12/25/11

Frozen
By Sean Woods


He picked himself up and made work of dragging his body to the concrete barrier between the city and the water. The effort must have been considerable, as since then he hasn’t moved but to breathe or blink. His heavy hands are widely spaced, cementing two pillar-like arms to the cold stone ledge. Broad shoulders hold a thick neck and a face too masculine to be pretty. He eyes the slab of cold concrete between his hands with the intensity of a man contemplating something awful.
I have watched him for hours across the river, both of us frozen where we stand. The stillness betraying our whirring minds, pumping veins and bleeding hearts. His heart plunged into mourning her loss; mine flooded with desire for what I have found.
I don’t know what their fight was about, but it sent her arms flapping and dropped him to his knees. I think it was the flapping arms that caught my eye. Their bodies told me it was a lovers’ tiff, but she left before I got the hang of reading lips. So I waited. For her to return or him to chase her, I don’t know, but I waited nonetheless. Neither came to pass, only hours.
At first I admired his commitment to the pantomime pout and theatrical sulk. Assuming he was trying to look sad for her return. The pigeon proved me wrong though. There are two ways to react to a winged rat in the city: with the excitement of a tourist or the proportionate disgust of a Londoner. Instead he stood motionless as the vermin crossed both the stone ledge and his hands. A man so frozen was not pretending; he was devastated. That’s when I started to fall for him.
I began to wonder how those rough hands would feel on my soft skin, if his stone like arms would turn to pillows around me, if his frost bitten lips would thaw with a kiss.
At five o’clock I thought I’d lost him to the frenzied siege of good men and women returning to their families. For a few panicked moments my eyes darted around the battlefield, hoping for one last glimpse. The fighting soon ceased, and as the troops retreated to regroup, I found him again where I’d left him. My pounding heart did not slow with relief, but instead raced faster with excitement. That's when I knew I had fallen.
As the sun dipped down behind the bank, he cast a long lonely shadow towards me. I imagined his eyes following that shimmering shadow across the water and up the bank to the buildings beyond. Amongst which he would find an unimposing but unmistakably beautiful town house, with slight flaws that only add to its charm. Wherein he finds a window, wherein he finds a girl. Slight flaws only add to her charm. But alas, his eyes cannot swim and stay fixed on the cold stone partition that keeps him from drowning.
Day gives way to night and I have somewhere else to be. The kettle boiled, I fill my flask, and don my coat. Reluctantly I turn to leave, and toss a final glance at him, still frozen to the palisade.
Outside the night is warmer than expected, perhaps enough to thaw.


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