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I saw a duck and thought of you, or rather, thought of the way you see ducks. I remembered back then when we talk about it for hours, we’re obsessed. You stopped suddenly when you saw it then immediately show it to me and compliment me again. I love it.
“Look how cute it is,” you said, with such earnest excitement that I couldn’t help but feel I was missing something exceptional. I was, as it turns out.
You’d brought me to see your favorite duck in Central Park, the type of thing I’d never even thought to have. You were always collecting favorites, or at least you did then, of strange little things. You’re weird, we’re weird. Your favorite pig in game, where we met. Your favorite line which is “ Maybe, Maybe not,” still gets me. Your work in your house which made me laugh of happiness the one with my name on it.
I wonder why that duck was your favorite. I’ve thought about that a lot recently. Did you see yourself being alone and only duck by your side? Ducks love the water. We can often see them floating happily on the surface of lakes, creeks, rivers and ponds, life of a duck is so simple not so deep, so did it flash randomly in your mind that you wish to be a duck ? Did you also love me like how ducks love the water? Maybe,Maybe not.
That day was perfect. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was. Your hand in my hand, your laugh in my ears, the air fresh and green and full of promise. I was one of your favorites that day, a piece in your kaleidoscopic collection of things and places and moments. What an honor that was. The shade came for us eventually, the darkness, but not that day. That day, the sun shimmered all around us, chasing off the shadows.
I don’t remember exactly when the clouds rolled in and stole you from me. Only that they did. ‘Stole’ is the wrong word, I suppose, a selfish word, a cowardly word. I let them take you, didn’t I? I watched as your world grew smaller, when your discarded favorites littered the street and were carried off by the wind. I was afraid. Afraid you’d throw me away like the others, so I left.
You’re gone now. I’m sitting on a bench, your bench. Or is it mine? I bought the little metal plaque and chose the words for you. “A place to rest, a place to grow, bending always toward the sun.” I made sure to include a duck with it. I think you would’ve liked it. I guess the bench is for me, really. The things we do in the name of others when they’re gone are never really for them, are they?
I’ve thought only of those dark things for a while, but I’m trying to push them aside. I’m trying to think of that day in the Ramble where we did just that. God, your eyes were so bright, your smile so wide. I got sunburned, but not badly. “It will turn into a tan,” you said, with a dismissive wave of your hand, a gesture that seemed to hold all the wisdom in the world. It’s hard to describe how light I felt in that moment as the sun flirted with the horizon and the grass felt cool between my bare toes. You cupped my reddening face and laughed. You kissed me. I would live in that moment if I could. I’d hold it in my mind and let it grow and grow until it consumed me forever, became my everything. But I can’t.
I’m sorry. I think you know that. I hope you do. I’m sorry I ran away when you retreated. I should’ve gone after you. I thought I had lost you already then, but I didn’t know what lost was, not really. I’m sorry we couldn’t live forever in our park, on that day, in that magic we didn’t notice until it had gone. I notice it now, when it comes. In my favorites and in yours. I hold them close and make them part of me, just as you did.
It’s quiet here, on the bench. It’s getting dark. I think I see the shadowy things that carried you away. I understand, now, why you wanted to escape. I want to go with them too, sometimes. Would they bring me to you? I won’t go with them, at least not yet. I think things will feel better in the spring, when you return to me, like Persephone. Did I get that right? Anyway, I want to see your duck again, as it was that day, shimmering in lake, bending and yearning, growing. Yes, I think things will feel better in the spring, as they always do in the sun.
