Senses

Senses - Written 2007

The wind whistles through the trees as I sit there on the cold, metal seat of the tram stop. All around me are other commuters just wanting to get home and relax with a hot cup of tea.

A cup of tea would be so nice right now. A really milky one with two sugars; I can almost taste it. But in reality all I can taste is the remnants of my mint that I’d been sucking on for the last ten minutes.

Over the road from the tram stop I can see a tramp sat on the floor. He looks filthy and judging from the faces of the people stood near him he doesn’t smell too rosy either. I wonder how he got like that, how can someone get to live in that state? He obviously has no money, nowhere to live and barely enough food. What was his life like before? Did he have a business that went bust? Did he just run away from it all?

My musings are cut short when he suddenly gets up and walks away and out of sight.

Someone at my tram stop has chips; I can smell them now. They must have just arrived and it’s making me hungry. I covertly look around to see who it is. It’s a young girl, probably just come out of school, and her mum. They are cuddled together sharing the chips. The girl only looks about nine or ten and I wonder which school she goes to and why she has to get the tram home. Both her and her mother look smart and well dressed, yet both look at ease eating chips out of the paper at a tram stop.

People around me start to move, swarming towards the edge of the platform; the tram is here. I board quickly and am lucky enough to get a seat next to an old lady. She smells like posh soap and has a woolly hat on that makes me smile.

The tram is full to busting and all around me are the bodies of other people. They bang into me as the tram starts and a woman’s bag hits me on the back of the head. She apologises in an unconvincing way and turns back to chat to her friend.

I can hear snippets of people’s conversations, one sided conversations of people on mobile phones and the loud hissing sound of someone’s headphones as they listen to music. I can’t help but wonder how loud they have it if I can hear it but it’s their ear drums not mine at risk.

The tram trundles on and I try to look past the old lady and out of the window. The world seems to be moving instead if the tram and only the occasional bump ruins the illusion. I watch for landmarks that I’m getting close to the stop where I need to get off. Upon seeing these I fight my way to the doors ready for when the tram stops. I push my way through what seems like tens of sweaty people and finally reach the doors just as the tram stops. I step off the warm and clammy tram into the freezing air of the world. I listen as the tram moves away before starting to walk.

Awake

She lies there, as still as she can, pretending to be asleep. He’s watching her, she’s sure of it, so she tries to keep her breathing as deep and regular as possible. She considers opening her eyes to check, but changes her mind as she feels his face closer to her own.

She can feel his breath on her cheek as he leans down and gently kisses her. First on her cheek, and then lightly twice along her jaw line, and then slowly and softly on her mouth. She can’t help smile, only a small one, but it creeps onto her lips before she can stop it.

She hears him sigh and knows he’s awake again worrying. He’s a worrier, he always has been and she knows she’ll never be able to change that. She knows no matter how much she reassures him that everything is going to work out and all of this… mess will be over with soon, he’ll still lay there next to her worrying night after night.

He jokes that the stress is what is turning him grey but she knows all too well that his jokes and smiles during the day are a mask. She wishes she could fix this and they could just get on with being together and loving each other.

He brushes her hair away from her forehead and kisses her again. She smiles and turns her head towards him as he wraps his arms around her and holds her against him. She can feel his breath and hears the steady rhythm of his heart, and hopes that he’ll be able to sleep tonight.

~~*~~
He’s almost sure she’s awake, or at least half awake but he doesn’t want to say her name in case he’s wrong and wakes her up. She deserves to sleep; she’s the one who does the worrying during the day, and then it’s his turn at night. She always knows the right thing to say to ease his mind, even if it is only a temporary release from the stress.

She always has done, that’s one of the reasons he loves her. She knows just what to say and do to make him ridiculously happy. She knows just how to look at him to make his legs turn to jelly and his stomach do back flips. He only has to look at her and he smiles; it’s completely involuntary, a natural reaction.

He can remember the first time he ever saw her perfect face, and how he had watched her all day from across the room. He’d been too scared that day to speak to her properly and had intended on introducing himself the next morning. However, at some point he’d looked up and found himself staring into the most beautiful pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

He jokes with her now that that was the moment he began to fall in love with her. Truthfully, he’d fallen hard and fast the moment she smiled at him and told him her name. He’ll never tell her that though, he thinks it’ll scare her away, although part of him knows that’s just paranoia.

Holding her against him now, nearly all the worry and stress fades away, and although he knows it will return in the morning, he can start to feel sleep overpowering him. He kisses her one more time, just next to her mouth and fights the urge to kiss her again, harder and deeper, when she gives him another small smile.

He carefully gets comfortable, with his beautiful girl resting on his chest, and closes his eyes.