thisnewday

There must be a French expression for this. If there is, I wish I knew it. You know, a nicely-turned phrase that succinctly describes the situation and lends an illusory grace where, otherwise, there's none.

Something from a film noir, maybe. Because that's where this is going. Towards the darkness that surrounds everything. And which, while standing in the light, some feel compelled to argue is not really there.

You're such a pessimist, she always says. Or, now that we seldom speak, it's what she always thinks. After all the years, I know it's what she thinks.

And she knows that I know it and that knowledge reinforces the silence. So that in the end the two things we really fear, the silence and the darkness, close in together.

Cinematic sense, if not survival instinct, should send us fleeing such cliches. Instead, we're drawn to them, like pinholes of light in our respective darknesses.

These days, the scene is often played in a bedroom we no longer share. And our few words, instead of light, invite the darkness. Which, I would argue, is really inherent in all things: in every face, in every room, but most especially in our denial of it.

Anyway, the scene ends after what now passes for conversation. She takes one last drag on the obligatory cigarette, exhales, (the camera comes in close) and stubs it out.

I don't bother to tell her, because she already knows it, that the damn cigarettes are gonna kill her...

LPK
LiveJournal
6.13.2007