"Don't say anything," was the last thing she said.
There was a hush that lengthened into a silence, a long silence, as we stared at each other.
When someone says "Don't say anything" to you with a certain emphasis on the words, the meaning is often clear. Do not DARE to say anything as anything you are likely to say in the present circumstances is bound to incriminate you even further or make that someone who said "Don't say anything" even angrier with you. And that was how she said it. And that was how I took it.
But who was to break the silence that was still lengthening even as I dwelt upon these thoughts? By saying "Don't say anything" to me, she sort of imposed the same constraints upon herself, I felt -- as if anything SHE decided to say at this precise juncture would also incriminate her or make ME angry.
This is what I call a pivot moment, as if we sat at each end of childhood's see-saw balanced upon the fulcrum of our relationship. A relationship that had lasted many years - and now it seemed, as if by some retrospective objectivity, that we had always been at this pivot moment, with silence stretching back and back and back and back till we couldn't remember EVER speaking to each other.
But, as I say, who was to break the silence? Who would DARE to utter the very words neither of us wanted to hear?
Death is a sort of pivot moment, too, as one's whole life is balanced out by an enormous weight of silence that is about to fill the future.
I felt myself hovering in silence. Years passed. The seat opposite was now empty, but the pivot moment continued, as I did not DARE to break the silence by saying anything I had been forbidden to say, even though there was nobody in the room now, nobody other than myself, nobody there to hear the deadly words I wanted to speak.
I sobbed as I realised that I had not noticed the seat opposite emptying of its occupant, emptying gradually -- with her body starting at first to grow slightly ghostly, then more ghostly, until she was SO ghostly I could see through to the back of the seat, and then I saw nothing BUT the back of the seat.
I had been gradually sinking lower and lower on my end of the see-saw as my trusted counterweight at the other end had grown lighter and lighter ... higher and higher --
But which way Heaven? Which way Hell?
"Don't GO there."
There was a hush that lengthened into a silence, a long silence, as we stared at each other.
When someone says "Don't say anything" to you with a certain emphasis on the words, the meaning is often clear. Do not DARE to say anything as anything you are likely to say in the present circumstances is bound to incriminate you even further or make that someone who said "Don't say anything" even angrier with you. And that was how she said it. And that was how I took it.
But who was to break the silence that was still lengthening even as I dwelt upon these thoughts? By saying "Don't say anything" to me, she sort of imposed the same constraints upon herself, I felt -- as if anything SHE decided to say at this precise juncture would also incriminate her or make ME angry.
This is what I call a pivot moment, as if we sat at each end of childhood's see-saw balanced upon the fulcrum of our relationship. A relationship that had lasted many years - and now it seemed, as if by some retrospective objectivity, that we had always been at this pivot moment, with silence stretching back and back and back and back till we couldn't remember EVER speaking to each other.
But, as I say, who was to break the silence? Who would DARE to utter the very words neither of us wanted to hear?
Death is a sort of pivot moment, too, as one's whole life is balanced out by an enormous weight of silence that is about to fill the future.
I felt myself hovering in silence. Years passed. The seat opposite was now empty, but the pivot moment continued, as I did not DARE to break the silence by saying anything I had been forbidden to say, even though there was nobody in the room now, nobody other than myself, nobody there to hear the deadly words I wanted to speak.
I sobbed as I realised that I had not noticed the seat opposite emptying of its occupant, emptying gradually -- with her body starting at first to grow slightly ghostly, then more ghostly, until she was SO ghostly I could see through to the back of the seat, and then I saw nothing BUT the back of the seat.
I had been gradually sinking lower and lower on my end of the see-saw as my trusted counterweight at the other end had grown lighter and lighter ... higher and higher --
But which way Heaven? Which way Hell?
"Don't GO there."