Emma Fleming

Emma Fleming
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Faded
 


It’s strange how little I remember about you. I don’t remember the colour of your eyes. I know they weren’t brown. I remember looking into them and thinking how far away they seemed. Perhaps they were blue. Or grey.

I don’t know if you wore glasses or not. I don’t remember. I’ve seen a photograph of you wearing them. You’re walking into the living room, in the middle of saying something. It looks as though it might have been Christmas. You’re in your work suit and you’re holding a plastic beaker. Maybe it was a party, or the start of a party. You don’t look as though you know the picture’s being taken. Every time we go over the album she looks at me on that one. She expects me to ask for it, but I never will. It doesn’t really look like you.

It’s strange the things I do remember about you. The way your hair curled up under your ears, around your neck. What colour it was, I couldn’t say. Dark. Black maybe, or deep brown. I don’t think of you as having curly hair. Perhaps you never let it get long enough. I remember your fingers, slim and elegant. I remember the soft soft skin of your hands. So different from the hands I was used to. I remember the first time we kissed how clumsy you were. How unexpected it was. I don’t remember the last time we kissed. Only the first time, and the second. Those are the things I remember, the curl of your hair; the touch of your hand; the bruise of your mouth.

I couldn’t say how tall you were, or how old. I don’t remember what you liked to drink, or whether you smoked cigarettes. I don’t know if you were a nice person or not. I feel like a man who’s spent the night unwittingly playing cards with the devil. Afterwards he can’t quite place the accent. Can’t quite recall the face.

 

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