"The Phone Call"

Moonlight falls in slanting lines across the tin roof, its shadows dancing along the balcony where she stands. Mountains stretch for miles out in front of her as she looks up, wanting to bathe herself in the luminescent glow. Insects buzz around her but she’s oblivious to the annoying sound as she watches fireflies dance along the electrical wires running through the sky from pole to pole. The trees seem to be shivering as the wind sweeps past them softly.

She stands at the balcony, one hand resting lightly on the old unstable balustrade that separates her from the sky. Her eyes seem to take on a sparkle enough to cast a soft excited glow on the ledge near her feet as she watches her phone light up and the familiar name cascade across the screen.

She spends the day waiting for this, the quiet time looking out at the impatient skies ready to rain and the stars dancing along the inky black canvas of the night. The feeling is unnatural for her, but she welcomes it as foolishly as one would welcome a hailstorm.

She can see his face through the rain bucketing down of a sudden, blurry and obscure between the swollen grey clouds. The foolishness of it all flummoxes her as she reaches out a hand to the crying sky, bringing it back dripping with water. She feels a smile flit across her face and she feels flushed, asinine like a teenage girl.

She tries to calm herself down, warning herself of the insanity of such feelings. But the feminine sentiments are only heightened as she hears her name whispered through the phone.

He seems so far away, so out of reach, almost forbidden. A secret to be hidden deep in the depths of her emotionally over brimming mind and heart. The mystery excites her as she tries to decipher his tone, search through it for the emotion and feeling. The ambiguity of the situation both thrills and terrifies her as she wonders to what end this all may come.

He speaks and she listens, her immediate thoughts stuck on the words he utters and still a thousand more flitting past, running wild with questions and insecurities she dare not highlight. The weather delights her; the scenery gives her goose bumps of serene joy. But through all the beauty and the dazzling picturesque calm, she gazes outward and wishes he was here.

She forces herself to believe she has no right to feel this way. But being farther away than usual makes it harder to sound unassumingly alright, harder to push away the intensity of the emotion. Not knowing how he feels when she feels whatever it is she feels makes her mind turn over and over with doubt she has no right to possess.

She tries to find words suitable enough to explain everything without seeming clichéd and contrived. They refuse to enter her mind, and instead the wrong ones seem to come out. The dubiousness of it all scares her into a silence and he asks if something is wrong. It is - the insecurities are killing her, the joy of finally hearing his voice frightens her.

The thought of losing him makes her grip the balustrade and slide down to the ledge, she closes her eyes and when she opens them the rain stops, the image of her either lost or hidden behind the deflated clouds that saunter away towards the unknown.

She can hear tiny droplets of rain still pitter pattering on the tin roof as the moon bids adieu and disappears into the dark. She feels a frightened happiness now, a despairing joy.

A sudden want to be enveloped in the warmth and gentle strength of his arms surprises her; as does the urgency to lean against the broad expanse of him as she shivers with the force of the bitingly chilly night zephyrs.

They continue to talk, she continues to ponder, butterflies continue to flutter in her stomach and his voice enhances the yearning. She can almost see through the phone the constrained smile on his face as she says something, the quiver of his eyebrows as he ponders upon a sentence, the quick blinking of his eyes and turn of his head as he tries to avoid a question.

Hours seem like minutes as they speak, darkened skies lightening to the sudden unwelcome dawn. Dawn means goodbye, welcomes another long day. A day like this, watching her phone as it lies silent next to her till night beckons again.

She watches the moon dip into the stream gurgling cheerfully across the valley, gaze at the clouds as they slip behind the verdant mountains. The rain stops. The skies clearer like a signal to bid farewell. Her heart quickens as he articulate his feelings, her smile widens as he verbalizes your thoughts. Any insight into the workings of his mind enthralls her.

As they say their farewells and he bows out to rest the night, her mind stays a muddle. And as it sifts warbling back to normalcy (or what could be deemed normalcy with the state of affairs as it now rests) she retreats from the sanctity of her balcony to the warmth of her bed and huddles in her blankets to ponder upon this wondrous state of mind she finds herself in around him.