Light is Merely a Distraction

First published as part of the Unbound Series (Tempest Production) - January 2021 - Listen to audio story here.

The light carved a space for us amid the night. Under its sulphur glow, our tans looked deeper, turning us into better versions of ourselves. A moth knocked against the lampshade, giving an irregular rhythm to our evening. Past the edges of the terrace, the garden had disappeared under an opaque darkness as if the rest of the world had been erased.

On the other side of the table Adam sipped its last dreg of wine before reaching for the bottle. I watched the bottom rise higher and higher while you stubbed another cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.

 “Is there more wine?”

“I think so,” Leila replied. She stepped through the mouth of the French windows, before turning back at the threshold of the darkness looming behind her. “Do I have something to tell you when I’m back.” A smirk fleeted across her face before she disappeared inside the bungalow we’d rented for our couples holiday together.

Inside the belly of house, she became the smack of flip-flops against the ball of her heels, giving a heartbeat to our night, for a moment overshadowing the taps of the moth.

We poured our silence into the gap her absence created. Still her presence lingered behind with her promise of gossip. Adam’s attention drifted towards the house, a tower of ash building at the end of his cigarette. He looked diminished without her, all curved spine and rounded shoulders. She pulled him up. I hadn’t known him before Leila started dating him. Adam had been like this blacked-out garden — never really existed before her. 

I distracted myself by wreaking havoc on the rings of condensation the succession of bottles had left on the table. My finger slashed through them, water bleeding from the cuts. You leaned against the back of your chair, fingers knotted behind your head, taking deep breaths.

I didn’t mind our silences. They’d stretched recently, a new presence around the flat like an adopted pet. It curled with us on the sofa, followed us in bed or in the car. It had hopped along on the coach down here, you busy watching The Departed on your tablet, me headphones on listening to Sufjan Stevens on a loop until the music became a mood. But the side glances Adam threw at us pricked the skin between my shoulder, his eyes turned our silence into something to be picked at and dissected. Before I thought of anything worthy to say the smacking crescendo returned announcing the end of our unspoken unease. 

“Last one,” Leila said. The pop from the cork punctuated her words with a sense of inevitability.

After filling Adam’s glass, she perched on his lap. He welcomed her back with a kiss on the curve of her sunburnt shoulder, mixing pain with pleasure on her face. The light caught in the gold loop of her earrings winked at me. Hands on my shoulders I rubbed their peeling skin, brittle and fragile like the wings of a moth.

Under Leila’s grip, the bottle bowed towards us in an invitation for one last drink. I shook my head; you on the other hand accepted. You always said ‘why not’ normally accompanied by a nonchalant shrug. The curl of her mouth taunted us as she delayed the start of her story.

The only one empty handed, I grabbed the discarded box of matches. Shaking it around, the matches hissed like the cicadas that haunted the garden with their sizzle during the day.   

Tap. 

Tap went the moth, reminding us of itself. Hitting the glass, stubborn, refusing to believe in the invisible wall standing in its way, drawn to the light, ready to hurt itself for it. I slid a match out of the box, rolling its thin body between my fingers. 

Across the table Adam rested his chin on Leia’s shoulder, his eyes on us once again. I shuffled closer to you until the warmth of your arm pressed against mine. You didn’t move.

“Do you know Julia’s having an affair?” Leila said, aware none of us knew. That was Leila — a Firestarter. Like at our Christmas party when she’d announced to a packed living room she and Patrick had broken up. She’d requisitioned me for moral support while she enacted the big fight. You’d spent your time talking with the boys in the kitchen. We’d only found each other after everyone left. Arms outstretched under the covers, my hands padded the emptiness between us until they brushed against the expanse of your back. We hadn’t seen Patrick since Leila broke up with him. We had to choose a side, of course it had to be hers.

“No way.” You straightened up at the news, breaking our connection.

“Yes way. Saw her coming out of her gallery with some guy.” The last couple of words sagged with contempt. He wasn’t worthy of definition — an approximation.

Eyes closed I found Julia behind my lids, the darkness glowing pink from the light. Wheat coloured hair spun gold under a midday sun, stepping out on a sidewalk, a man in a sharp suit anchored to her waist. 

“That doesn’t mean—” Adam said.

“She kissed him goodbye. I’m talking full on, tongue-twister kind of kiss.”

The body of the match snapped under my thumb. 

“When were you in the city?” I asked. I imagined Leila, phone in hand, scrolling through the list of potentials, my name skittering past in a blur of letters.

“Last month. Flying visit,” she replied, waving her hands around, gold bangles clattering in agreement.

“That’s bad. Poor Richard, they looked like such a happy couple,” Adam said.

“The other half is always the last one to know,” you replied, before wedging a cigarette at the corner of your mouth. I believed you. The others are always the last to know. Like I hadn’t known Leila was in town last month.

“Maybe he doesn’t mind,” I said, my attention back on the box of matches rattling between my fingers. I wouldn’t mind if I were Richard. 

You covered my hand with yours, and the rattling stopped again. One move and I had disappeared beneath you. Mechanically, you lifted my hand to the side, retrieving the box.  

Tap.

Tap. 

Another tap before the moth’s efforts were interrupted by the sizzle of a match’s head being consumed by a flash flame. The sharpness of sulphur drifted between us.

“Of course, he’d mind. Anybody would,” you answered, turning the tobacco of your cigarette into a glowing ember with every breath.

