The Way Monuments Do

“I don’t know. Somehow I don’t feel so much like ruminatin’ today.”

“I don’t believe it. That would be like a cow stoppin’ chewin’ its cud. I want to know what’s on your mind.”

The granite was cold underneath them the way it would suck the life down and out. And they were on Betty’s doubled-up shawl and it was still just that way. And the snow on the rocks on the islands all out there all upon the grey sea, that was like an invincible magnet for to draw the cold down out of heaven, down in a rush till the blood had trouble getting through the heart without freezing up and shutting down the works, yes, and all the play too.

“Perhaps I’ll write all about it. One day after you’re gone.”

“Noah.” She turned his head with her gloved hand to keep his eyes from the distance that called him. “Now. Say it now.”

“Girl, I can’t say or I’ll cry. And my eyes are already like ice. So I can’t cry. But let’s see. See, this morning, you know, I was brushing my hair. And then I was picking my hair off the brush and into the trash it was going. And then I thought, that there hair. That’s not mine. Never was. It’s just something that grew. I’m just something that grew. So, if you really must know, I’m persuaded that things never change. Because how can things change that were never the same?”

Betty interrupted with a kiss. And then quickly pressed her fingers to his lips both to keep the kiss in place and to stop him from nattering on. Because he was nattering. Worse than ever. Worse till it weighed on her heart like eternity’s stone.

“Someday, you know, I’m going to lose you to the distance. That distance you’re always looking out at and getting lost in. But not today. Today is New Year’s Eve and you are mine today.”

“And tomorrow the year will be new. And you will be off and away. And the hairs, the hairs, into the trash they’ll still be going. You say you’ll come back, but who will we be then?”

In a way it was already there. It was there like the cold and the snow on the rocks and the ancient grey sea. The university, the classes, the new friends, the new things to know that would come in between, that would come in between like a wedge. You could say maybe, it was all only maybe, but it felt so relentless.

“Then again,” he said, because he loved her so, “I’ll always be with you, wherever you go.”

They knew it was true. They both wished they could sit there forever. The way monuments do.

31 December 2025
Texas Jim
Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia