Rivulets of Black Salt

She lost her composure today, while kneeling in Circuit City.
Instead of the soundtrack originally motivating the excursion, she found herself in the oldies section. Maybe all this reflection and nostalgia made her do it. Maybe the music itself was just a way to unleash all the tears building this week. She hadn't felt so high in years...riding the crest of magical belief in someone. Ka'eo was the one person who had changed her cynicism into blind love. He had filled her with a desire and energy she had never before felt. And though she felt she should've been more reluctant, she listened to his heartfelt words and threw herself passionately into the unknown.

This music would understand all of this, she thought.
Telling her story, her childhood, her reflection on life...it reminded her of the music from the 1950's. It was the music that reverberated thought the speakers in the bottom of the boat, whe she was a shivering cold nine year old. There they would be, wrapped in wet towels, Papa smoking a cigar, the air cool, Mom wrapped in a blankey and all of them headed toward home in the old Viking speedboat. Papa loved this music and they would all equate it with his lost summer childhood memories. It was bittersweet and romantic then and it remained so today.

"I want a sunday kind of love....." croons now through her headphones. It was the title of a story Ka'eo wrote her a few weeks ago. Listening to this old song she feels the heartstrings pull tight, and more tears squeeze out down her already soiled cheeks. The worst track on the whole Doo Wop cd was the one entitled "Where or When". Music starts: "It seems we stood and talked liked this before...We looked at eachother in the same way then, but I can't remember where or when...? AhhhhaAhhhhh." Everything in her mind is tinged in rose colored sentimentality, and until recently was shared with him. Now she sits on the perforated metal shelf next to discounted cd's no one wants to buy and che cries. She doesn't want to give up, but she cries anyways. Why has it been a whole week since she's heard from him? Why has it been this escalation of love and expectation and now nothing?

Is he okay? Is his grandmother dying? Why would someone evaporate for a week and turn off their phone? She picks up the cd, and takes it to the counter. She also clutches as few reggae cd's to cheer her up. Tomorrow she'll sleep in as long as she can. Sleep hasn't come easily this week. She has become used to her morning wake up call at 7:30 a.m. with his voice so comfortable and warm in her ear.

The voice in her head wonders why he would say so much and then disappear, unless something awful happened to him. Unless she was taken by a con artist. Either prospect makes her cry more, until rivulets of black salt coat her cheeks. She comes up for air, and pays for her purchase long enough to make it to work. The songs play, and she changes into her penguin suit. She pulls her shiny dark hair back into a ponytail. She puts a piece of kiwi-citrus gum in her stale mouth, she drips visine into her red eyes, and she strains to make it through Valentine's.

A red Armani dress hangs in her closet, wondering if it will be worn in four more days.

Her better judgement tells her not to count on it. And the cynicism creeps back in, and the sunset of dreams starts to dip beneath the horizon.