clicks

We’re leaving the office last. He’s walking behind me. I saw him look at me with his slightly open mouth and perennially grave expression under the glaze of three sets of illumination.

He switches off the first set of lights, click, and dark.

The second set of lights goes off, click, darker.

We’re both heading for the door and the last set of light switches is in my arms reach.

I deliberate my pace; reach for the switch, click.

Slow down, we’re both slow.

And in that space where I couldn’t discern anything else, I hear a loud sigh, close behind me.

Reach for the door knob now, click.

And the violent light comes barging in, into our little moment. Like light had been eavesdropping on our silent solitude crouched against the door and it tumbled in as I turned the doorknob.

We’re climbing down the stairs together. The moment is so long behind us, as if all the depth, distance, height of the world has come between climbing down the stairs with him and sharing that dark, dark moment with him. He talks mildly of our projects, of our next trip.

Another day gone, a day when his hair smelt like out of a shampoo commercial.