In a Year's Time
1.
Eighteen is the age at which human beings reach the midpoint of their perception of the passage of time. In youth, a month is an era, half a year, an age. At thirty-three and thirty-eight, respectively, what is a year?
What is a year?
2.
He goes AWOL from the base to see her off. To say goodbye. And their hands kiss, as holy palmers do. And nothing more, not yet.
But isn't it always later? What happens now? What about now?
3.
Don't be you, she said.
He thinks: There is no me without you.
4.
The ocean is blue. The ocean is green. She swims in the waters off the shores of the Maluku islands, mindful of the undertow, relishing the warm salty waves. The sun beats down on her skin until she dives under. When she swims back to shore, she often images him there, waiting for her beneath a palm, stretching his arms wide open to receive her. Her toes would dig into the sand as she pressed into his chest, and she would feel his pulse against her own heart.
But of course, he's not there. That would be ridiculous, and entirely too hopeful.
5.
He doesn't imagine Teddy anymore. It's her he sees now.
6.
The moon goes around the earth, the earth goes around the sun. A year will pass.
7.
Gravity is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. It is why objects with mass attract one another. It is why the moon spins around the earth, why the earth spins around the sun. It is why a year passes. They will meet again in a year's time. They will meet at the center of their universe.
[the end]