A distant call.... A call you waited long...too long...you hurry across the waited miles to catch up...
"Hi" you hear a voice clear, familiarity in it impossible to miss.
The familiar crackle of a tone, and you know it is him.
"Am keeping well and you?" answers end just before queries begin. Familiarity of past endings and beginnings.
"Thank you" you say, a private grief rolled into one tight ball in your heart.
" Are you continuing the job"he says not believing he had relegated you somewhere down a priority line, then adds,"one day we will meet and speak."
You learn to smile at that last addition, the formal cool spaced out words that never happened through a year, and seemed to happen just when it is time for goodbye.
And he keeps speaking a continuation of an earlier,"I was busy...lady..I never wanted to explain" with a...."I lost my .....".
You roll up one more tight ball down your heart and say a silent," It's alright"
You are curt not wanting him to guess it hurt still.
And then you hold a crackling line, learn to roll up an unspoken grief into the realms of your soul as you never want him to know what he meant to you.
"We 'll meet one day"voices trail off, the miles over waves snap across a dead switched off line, and you roll up tight into a ball and snap within.
Snap...Snap.
The snaps that snap within dim a single snapped line.
