On
a rainy Wednesday afternoon we sat
face
to face
finishing
our coffee as time was finishing itself—
slowly,
silently, without drawing attention, yet
with
a certainty incomprehensible to humans
and
their measurements and their science
and
their philosophy.
Still, we sat, face to
face,
on
that rainy Wednesday afternoon talking
about
sadness—or something like sadness,
though
it could also be hopelessness, despair,
or
even what some optimists would rather call
unripe
happiness—while trying to drink
bitter
coffee without letting its bitterness interfere
with
the half-sorrowful, half-contemplative mood
of
our friendly meeting.
Time, like an instrumental tune
playing
softly
in the background, continued its course
without
drawing too much attention to itself, and
we
tried, oh we tried so very hard, to place the right
words
on what we were feeling, on what we told each
other
we were capable of feeling, yet had never
quite
succeeded to name, to comprehend, to talk about
without
having to trip on analogies.
A few meters away from our table, a
large
puddle
of murky water reflected a swarm of mosquitos
that
resembled the grey clouds high above while we,
still
trying to finish our coffee while also attempting
to
draw a conclusion to our discussion,
suddenly
fell silent,
so
silent that silence gave us the tentative answer to our
sad
question. Time and its nonchalance about authority
does
not know how to give names to things, including
emotions,
especially emotions that always seem to be
felt
inaccurately.
Maybe the strange sadness that
constantly
makes
our hearts ache stems from the absence of
words
that could help us talk our way out of it. Or
maybe
it comes from the fact that even time—Almighty
Time—cannot
alleviate it.
So on that rainy afternoon, as we
sat face to
face
with two empty cups on the table, we remained
silent.
And time, still preoccupied with finishing itself,
granted
us enough silence to wonder about what to call
the
pain
that lingered on the tip of our tongue.
that lingered on the tip of our tongue.