Best of the Brine

A Sentence Without Words



Words were shackles. It was as if a lifetime’s worth of affectionate remarks and passionate whispers had been made meaningless by the void they created between us. Their syllables and morphemes added links to the chains that held us apart. To love her, and never be able to tell her was a specific kind of torture that I knew would never be bearable.

But I could not stop myself. Much like a salmon jumps upstream even when the odds are against it, I kept on following her. She was the place I needed to be, even if my affections could never be voiced the way I wanted.

~~~

The man with the intoxicating smile was staring at me again. Though I couldn’t see him at that moment, I felt his burning gaze on my back. I knew his eyes were the color of the creek behind my parent’s home, and that the sweat on his skin during the summer months made my heart race. He was always there, somewhere in the background of my day, and his presence never failed to unhinge me.

All my life I had heard stories about the feelings I experienced when around the man at my back. He moved closer. Every muscle in my body tensed, he would have noticed. Perhaps today he would speak to me. I waited.

But of course, it would not be so. Because words were not meant to travel between us. Only longing glances, and lingering smiles.

~~~

Her black hair fell in ringlets down her back. I would have given anything to tangle my fingers through them, to hold her neck to my mouth and taste her beauty. It had been a day similar to this one five years ago when I had first laid my eyes upon her. Nothing had changed since that day, except maybe for the yearning to be close to her. Closer still.

The vision of her was like the sweetest melody I had ever heard. The poems I could have written her flowed through my mind, each one more carefully crafted than the next. But the words could not pass from my lips to her ears. If only we had met in another lifetime. In another place. Perhaps then I could trace the lines of her collar, and shiver underneath her touch.

I had to look away then. My eyes diverted back to the task that needed to be performed. There was always more work, and it was never easy. Nothing was as easy as loving her. Nothing ever could be.

~~~

He moved away, and I relaxed. The day was hardly half over, and I already felt exhausted. He had that effect on me. It took everything I had not to run to him, even if I would have nothing to say once I was in his arms. How I longed to be there. Anywhere but the place I was.

Slowly, I stood to retreat to the cool shade of the veranda. I made sure to walk on the side of the fountain where he was working. We passed like ships in the night. So close, yet unable to see one another because of the veil between us.

I had to keep my eyes on my destination, because looking at him would have been suspicious. I could not afford rumors, or hushed gossip. But as I passed his crouched figure, my breath caught. He was a force my body could not deny.

~~~

Her shoes clicked against the stone as she glided past me. Without looking at her, I knew the exact expression she wore, and how she carried herself across the lawn. I had seen it for years, and had memorized every move she made.

Words bubbled up inside of me when the wind following her smelled of roses and honey. Each one more beautiful than the last, but none as beautiful as her. No, there was no one word that could capture her. And neither could I.

As quick as I could, I finished the work I had been doing at a slower pace than I should have. At a good distance, I followed her up towards the house, where her afternoon tea would be waiting. She loved taking it in the shade where she could watch her garden like a hawk in the sky. I loved working on the trees next to the veranda. It was the hardest work one could do, but I could stay close to her. Somehow, I knew she wanted me to be there.

I climbed into the tree in order to trim the branches at the top. It was dangerous, but that did not matter to me. From the higher branches, I could see her more clearly and she sipped her tea, and let the breeze lift her hair away from her neck.

Once, two summers past, I had been in this tree as I watched her and did my work. I had been so taken with her that my footing had slipped and I had fallen. The hit I had taken was enough to send me to the infirmary for two days. When I returned to the garden, she did something different that day. Her chair was angled in a slightly different way, so that she could watch me in the tree. That was the day I knew.

I knew that she loved me.

~~~




Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him scale the tall tree. His muscles worked from the effort, and the rays of sun shone brilliantly from his hair. It was breathtaking. I had never seen anyone quite like him.

But my time in the garden was coming to an end. Soon, I would move to the parlor. And somehow, the rest of my day would happen around me without my notice. The only part of the day that seemed to matter anymore was when I could see him. And those days were coming to a close. It broke my heart that one day he would no longer see me pass through my garden, waiting for him to speak.

Waiting for the impossible promise of love.

~~~

I heard she would be leaving. To where I did not know, and could not find out. I knew that without her, my life would never mean much. So I made a decision that I knew would change everything. I would break the shackles.

~~~

On the last day of being in my garden, and being with him I had decided something. When I stood to walk past the fountain, I made sure to loosen my shoe. I knew there would be a crack in the stone just beyond his foot as he worked.

With each step, my confidence grew. In those moments, I realized something: living without him in my garden, wherever that would be, was not really living. Steeling my resolve, I knew that I would have to find a way to take him with me.

~~~

She approached softly. It would be the last time I ever saw her, and it hurt more than I thought anything could. As best I could, I prepared my rusty vocal chords for the words I had been preparing for years. It would be perfect, even if it was the briefest moment in our lives.

I would reach across the void. And tell her. The consequences seemed small in comparison to her light leaving my life forever.

~~~

Only two steps from the crack in the stone where I would fall, and he would catch me, and we could look into each other’s eyes, I noticed something different. His shoulders were more tense than usual, his breathing more labored than ever before.

When his face turned towards me, my heart nearly stopped. I watched his tongue slide over his lips to wet them. Sweat was beaded over his brow and his intoxicating smile faded into determined lips.

He was going to speak. If I could have stopped time at that moment, I would have. Because speaking to me was something he couldn’t do. Alarms went off inside my head, and a scream rose from my throat to stop him.


~~~

As the first word pressed through my lips, a shrill scream punctured the summer air. But it was too late. I had to finish what I started. With each word, I felt the shackles of my prison fall away. It was glorious and terrifying.

~~~

Through my panic, I could not hear him. I had longed to hear his voice for so long, but in the end my wishes were never granted. When his lifeless figure hit the ground, my world went in and out of focus. Everything I had wanted was gone. For he had spoken, which had condemned him to death. It had been words for which he served his life sentence, and words that would kill him when he chose it. The shackles around his vocal chords lay broken around his body, glinting in the sun. My tears fell next to them, like sad little diamonds.

In those moments of horror, I had forgotten about my shoe and the clever plan when I would trip because of the crack in the stone. And he would catch me.

My shoe found its mark just as I had wanted.

But he wasn’t there to catch me.

I fell into the marble of the fountain. That was the last time I saw my garden.