a fear of flying.

She said she’d only kiss a face like mine. I don’t know what that means. I didn’t ask. I was tired with drink and I preferred to just look. The days are confusing enough without a love story entwined in the wreckage. She liked to talk about the war. She never told me which war she was talking about. But she was very taken with the war. She adored the heroics of it all. The romantic images of brave boys with bayonets. I tried to insist there was bloodshed. I don’t think she was listening. She saw poppy fields and soldiers returning home to their bloodshot eyed wives. I saw differently. But she couldn’t see where I was looking. The horizon becomes blurred if you stare at it too long. The land becomes water. She wore blue eyes with a hint of innocence. That wasn’t what I liked about her. Most of the time she’d talk and I’d listen. It seemed to work to both of our advantages this way. I wasn’t much of a talker. I’d trip over my tongue trying to say the wrong things. Plus she liked talking. She wasn’t just stuck on the war trip. She was stuck on anything that made her more interesting. It didn’t. But it made her feel that it did. And who was I to discourage this interest in being interesting? I’d just sit with my back to the wall. Cigarette in one hand. She told me that smoking was bad for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I knew. I liked watching the smoke rise as she told me facts about wars I wasn’t born in time for. Stories about heroes that I didn’t recognise. She said that she had dreams about them. I doubt it. She didn’t have much of an imagination. She worked in a museum. She kept posters of war heroes. She left scratch marks on my back. She preferred floral designs but wore dark colours and vertical stripes. She said it made her look skinnier. She didn’t look fat to me. But what do I know. She wanted to fly gliders. But was afraid of heights. These little contradictions made her a person. On scraps of paper no bigger than my thumb she’d write me love poems. I kept them in a scrap book. About the size of a novella. I don’t know if she liked me like that. Or she found me an interesting way to pass the time. Either way. I don’t mind too much. We once walked down the motorway at night. Drunk. Waiting for bright lights to come our way. We weren’t looking to die you understand. We couldn’t see where the pavement was otherwise. Once we’d negotiated this hazard we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Life is full of these stop starts. Haphazard life negotiation she’d call it. I never asked. I just locked a rye smile on my face and kept moving. One day she got into her glider and flew away. I never saw her again.