A kind of intimacy

They sat in the bar. Moving through time at different speeds. He slowly, she quickly. Sometimes the other way around. Seldom the same in any case. They talked, exchanged words about this or that, searched one another out without finding one another. Sometimes she made him angry. Sometimes the other way around. They spoke across one another’s words until they accepted they had lost one another before they started searching. They relaxed and their words became light and sad. Their thoughts turned elsewhere. They turned away from one another to face one another. They sat in the bar talking and laughing. Or in silence. Sinking beneath time or speeding ahead of it. Seldom in the same position, in any case, in relation to time. Sometimes simply distracted. Then they smiled having no alternative. Sometimes they walked along the coast, beside one another, their thoughts elsewhere. Walked into what receded from them. Attentively. They had their moments of attentiveness despite themselves, paying attention to what receded from them. Moments that made and unmade them. Sometimes in the bar they sat in dead time. A kind of eternity, a kind of hell. Though not always at the same time. Sometimes he got drunk, sometimes she got drunk, sometimes they got drunk together. Then they talked and laughed, and at the heart of their talking and laughing she looked at him with dead eyes and he looked at her with dead eyes. What did they see in one another? people asked. They saw through one another and saw themselves in one another like facing windows. Light and dark passed over them. Something obscure passed between them. Not quite light not quite dark. Confusing or boring their acquaintances in the bar. When they sat side by side together and apart. Are you together? They sat in the bar. Moving through time at different speeds. He slowly, she quickly. Sometimes the other way around. Seldom the same in any case. Feeling intimately one another’s absence. Even with the others, a kind of intimacy. A threat to some, boredom to others. We don’t know.