Chapter 10

Wake. Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Since Maya, you've gone through your days not really feeling real, always slightly distracted, feeling as though you're not where you are supposed to be. You find yourself going to bed earlier and earlier, and taking longer and longer to wake in the morning.

Toothpaste. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The whole time you go about your day you can't stop thinking about her. The way her nose scrunches up when she laughes, the way she reaches out to touch your arm when she is talking without even realizing it, the way she looks at you as if you are the only man in the world.

And you aren't even sure who she is, even though you feel like you've known her forever.

And she feels more real than anything else in your life.

Garage door up. Start the car. Headlights pick out the snowflakes as they fall to the ground. Pull out into the grey air to run to the store. Garage door down.

Like it's a movie about somebody who is living the wrong life.

As the day turns to night and the snow turns to sleet you think about going to bed early again. Hoping Maya will be there, like she has every other night, turning and smiling to you in the bright sunshine and laughing when you say something funny, reaching out to squeeze your arm gently.

You realize that you're daydreaming about her, not even aware of what's on the TV. Maybe you realize that this is better than being awake, almost as good as dreaming of being with her.

So you turn off the TV and walk through the dark house to bed.

Chapter 9

Her hair is braided into two pigtails, bound tight beneath her helmet and flowing out behind her in the wind. You know this because you handed her the helmet to wear before you both climbed onto the bike, you know this even though you don't remember it at this very moment. You know that her pigtails are whipping around in the warm air behind her right now, you know this without seeing it for yourself because you are both travelling at nearly 80 miles an hour over a highway that wraps the coast of Maui like a seaside snake, coiled and ready to leap into the Pacific Ocean at the drop of a hat. The highways are ready to leap into the sea, that is, you and Maya are hugging the curves of the road on your speed bike as you both hurtle through space and time as one, moving forward to a destination that is unplanned, unknown.

Maya's arms are wrapped securly around your waist, her breasts pressed up against your back. You can feel them against your skin, through two layers of cotton t-shirt, hers and yours, you can feel her warmth over the heat of the sun beating down on the two of you as you careem around the twists of the road. With each twist and bend of the road she squeezes you tighter, and every time you pull back on the throttle to accelerate through the turns you can hear her squeal and shout in excitement.

You love this. You love her.

Nothing exists right now except you, her, the speedbike, the asphault, and the bright blue skies above you.

You wish this trip would never end, but you know that a few miles ahead of you lies a stop sign, and beyond that, slower roads and maybe even traffic.

You dip lower into the bike, feeling as though you, your woman, and your machine are one being, racing through time without beginning or end.

Chapter 8

She stands a little ways away from you at the top of a slight hill with her back to you, holding her hands out slightly to each side, letting the long grass brush her fingertips as it sways back and forth in the warm gentle sea breeze. She is wearing a sundress, the pure white straps a bright contrast to her milky brown skin. You stand for a minute watching her, appreciating the way her long, black hair falls softly over her shoulders and down her back, smelling the salt air, and listening to the far off roar of the waves crashing on the beach.

You wonder briefly that if you close your eyes and hold your breath, maybe this moment will last forever.

It is paradise.

You walk up slowly behind her and stop inches away, wondering if you should reach out to her. You are afraid she will disappear if you do, leaving you alone again, looking out over the empty beach by yourself.

Just as you think this she leans back and raises her arms, resting her full weight on your chest and wrapping her arms over her head and around your neck. You can see her face now, and it is as beautiful as you knew it would be, her eyes closed, a peaceful smile drawn on her face.

"I've been waiting for you." she says, and her voice brings tears to your eyes.

You wrap your arms around her waist and pull her closer to you, lowering your head to bury your face in her hair.

"Hello Maya," you whisper into her ear, "I've missed you..." and you wake with a start to your cell phone ringing and vibrating on the end table next to your head.

Chapter 7

Your life over the past few weeks blurs all together into random nearly unmemorable flashes of partial events when you try to think back. Still life snapshots of the world around you, taken through your eyes. The line between dreams and real life doesn't seem as solid and dark as it once was. Oftentimes you find yourself waking up and getting ready for work - the same way you do every day, unthinkingly, and wishing you could go back to bed and slip back into your dream world. Sometimes when you sleep lately, people who were once such an important part of your real life in the past come back to spend time with you in some surreal mix of your childhood and the recent past. When you wake up, you find that you miss them.

You've realized as the holidays fade into memory and a new year dawns on you that you are no longer sad, but at the same time you are rarely happy. During the week you keep yourself busy at work, usually the last to leave the office, the only one of your co-workers that has nothing much to return home to besides a big empty house.

Weekends are spent working at the kitchen table or at the coffee shop. Random encounters with people you meet when you venture out don't bring with them the hope of new friendship or love that they once did, they are simply meaningless communication - never a connection. You wonder if you are the one keeping them at arm's length, or if everyone who meets you can sense that you are a closed door and doesn't bother trying to get to know you.

The weather is cold out these days, you remember reading something in the news about global warming causing record low temperatures all around the world. So you don't venture out much, chosing instead to keep your own company in a house full of ghosts, a house you can no longer afford, or even want to be in.

You wonder as you sit in the kitchen ignoring the TV what it would feel like to put a nicotene patch on your balls.

You wonder if anyone is ever really as happy as they appear to be in movies.

You think about what it would be like to start life over somewhere else, maybe somewhere you don't speak the local language.

You wonder what would happen if you smoked a pack of cigarettes while wearing an aforementioned patch.

Maybe you wonder how long it would take for someone to break down your front door and find your decomposing and nicotene-stained body slumped at the kitchen table.

But mostly you wonder if you would be able to fall asleep, and if you were, what dream life you'd slip into, whether it would give you a momentary and subconscious reminder of what it felt like to be happy, to be with people you loved, and to feel as though they loved you back.