Hidden Memories

Rain falls on a lonely dock off the west of the United States. It's winter, it's cold and it's most certainly wet. Despite all of that, a woman waits near the water's edge. She is fair and beautiful, more so when her age is to be considered. Not an old woman, by any means, but her high school days are far behind her. Once a wife, twice a mother, soon a new grandparent and currently my lover. She stands still upon the dock, the pier, and waits. Long red hair slowly grows damp and heavy with water. Camera clenched in a firm grasp, once hobby now quite the small town business. As with the many times before, there she is.

Now I, a much younger gentleman, am not interested in telling the story of how we two met, of the difficulties that being who we were brought both for my family and hers, or of any "acceptance" that eventually formed. No, none of that. In fact, I am not even in this story. This story stars her, My Lora, and another man. A man who's name I do not even know.

"The Fisherman," To hear her tell it to me one night in her sleep, "Comes in the rain." The very literal man of her dreams, which I was only privy to in the dark of night and never once did I dare bring it up after she woke. Many I've asked say this was common for her. The Lady in Waiting for her sailor to return. Why? For only a photograph, a piece of something that could hold this... Fisherman's face, his soul. Something more to have, to hold, to kiss at night and bid a good rest; a physical, tangible, burnable, memory.

Breath leaves her lips in a puff as she starts to feel the wear of the weather. The day slowly fades, and with that the night comes, only to make the drudge much worse. She begins to grow tired and sad; yet another no-show and day wasted. Long depressed sigh, but.. fingers digging at that camera, hands clamped tight in an anticipation she has felt before. A ship, a fishing trawler, is visible on the horizon. She wonders, she asks aloud, "Could it be him?" She continues, "Is this the time? Can I... have my photo? Is this...? Is this...?"

-It is not.


With that first wish gone, is there is still hope? That one ship is but a single, part of a large mass. More will return soon, and if the captains are known as she, My Lora, thinks and feels they are, then all will be home soon.

Catching cold, shivering to her bones, she hunkers down and waits out the return with even more resolve. Some from town come to check up on the woman who waits, My Lora, and they all beg her to come back, take shelter, leave the sailor, think of her health; she will not listen.

Time, more rain, more waiting, more hoping. Only two ships left to pull up to that dock, then one, then none. He wasn't on one of them? Another season of heartache and loneliness are held to her, My Lora. Tears mixed with the still falling rain; where it not for the taste of salt and the ache in her chest, not even she would notice.

Move to turn, a noise resounds within her ear, no, a voice. His voice comes from behind, but she assumes it is a trick of the mind, a subconsciousness ploy to cause herself more pain. It comes with a touch upon her shoulder, a spin on the heels and a kiss to her lips. He has finally returned to her, My Lora, The Fisherman has come.

Some might say what happens is in my favor, that had The Fisherman stayed I would not have the love that I do. But others would agree with my point-of-view, The Fisherman is a fool. Only a great idiot has a woman so loyal only to...

...leave her.

The Fisherman breaks the long kiss, hands upon her shoulders and shakes his head. Without words he says all he needs to say. The smile she had, My Lora, quickly leaves as she realizes this will be the last time the two are together. What she feels is hard to pin down, but she responds with anger, slapping The Fisherman's face briskly and looking away in haste. The Fisherman's boots echo along the wood of the pier as the rain dies. The sound of his feet get lighter, lighter... soon he will be gone, but not before Lora, MY Lora, gets the photograph she so desperately wanted.

A coat vanishing into the morning mist which rolls off the sea is all there is to view... The Fisherman's face is lost forever, and I sit here next to a bowl in which that photograph is now nothing more than ash.