A short story that was sort of a by product of a larger one I was trying to edit for the longest time. Funny how the mind wanders and suddenly a complete story will emerge from a scene or a description. I quickly scribbled it down before it disappeared and went into someone else's head. Enjoy

Loose Ends                                                                                             

It’s now been two days since she left us here. It’s getting embarrassing.

We stand a couple of metres apart, waiting, and ready. But ready for what?

I wouldn’t have minded if she had brought us on a bit, you know? To past the introductions so we knew each other slightly better. As it is, it’s just bloody awkward.

There are implied memories, a sense of something between us but also a sense that she hasn’t a bloody clue what to do with us.

The time just drags. I mean, I know it is still the exact same time. It’s always the same time. That doesn’t bloody change. How could it? It’s just hazy. Stretched. My watch still shows nine thirty. Nine thirty, on a Saturday mid October. I really don’t know what year to be honest. Its dark and it's cold and I’m glad of my parka with the furry hood and for the boots and my fitted jeans even if the look is not exactly me. You know, I feel that she could have made a better effort really but at least I’m comfortable. And it hasn’t stopped raining in two days. How could it stop? It’s on a continual loop. If I pay attention I can see the same pattern of splashes onto the gravel, hear the same bullet like drops as they hit the corrugated plastic roof above my head. Concentration is the key. If you don’t then everything just goes blurry about the edges.

And so we stand there, two near strangers staring out at this dismal beer garden through a curtain of rain. Watching water drip onto the picnic benches and fag butts that litter the path in front of us. I have a Marlboro Light and he deftly hand rolls a cigarette before popping it onto the edge of his lip where it hangs in anticipation of the lighter.

Daniel.

This is his name. And I know this how?

We’ve met before, on numerous occasions.

We may even have had an affair once.

Well more of a one night stand type of thing; you know the type?- a drunken mistake. He’s behaving as if he doesn’t remember and maybe he doesn’t.  For me, it’s more of a past life lived, something that may or may not have happened.  I can only recall glimpses, the paleness of his chest hovering over me, the curve of an elbow, and the blur of his face. Images that slip in and out of my memory like jigsaw pieces sliding in a box.  When I try to remember they slip back further. Hiding.

We seem to meet in the same situations; usually it’s in a bar. Sometimes in this hotel. The last time he was less forceful, we didn’t have a conversation, more of an exchange of words. “Is this seat taken?” My husband, (Yes, I have one. Somewhere) my husband was buying a drink.

Hence the awkwardness.

And so we stand watching and smoking. We haven’t anything else to do. It’s what we are meant to do.

I glance at him. He is handsome enough in a weather beaten kind of way; his hair is long, dirty blonde, tied in a pony tail. He is beardless. He looks older than me and yet younger. He’s a musician, I’ve just spent the last hour watching him play the fiddle in the Hotel lounge and he’s good. 

Looking at him I know that he has lived, really lived. Not like I have. He’s written better, he’s travelled, been places. You just know he has friends all over the globe, always has a couch to crash on at the end of the day. He lives his life on a daily basis. There are no direct debits coming out of his account. If he has one.

He catches me looking and smiles, a lazy ready smile. And I think, ha, he remembers something. I bet he does. It’s fair to say, there is an attraction.

But I don’t know where it will lead. Things get changed around so much. One minute I’m in the Hotel and the next instant I’m looking out on Dingle Bay leaning against the car. Sometimes I’m on my own on a bus heading out to Dun Chaoin.  We’re rarely together, Daniel and I.  But there has been a lot of activity lately. Things are tighter, more controlled.  Some details are being left out and certain aspects made clearer. I feel that this may be the last time we do this.

There is a noise.

We both turn as the door back into the Hotel opens. It closes swiftly. Nothing happens.

“She changed her mind again” he turns away and looks back onto the beer garden.

I sigh and walk over to the edge of the decking, to where the plastic roof ends.

A couple materialise out of the gloom, they stop to kiss under the shelter on an overhanging chestnut tree. They are young and furtive. Have they been there all along?

The rain is stopping. There is clarity to the night. Fairytale stars appear as if by magic in the perfect velvet of the night sky.

A scene is being set.

I turn away from the railing, moving purposefully towards my companion.

Hold out my hand like I am supposed to.

“Hi. I’m Ruth. We met in the bar last night”. Suddenly, I am nervous.

He is pleased. He takes my hand and holds it in his own, slightly rougher one.

“I knew it, I knew you looked familiar”

And we’re back.

The End.