Today Rory felt pensive and sentimental. Whether the clouds were caused
by her feelings, or her feelings had caused the clouds, she wasn't sure.
But she reflected on this as she stared into a bubble that had formed on
her coffee.
Clouds often made her lonely because everything seemed quiet and shut-in, even though she sat on the porch swing outside. She could endure the cold and didn't mind the chill wind against her hands and face…it was just the clouds suffocated her.
She decided then to use this rare and silent opportunity to let her mind wander to warmer, sunnier thoughts: the smell of alyssum and the oncoming rain, of her vanilla nut coffee, and of –cologne?
She remembered the latter vividly, though she couldn't recall having been aware of that scent for weeks, months maybe. It was a good cologne, mild, but just enough of a fragrance to elicit a bittersweet memory. And she'd only smelt it on one person because it wasn't merely a store-bought scent, but a soft mixture of it that mingled with an essence of soap and warm bedsheets, a freshly-pressed uniform, new car, and a hint of strawberry chapstick in his leftover mocha whispers.
This memory made her toes tingle, although others would say it was caused by a drop in the temperature. Her thoughts were not impure, but simply the happy, innocent thoughts of one friend for another. And at that moment, a breeze blew in response-a warm breeze from the south. She looked up from her now empty mug to find that a piece of cloud had been seemingly torn away. Replacing the dull gray was the underlying crystalline blue of an April sky.
She imagined that these were his eyes and below that, was a smirking, but genuine grin. She smiled back at her Tristan in the sky just before the clouds resumed their guard, and deciding that she needed more coffee, she went inside.
Clouds often made her lonely because everything seemed quiet and shut-in, even though she sat on the porch swing outside. She could endure the cold and didn't mind the chill wind against her hands and face…it was just the clouds suffocated her.
She decided then to use this rare and silent opportunity to let her mind wander to warmer, sunnier thoughts: the smell of alyssum and the oncoming rain, of her vanilla nut coffee, and of –cologne?
She remembered the latter vividly, though she couldn't recall having been aware of that scent for weeks, months maybe. It was a good cologne, mild, but just enough of a fragrance to elicit a bittersweet memory. And she'd only smelt it on one person because it wasn't merely a store-bought scent, but a soft mixture of it that mingled with an essence of soap and warm bedsheets, a freshly-pressed uniform, new car, and a hint of strawberry chapstick in his leftover mocha whispers.
This memory made her toes tingle, although others would say it was caused by a drop in the temperature. Her thoughts were not impure, but simply the happy, innocent thoughts of one friend for another. And at that moment, a breeze blew in response-a warm breeze from the south. She looked up from her now empty mug to find that a piece of cloud had been seemingly torn away. Replacing the dull gray was the underlying crystalline blue of an April sky.
She imagined that these were his eyes and below that, was a smirking, but genuine grin. She smiled back at her Tristan in the sky just before the clouds resumed their guard, and deciding that she needed more coffee, she went inside.