The Wall Between Us

The Wall Between Us

Their life paths crossed once again. With each new encounter the wall between them seemed to get taller. She looked at him askance noticing his thinning grey hair, and for a flicker of a second the desire to extend her hand, and run it softly across his face swelled up in her. The invisible wall stopped the movement like the jolt from an electric fence. Their conversation was stilted, the smiles forced as the past hung between them like a curtain neither dared part. They have turned into each other's taboo, into strangers afraid of trespassing into the forbidden zones of what once was.

She steered the conversation toward his art and his gallery, and it began to flow more easily. She pretended to be her old insouciant self, unmoved by his apparent indifference toward her. Their light banter was another mask hiding her memories of dizzying love, passion and their ultimate demise. And these memories lived in a place she often visited, a place filled with incomprehension over how abruptly bonds between souls dissolve into nothingness. As if they were never inebriated with love, as if the power of their bond never made them feel immortal and god-like? Where did those feelings vanish? And why was she still stuck in the quicksand of unrequited love? Questions without answers.

Looking into his sky coloured eyes she tried to still her throbbing heart. For a few moments, silence fell between them like an opaque veil covering the unspoken. Anger rose in her throat leaving the taste of bile. She despised herself for loving a man who stopped loving her long ago. That weakness of hers marred her soul and felt like an unbreakable curse, or a tragic flaw of character. And the thought he might somehow see through her pretence terrified her. It was time to retreat behind the wall again.

 

Jana Begovic