Last night I left my phone in a taxi. I've been tracking it on Google Latitude. The phone is still on and it rings but no answer. Google Street View shows a taxi parked outside. I think the driver must work nights. I've left text messages saying I will give finders fees and my number to...
forums.overclockers.co.uk
I used to work in Chicago.
You appear at his house; he answers the door, puzzled, perhaps expectant. You hold up a finger to his lips, quietening him, and a playful smile crosses your face. "Let's go inside," you murmur. He ushers you in and you head to the bedroom, watching the way he moves, reaching out to touch him but then pulling back. Soon.
In the bedroom he takes control and you always knew it would be - could be - like this and you give in to him unconditionally. It's exhausting but just when you think you can't go on any longer he does something else to make you call on the very last of your energy.
Morning. He makes breakfast for you both and then heads to work in his taxi, dropping you off on the way. The phone you'd lost is exactly where you'd left it except he's gift-wrapped it for you and the sentiment brings a tear to your eye which you brush away, pretending to have caught an eyelash. Before he leaves he asks if you're available later that week. You bite your lower lip and think that if this were a movie, the camera would have a jump shot to this action but this isn't a movie. This is real life. So you nod happily, eagerly even, and his warm smile melts your heart.
The relationship develops and of course there are obstacles and roadblocks to overcome. Together you manage and your initial feelings of liking this man grow into something else, something deeper, something more loving. Within the year you've given up your small, one-bedroom flat and moved in with him. Initially you cook and clean, helping out where you can and offering support when he's had a bad night. Money is always tight but together you make what you have last longer than it probably should. You find that he is quite the artist when it comes to making things : craft items and other assorted pieces. A comment you make over breakfast - "You're my craftsman, ha!" - cements his nickname and you both use it to describe him, inwardly smiling whenever you use the phrase, revelling in the intimacy that only a couple's secret can produce. He leaves you small things on your pillow, always expertly gift-wrapped. You store them all in your bedside table, kissing them lightly before closing the drawer.
Life carries on as life does and the years pass. You're happy and so is he. In time, you begin to take a more active role in his taxi business, taking calls and plotting the journeys for him. He's thankful because business is booming and there's a chance, albeit a small one, that this could be the year, the year where he could make a lot of money and maybe - it seems incredible but it's possible - seriously think about retiring and spending more time with you. Just thinking about it makes you quiver with excitement. The possibilities!
It happens on a Tuesday and later, when you're playing it over and over again in your tortured mind's eye, you were blind-sided. These things do not happen. They should not happen. They can't happen, oh please God, they cannot happen, they cannot happen, they just can't and you've woken up late in the afternoon having just finished a late shift and he's gone to work - tired but excited - and you slope into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee that you don't want but you think you do need and while the kettle makes its burbling sound (which you hate - "why can't we get a new kettle?" you think) you go back to the bedroom to think about what to wear today and as soon as you open the door your eyes jump-shot to his pillow and your stomach cramps up, almost making you collapse, a noise trying to escape your throat but it too feels restricted and you can't breathe, and you stagger over to the object you've spotted and it's familiar, oh so familar, and you think of taxis and presents and gift-wrapped dreams and you're almost there now, you're almost in touch of it but your legs have stopped responding, you're static, planted in one spot and your brain is screaming that you shouldn't go any closer and you must not do this, you must not see this thing but you have to and now you're crawling towards it, your robe making swishing noises as it rubs against the real wood floors ("It needs polishing, look at how faded it is!" your mind screams at you) and you reach out a hand but pull back ("Soon" you think, confused, remembering something, an event) before grasping it, the beautifully delicate bow on top of the gift exactly as you remembered it and of course it's a phone and of course it's not your name on the label but you don't know who she is and of course this was always planned - always - and when the phone rings, startling you, you nod because this too was always going to happen and you stare at the caller ID, knowing before you even do so that it will be his name and it is and you answer and he speaks and the world that you once knew just falls apart, it is not there, it does not exist, it evaporates because -
"I've found someone else. You can keep the phone."
He hangs up.
