Flying

Sitting outside a small café with a glass of coke, ice melting quickly in the summer heat, I look at Nikki sitting across from me. The feeling of love hasn’t gone, just changed slightly. Instead of passion I feel a milder caring. I’ve never really had a friend that I felt that for, and I like the feeling intensely. It made me think that maybe friendship is something that would perhaps be the better option in this situation.

Behind her feathered hair, that the sunlight caught and lightened the colour of, flying ants flew about haphazardly. Occasionally they would get caught in her hair and each time came the notion that perhaps I should not pick them out, for fear of it being too intimate an action. I’m not a very touchy-feely person, so it was awkward. I thought about a child’s foot and how tempting it is to stroke the soft sole of their feet between a finger and thumb. I told her about that and she responded that she always felt like ‘chewing on them’.