Oh, this dark endless night!

Illustrated by Samantha Fulton.

Oh, this dark endless night! 

I dwell on past hugs, how I would greet my friends with a smile and clasp their hands in mine with so little thought or appreciation. It is more than the physical touch I miss, but something intangible, something that could be both comforting and erotic; something instinctual and old. Something inherent in our culture and inherited from our ape progenitors from so long ago. Instead I am sealed in the dull aesthetic of four walls — eat, sleep, repeat. 

How I long to cross this gaping chasm between us. A simple touch. To reach out my hand to tuck an unruly lock behind your ear. A reassuring support to prop you up when doubt creeps in. My fingertips outstretched in the silence.

Burning kisses; a cold ache. The palpitations of glorious ecstasy once felt, are now lost. Peppered along our skin, the glistening dew of fresh sweat. My forlorn sigh …

“I love you,” she said.

A gentle sweet caress, accompanied by a lullaby of kisses, as a baby is cradled in their mother’s arms. She, with her wisdom, tends to her young. The infant, drifting off to the lull of her voice into a dreamless sleep. The father, counting his dwindling money as the seed of jealousy sprouts in his chest, jealous of his own infant. She warily avoids her husband, careful not to provoke his anger, and lies awake deep in thought. The blush of her child’s rounded cheek is visible from the glow of the moon in the night air. A dreamless sleep. 

Above, through another apartment window, two lovers sink into a deep embrace — at once both vibrant and in a stupor. Stuck in the moment and drowning, trying to remedy the pain of our current world. If only they could sink into each other’s arms into a deep oblivion.  

Envy rises to the surface, for we long for some contact. To be held; to be loved.

For each window I see, I imagine what lies beyond: An ideal picture-perfect nuclear family exposed by constant bickering? The ailing health of the frail elderly body? An individual in crisis, unable to cope?

I sense you waiting. Beyond the rolling hills, through the criss-cross of the train tracks, past each row of houses and apartment blocks, under the bridges, or opposite the closed park. Waiting and watching, your body alight with a small glimmer of hope. You hope as much as I do to be reunited, and I will hold you like a babe in my arms and wash away your fear. 

But through this present mist of confusion, fear, and death we witness the decay of our human touch. Essential rituals diminished. Missing loved ones, dead or distant. Deprived of those we accept into our families, our lives. This love devoured by the silence, the emptiness, this unending distance. 

“I miss you,” we echoed back.

For despite our hope, this unease … it lingers.