August
25, 2002
suddenly I remember
Listening to: Goldfrappe - Pilots
Reading: old emails.
Today after school the rain was heavy, cold and was
accompanied by wind.
It was glorious. I practically danced my way out of the
school gate and walked a distance to the car, soaking the seats immediately when I got in,
laughing. Farah as usual, thought I was crazy. I was strangely euphoric. I felt the rain -
most likely acid rain - tingle into my skin.
As I was walking downhill towards the gate, with cars on my left and the crowd of dry
people on my right, I raised my nose to the sky and took a big whiff of the atmosphere
around me. Maybe it was the rain, or combination of body heat or maybe even the wet grass,
but I swore I smelled you.
It was the same smell yesterday as we hugged and I had inhaled right before choking back a sob. I remember smelling you, and scents with your name all over it from earlier this year, at that very moment in the rain.
A part of me wished I hadn't remembered
at all.
When you sent me home that night I couldn't linger around my mother for long just in case she could smell you on me. I knew I could. Maybe it was just me, high from that night of euphoria. I thought I had forgotten a great deal of the hours we had spent but it turned out that I hadn't at all, it all came back as I walked downhill out of the school gate. I could even single your voice out from the noisy crowd. For a few seconds it played over the rain.
My first reaction was to turn around and see if you were in close proximity, but of course you weren't.