With a flick of your wrist the dead match flew across the table and missed the ashtray. Not bothered your hand returned on mine, a familiar move, a romantic gesture dulled by time into a habit.

“Do you think he’s the only one?” you said.

Without a word, all eyes were on Leila. Her laughter erupted, scurrying around the table, roping in Adam’s and yours but mine tripped and missed the beat, but none noticed.

“What are you looking at me for?” she said, the last crumbs of laughter still clinging to her words while she snatched your pack of cigarettes on the table.

In the silence that followed the moth and its tapping reclaimed their place in our evening. You stood up, swatting at the lampshade, your cigarette dangerously close to the insect.

“Leave it alone.” I pulled on your shirt for you to sit back down.

“It’s annoying.” 

It’s not its fault, it’s the light I wanted to reply.

“Leave it,” Leila said, and you returned to your chair next to me.

“You were her roommate at college.” Adam wound his arms around Leila’s waist and pulled her back closer to him. She answered with a shriek. She always made everything he did sound new and exciting.

“I love her dearly, she’s one of my oldest friends, but —” She repeatedly pressed on the lighter that only produced the gritting sound of flint scratched by steel but no flame until you tossed her the matches. “Let’s put it this way, but she was very popular at college.”

The way the word ‘very’ sagged with innuendo; I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of qualifier and adjectives Leila had for us when we weren’t around. For Julia apparently it was very popular. Not hard to believe for anybody who had seen Julia with her dazzling smile and impeccable sense of style, the kind of woman who filled up bras perfectly, stretched lace over curves, who left the gym with tousled hair and a dewy glow, instead of the red sweaty face and stringy hair which adorned the rest of us. Do you think he’s the only one? You told me once you found Julia beautiful, in a matter-of-fact way like one would assess the value of a painting in a museum, before adding you preferred more natural looking women anyway. 

The wine winked behind the thick glass. I poured myself a drink and gulped it down too fast, leaving my throat sore. 

“Why didn’t you say you were in the city? We could have had lunch.”

“I was only there for a work thing. I didn’t have the time to see anybody.” She waved her hand, dismissing my comment like you would shoo away a moth flying too close.

“Poor Richard, that’s all I’m saying,” you said, the words punctuated by another deep breath. 

You took a lot of those these days. Thinking of it, you having an affair with Julia was ridiculous — far too exhausting for you to sneak behind people’s backs. The idea mellowed the knots in my shoulders and I rested my head against your shoulder. You pressed your lips on mine, the nicotine on your breath mixing with the alcohol on mine. You tasted familiar  but pulled away quickly, eyes unfocused.

“You guys are adorable,” Leila said. “Don’t you think they’re adorable?” 

“Sure are, babe.”

When they kissed, their lips lingered as if sharing a secret. Adam’s hand disappeared under the canopy of Leila’s hair, her skin shivering in response. Their abandonment sent my gaze upwards, but before I could find the silhouette of the moth, the light blinded me. My eyes adjusted to the black smudge vibrating against the glass. I sympathised with it and its losing battle. Long ago when we read Sunday papers in bed before making love — newsprint ink smudging over my thighs and arms — there’d been a story claiming insects ran into lights because the glow messed up their internal navigation system. Nowadays, you didn’t linger, instead you hit the gym early and newspapers’ ink only smudged on my fingertips while I read at the kitchen table.

“How are we adorable?” The question slipped out without me noticing.

“What?” Adam asked, his mouth still wet from their kiss.

“How are we adorable?”

“You know...”

“I don’t. How?”

“It was just a comment,” you said. 

“I know. How’s this particular kiss adorable? Tell me, Adam.” All eyes on me, and I couldn’t stop myself, his words a scab I had to pick at. 

Adam looked at you, but in the end Leia stepped up to the rescue. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beat. Adam?”

“Right behind you, babe.”

“Goodnight,” you  said.

Fingers laced together, they stepped into the house to be swallowed by the darkness, leaving behind a trail of muffled words and giggles. After they left we sat our hands flat on the table side by side, the moth above counting the beats of our renewed silence.

“I’m knackered too,” you finally said, rising. “You coming?”

“In a minute.” 

Alone at the table, with only the moth and its buzzing for company, I pinched a cigarette between my lips. Maybe, I should have an affair with Julia. It all unfurled in my head as the smoked curled out from between my lips — where we would meet, how she would seduce me, how I would let her, how her mouth would trail down my neck, the shimmer of her saliva on my skin. Our affair lasted the length of a cigarette. After I crushed the stub in the overflowing ashtray, I left the fantasy behind, along with the buzzing moth. The last of us on the terrace, I switched off the light. 

The world only stayed pitch-black for a moment. Gradually shapes assembled from the darkness — trees, a hedge, the L-shape of the house. Through the window, ghost of clothes fell to the floor; Leia and Adam’s silhouettes moved closer to each other — impervious to my presence — until I couldn’t tell where one finished and the other one started. My breathing slowed as I forgot to look away until shards of voices passing by sliced through the night and severed the connection. 

 Still a silent observer trespassing on their intimacy, I felt sorry for Adam. He liked her more than she did him. When she’d grow tired of him, she would flick the switch on him, scroll past his name on her contact list and she would leave us with a shadow of his memory hovering on the fringes of our friendship. Leaving them behind I headed for our room.

Later when you moved on top of me in bed, your eyes fixed on the white wall straight ahead, I kept thinking about the moth, and if it had found its way in the dark now the light was gone.