minutes of the meeting

Her voice is as uncomfortable to me as cold wind. Never -ending. I wait. She stops talking. The sudden silence startles me. She takes another sip of her drink. “Yes. So I was saying…” her face begins twisting in animation again, her hair moving with her gestures.

The fantasy still replays in my head. All the uncertainty from within drains me. I feel my hands turn grey; the moments I see in head are frozen in still air. I do want to break away; the purple box and its silver key stare at me still. The voices flood the air. I cover my ears with my hands. I don’t want to hear anymore.

I open the box before it’s too late. Fear makes my hands tremble as I slip the key into the lock and watch as it clicks open. Its lid is heavy though, it takes all of me to lift it open. I look inside and see a pool of water. My reflection is blurred. I climb into the box. Dead butterflies are floating in the water. Their wings stick to my skin. Well, I had warned them the last time around. Don’t follow the scent of my being. Don’t follow me down here. Don’t lie here dead in my tears.

I shut the lid.

I blinked into my present. She was speaking still, ceaselessly. She had not even noticed my absence. She had not sensed that I had disappeared. Didn’t it show on my face, that my mind had closed? I look at the purple box again. Shut. As flowers die around it and the sky cries. It will be sunny soon. I pray the box would open…only this time long enough for the tears to dry.

She’s shaking my hand. Bright red nails. I see she has slipped her card into my hands. She’s talking about movies. No, I wouldn’t like to see a film. No, I didn’t know your cousin went to acting school. No, I don’t like pasta. Thank you for your time. Maybe it was you that made me look within. Maybe it was the utter bullshit and nonsense that you wanted to get into my bed with that made me look inside. I close the file and call my boss. I provide him the minutes of the meeting.

I’m surprised a part of me heard what was being said. I tell him all, I tell him nothing. He asks if I’m alright.