The Kiss.

I guess, if you are reading this, that you know I have a blog.

Not many people do.

Know, that is.

Probably lots of people have blogs.

I guess.

I wonder if everyone with a blog is elderly? I’m not sure ‘youngsters’ do blogs.

Anyway…. Someone in the village asked me to send them a link to my blog.

So I did.

Today they sent me an e-mail telling me that they had been reading it !

See the pattern here ?

Blog, e-mail…

Old School.

Vintage.

One foot.

Anyway, they said they liked the ‘we live’ ’we die’ bits.

I hadn’t remembered that there was such a thing.

See the pattern?

Blog, e-mail, forgetting….

So I read some, got distracted and then realised I hadn’t posted anything for , oooh, ages .

So I rang Bob.

Remember Bob?

The archivist.

The official Bitsnbobs archivist who lives surrounded by boxes in a disused railway station somewhere beautiful in Scotland, not far from the underground caves and subterranean lake where Ms Peggy toils.

Ms Peggy was the former head archivist who died in suspicious circumstances and turned out to be alive all the time.

It’s all here.

Or here.

So, I asked Bob if he had anything that had been overlooked and which I could publish today.

He said ‘ I’ll have a look over the contents of the box marked overlooked’.

Which I thought was a handy turn of phrase.

A couple of hours later he sent me this. 

So here it is.

HE………, was in the café with a friend. They were buying tea awaiting to be served. SHE……. was behind the counter, one of three serving. 

On the counter were some knickknacks you could buy alongside the tea, coffee and cakes.  And amongst all that an unattended note.

Money.

His friend knocked it on to the floor when no one was looking and HE, stepped upon it so no one could see. 

Serving the tea took time, and in this time he bent to put his bag at the side and used this moment to place the note in the bag.

Later a van drove over the bag but it Is not really important except that later his bag was squashed in the tracks left by the wheel.

When the tea was served his friend paid and together they turned to leave the cafe and the server said SHE wants the note returned. It was said casually, without menace. They could have feigned innocence and then maybe the story would have been different.

Probably he would never have remembered her kiss. 

And never have cause to rue that memory.

Instead he didn’t hesitate, he bent down took the crumpled note from his muddy bag and placed back on the counter with the knickknacks and the cake; nothing more was said and they stepped outside.

Outside there were side shows and at one a turtle that danced, or maybe it was just swimming. Maybe other thing too but the memories of these are fading.

Unlike the kiss, which settled upon him just after. Because suddenly SHE, was there, stepping also outside and they met as one door opened for one to leave and one to enter.

They were face to face.

She said ‘I thought you were going to kiss me’. He was that close.

He said ‘I think I was.’ So he did

And she kissed him back.

Which sucked all meaning from him except that moment. He stayed in her arms for what seemed for ever.

It wasn’t, because later she returned, maybe it was after the dancing turtle and he had the moments mixed up.

Because now HE was mixed up.

‘It’s huge’ she said, pointing to a love bight on her neck.

‘I did that ?’ he asked , all he could remember was the kiss.

‘Yes’ She seemed happy and he stood, for up ‘till then he was sitting, and held her in his arms and tenderly kissed her neck.

Maybe it was that moment that lasted for ever?

No, because then he took her to see the turtle, but there was an angry parrot that tried to steal the food he was offering the turtle.

The parrot pecked him and he struggled to escape. 

She took him in his arms again and they held each other again; there was no need to kiss again the beauty was already there.

And he remembers her shape, her breath and always the kiss.

Then they went inside and played the games. They won chocolate and stuffed toys and when it was too late to play any longer they left to see what promise the evening held.

He told her a story of a man he had seen in a film and then he saw the book of this man’s life and started to read it aloud, before stopping.

‘Do you want me to read this to you or shall we go and see the film?’ 

It was decided to see the film because there were others there too, his friend, her friend at least …..but the memory of these people is fading .

So he put the book down and it dropped instantly intothe  forgotten; as much from then on did.

The events crumbling into sand and slipping through his fingers the faster he tried to hold them.

And then, as with all things forgotten, Time stepped in and it was time to go the cinema for those going there, and time to go home for those not.

HE, was going to the cinema so he could remember the now forgotten story.

SHE, was not.

The others are no longer there and all that remains is that moment.

A moment of choice where the price of remembering something forgotten, is the cost of not remembering something not yet known.

And he spun over and over like a fallen leaf in a sudden gust of summer wind.

And all that he had, was the kiss.

Which had been, and remains, 

Everything.

 

previously published in the archives