TheBanyanTree: Amanda and Robert

[Sally Larwood]

Oh boy!

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

> On 29 Mar 2014, at 7:28, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This was from a dream I had last night. Sometimes I dream stories and
> images, sometimes when I wake up I try to capture them, and sometimes I
> can, and sometimes I can't because I don't have the words to paint a
> picture of an image, and it fades away so quickly. This time I swyped it
> out on my phone before getting up, part of it, anyway, the part I could
> remember.
> 
> 
> ______________________
> 
> 
> 
> It had been her idea to stop, she couldn't walk another step, and it wasn't
> as if they had anywhere to go, or anywhere to be. "I'm so tired Robert, I
> just want to nap for a bit."
> 
> 
> 
> He looked at her with those beautiful aquamarine eyes, and said of course,
> it's not as if they had anywhere to be, or anywhere to go.
> 
> 
> 
> And so even though they were on the street, at the corner of Mercy and
> Hope, they sat down.
> 
> 
> 
> It wasn't a busy intersection, but the cars still went by, mostly on Mercy,
> with less traffic on Hope, but no one saw them.
> 
> 
> 
> No one ever did.
> 
> 
> 
> She hadn't known him for long, only a month or so, but life on the streets
> passed so slowly she felt as if she'd known him forever. Knew his shambling
> gait, the way he would lower himself to the ground as if he were melting
> into it, careful not to dislodge even one bone of his lanky sleek body.
> 
> 
> 
> She knew he was sick, though he'd never said so.
> 
> 
> 
> She knew his story, and he knew hers. They were stories no one else wanted
> to hear, and so they told each other in hushed whispers, as if others were
> listening though no one was.
> 
> 
> 
> She had a blanket she carried with her, because she was always cold, and
> she wrapped it around herself while listening to Robert talk.
> 
> 
> 
> "It's a good day, Amanda," and she had to agree that indeed it was a good
> day, not too sunny, overcast like they liked it, a bit windy, but not too
> much. The sun was too much brightness into the dark corners and there was
> no escaping it, so they loved the days with clouds.
> 
> 
> 
> She laid down then, just wanting a bit if sleep, and then Robert laid down
> too, on his side, his feet by her head, facing her, so he could look at her
> while she slept.
> 
> 
> 
> She noticed how much redder his face was today, his cheeks an angry umber,
> though anger was not a word she associated with him. He kept talking, and
> before she drifted off she heard him say, "Might take a bit of sleep
> myself."
> 
> 
> 
> When she woke it was an hour or so later, maybe two or three, but not yet
> dark, the time of day that usually, before she met Robert, had made her sad
> with its potential and heartbreak for the next day. He had changed that for
> her, talking her through the slow nightfall so she no longer feared it. She
> saw him then, right where he'd been when she had fallen asleep, his eyes
> closed and his face drained of color, and she knew he was gone.
> 
> 
> 
> She thought she should have been sad, but she wasn't, and she smiled to
> herself, and then she went back to sleep to join him, giving not a thought
> to whoever would find them.
> 
> 
> M