i spoke to an old friend today. at least i think we talked. it was hard sometimes to tell. see, she was making tracks to the whippin’ post. looking for some quick hugs and maybe just a little humiliation along the way.
i was the after thought. small talk, really. just a breeze. you know. the kind that moves through the silence at the eye of the hurricane, barely lifting the leaves on the trees.
my friend was different. she was the storm that followed. she knew every trick. every answer to every question either one of could think of to ask. every conclusion she reached came together just like she thought it would. just like she planned.
my friend had decided she was the only actor in this play. and her script had been set in stone. i tried to write a few new lines. make a brief appearance in a walk-on role. but i failed. she’d closed the book on new lines. and she’d done it long before today.
you know, talking to my friend that day was a little like being lost in the forest. there i was, picking up the breadcrumbs she never meant to drop, and offering solutions to situations she never meant for me to see in the first place.
she judged herself before my ears. she being the only judge. and then she found herself guilty without the benefit of cross examination. i think i failed in my defense. who was i to think that i could plead the case, anyway. before the jury of her fears.
in the end, my friend found herself pleading with a hung jury. still out, i guess.
not because of any eloquence i brought to the witness stand, but because she must have had a few thoughts still sitting there, dumb and happy amidst her tattered soul.
anybody who ever thought tough love had a chance in situations like this never had to deal with distance as a fact. never proposed crazy answers to the end of a telephone cord. i know this. because i tried it.
tried and failed.