I am alone in a room with no windows, knotted wood floors.
There’s a clock, relentless, keeping track of all the minutes I’ve wasted.
The sky is so very dark but it’s sunlight that frightens me most.
I pack my suitcase, the same suitcase I was supposed to take on our honeymoon.
Outside it begins to sprinkle.
You wrote your notes on coffee-stained napkins.
Journeys you’ll never make.
Everywhere from the Swiss Alps to L’Arc de Triomphe to the pet store ten miles away.
We argued that last day:
It’s too expensive. Maybe we can just go to Cowan Lake.
You had the website of the cruise pulled up. You pointed to an exquisite sunset in Nice, to the lavender fields of Provence.
What’s money worth, you asked, If we never really live?
At the airport, I shiver in your winter coat.
Couples hold hands. A child tugs on her mother’s arm, begging for a cookies and cream cake pop.
I stand in line, clutching a ticket as if it is my lifeline.
Maybe it is.
I board behind a woman with wispy white hair, a cheetah print scarf. She smiles at me under red sunglasses. She’s dressed as if she’s already in a warmer climate: diaphanous teal long sleeved dress. Ruby red sandals a shade or two brighter than her sunglasses.
And then I am alone. The seat beside me is empty. A luxury, for most.
But I just feel your absence.
Twenty minutes into the flight there’s turbulence.
Nothing to worry about. Don’t be alarmed.
The same statements you made to me that last day when the snow began to fall on I-79.
I accept a free water bottle and a bag of pretzels. They are stale, and most of the salt is in the bottom of the packet.
Turbulence lasts for maybe a half hour, maybe an hour.
And then the skies break.
Clouds shift to reveal a misty sun.
As if the sun knows it must return, but doesn’t wish to before it’s ready.
INSTANT NOODLES 