voice that bounces off walls around me but inside me, my own voice questions…what if?

 ‘Its only the beginning’ she sings, and it hurls me backward in time through a tunnel full of doubtful decisions at the end of which is you –a memory still waiting. So much I miss. So much, so irreplaceable. An image of us rises up from my murky surrounds. We are integrally linked as we wander through Fremantle markets. I am so in love I can’t see straight. You are so straight to the point, “I’m married,” you say, as we pass by the chicken kebabs. I don’t care but imagine I should. We continue to cling, still knowing how wedlock can snap in the twisting of fate. 

In the flickering candlelight, on this day of remembrance, I imagine you still think of me. Wonder what I am up to? Did I mention I’m doing a writing course, and that this missive is meant to be an assignment about a fictional character? I feel like I know her too well. I wonder…what if…