Beyond Words

It was as if the words just floated on a thin layer of his memory. Joel sat outside, at a café, eating a sandwich and listening to his mind peel apart, layer by layer. It was a simple day, with sun, pollution, and pedestrians. Joel watched the people move by like cattle. He wanted to speak to them. He wanted them to share his misery. But they wore smiles, for the most part, and they seemed separate, like cliques in high school. These words though, this sentence, kept repeating. Repeating like a nine to five job. Over and over again, these words recycled through his dusty memory. He swallowed a bite of his sandwich and tasted nothing. It hadn’t hit him until now, but he had been chewing on this one sentence for three days. He recalled her saying it to him. It was late, after some wine, on her front steps. He grabbed her hand, and she twitched. She looked him in the eyes and said it. He instantly froze. Joel could grasp no meaning, and he didn’t want to ask, because he was proud of his ability to understand.
He choked down the words a few more times, then stood up. He placed his tip next to his crumb-filled plate, a balanced dollar, resting between the pepper and the salt. He walked the eight blocks to Val’s home with no thoughts, just those words. A knock on the door echoed through the covered porch and into his ears. Her roommate answered wearing his black business suit. He said firmly, “Val is not here, she left to California for two weeks.” Joel blinked at him for a long period of time. He said, “Okay,” then turned around and saw the front steps. He walked down those steps, and then back by the café. In mid-stride, he glanced at the table he was seated at, searching for the dollar he had left, but it was gone. And on his walk home, he saw the most beautiful half moon suspended in the stars, and for that moment, he understood life without words.