Gentle Weapons

Friday’s last dance

Long past closing time, that’s when I’ll realize you won’t be coming. Sitting outside the shop with the cold sidewalk poking through my jeans, I’ll be but an empty shell made ghost under the gleaming lamppost. The routine will be muscle memory by then. I’ll shoot you a text that morning and head to work just to long for a reply that can’t come. I’ll invade your phone with entitled messages, then stare at my screen for as long as my mind will take before it starts glitching. It’ll be a challenging couple of days. The worst of my life. Still, I’ll stay holding onto the fleeting delusion of seeing you magically appear, standing before me. The hint of a smile, the tentative invitation of a hug.

There won’t be many souls wandering in the streets at that time except for the occasional outlaw and the cleaners patrolling in their black pick-ups, out to collect the debris from the day’s slaughter. They only work at dusk, you see, after curfew. Once differences have been settled and revenges fulfilled. 

Weekends are a bit calm around here, almost relaxing when you compare it to any day where I live. We witness some action on weekdays but most people hide behind their workload as they still can’t deal with the immediate aftermath of confrontations. Only on Fridays can bravery be so accessible that from the first to the last hour anyone might pull out their gentle weapon, aim at their most recent torment, and fire. They then rush home, cowards, never glancing back at the pile of lifeless limbs discarded here and there. One will probably be lying a few steps away from me, face down, the iron tang of blood its palpable in my mouth. 

Maybe it will be time I start finding comfort in the knowledge that your absence will no longer be felt only by me, but shared with all those who knew you. Maybe it will be time I begin to let go of my hypocrisy and allow the reality I created to sink in.

Wednesday’s blues

At lunch break, regulars who work at the retail store down the street will burst inside the coffee shop with unnecessary energy. I’ll greet them before pretending to be busy, but really waiting for the one who can’t finish a sentence without giggling ten times to get to the end of his thought. He will, and the speaker of the pack will order for everyone. I’ll guess each one before she utters a word: Two Lattes, one medium Iced, the other large hot, and one dirty chai. I’ll get to their drinks, pretending the shop isn’t so small that hearing their discussion is an obligation. 

“I confronted someone,” will say the one who always pays.

“You did? Who?”

“My mother. A month ago.”

The other two will need a moment to react and the silence will make me throw a glance their way. They will have my undivided attention. 

“Honey, why didn’t you tell us?” will say laughing guy.

“I don’t know I… Do you think I went too far? I think I overreacted. I mean, it wasn’t the first time she went crazy on me, I should have given her another chance. I know I’ve been thinking about it, talking about it for months now but she was my mother. It’s not like confronting a friend or some coworker, right? I mean… it can’t be that simple.”

Shaky voice. She will sound like someone who values life. Dead giveaway that this will be her first time. I will wonder what she does when she is alone. Try to picture what she did right after the confrontation. I’ll settle on the idea that she threw up, bending over the debris of her former torment, screaming. A bit like me.

“Here it is,” I’ll say, handing over the Lattes.

“You did what you had to,” will say the speaker as she grabs her drink from me. “You have to own it. You’re allowed.”

She will say it in a slightly gentle tone, easy on the one she does not see as a torment for now. But I’ll hear the detachment hiding beneath the sweetened words letting me know that’s a veteran. No confrontation will ever shake her. 

The last drink in my possession will be the dirty chai. A stained beverage for a recently stained soul. Will I have made it on purpose? Kept the best for last? I won’t know. I won’t think about it because something else will be scratching at the walls of my mind. 

“Are you still mad at her?” 

Six pairs of eyes will fall on me, an amalgam of offended and confused. They’ll think me crazy and so will I. 

“Your mother,” I’ll start again. “Now that she is not a torment anymore. Does it feel better? Did you let go of the anger?“

It’ll be all that matters. All that will comfort me in my decision. Her response will somehow be exactly what I’ll both want and fear hearing. 

“I don’t know.”

Monday’s trouble

A curfew forbids Confrontations past 7pm as an illusion of boundary, and to be certain we’re not suspected of after-hours acts, it’s advised to stay inside when the night comes. I’ll wonder why I set our meeting at such a late hour. The debris left during that time tends to be more vicious. Surprise attacks, beatings, blades, and more. But mindless brutality won’t be my intention. If I’m allowed to take someone’s life for a yes or a no I’d rather have the object of my wrath look me in the eye as I do so and only gentle weapons help with that.

That day when it gets obvious that you’re bailing on me, I will start heading home. Keeping my head down whenever cleaners drive by and staying far from any outlaw on the quest for violence. A bit absent-minded I’ll almost miss it. Almost miss you. At some point though, I will make out the lines of a short silhouette melting in the dark and stop. 

We haven’t seen each other in six years but I won’t torture us with the What happened? And When did we forget to care? No, I know better than that. Trying to name the cause of our distance will make you leave and I won’t allow that. Instead, I’ll call you by your given name and not the nickname you introduce yourself with, to remind myself that I know the core of my friend, to remind you that there isn’t enough silent treatment in this broken world to mute what we shared. You’ll smile. You always smile, even when you’re in the wrong, and I’ll start walking again, sliding closer and closer a firm hold on my own gentle weapon icy in my hand. 

Why did I bring it with me?