Another Life.

Chapter 3

There were flashlights hanging over the doorway below three clocks reading different times for different time zones, all synchronized to the exact second. He kept thinking back to that moment, staring out the window, knowing dusk was coming soon. He stared at the image in his mind, blank faced in the reality of it all. His heart was pounding now out of his chest. She thought he was staring into her eyes, she thought this was him trying to say he was sorry. Neither of them took a single breath or blinked an eye for nearly seventeen excruciating seconds, the deafening sound of a plane engine roaring to full capacity extremely close to their vicinity was all that either of them could hear, that and the cracking of a chain fed mounted machine gun softly peppering the background without any necessary rhythm to account for. The only lights illuminating them were from the tracer rounds every fourth or fifth shot, glowing and guiding the spray of the gunner. They didn't even feel the explosion, when recounting, both only remembered when all noise ceased.
They held prolonged eye contact and then each other tightly, both seeming to have never been exposed to something or someone they were so grateful for. Neither even knew why they felt this way, survivors sympathy or some spin on conjoined consciousness. Neither of them ever heard the sound of the other's voice that night. I remember when he told me in great detail about this specific scar on the underside of her jawline, practically hidden. He told me the exact shape of it, he told me how many freckles she had next to her left ear. He told me every bit about the curve and contour of her lips. Just how her eyes were shaped and of her heterochromia, he could tell me great detail about everything he felt for this woman and how he knew she felt for him. But he couldn't tell me even her first name or an alias to go by. I shook my head slowly to him and his eyes had almost spoken relief. I told him, "Give it time, don't lose hope!" and my voice broke. I broke. There she was, only a few feet away from him. I began to beg in my mind to anything that could possibly hear it. I started to plea, crying out internally, "Please don't let him turn around... please don't let him see her right now. Not at this moment. Please... God?.."
My breath caught in my lungs. He remembered there were flashlights hanging over the doorway below three clocks reading different times for different time zones, all synchronized to the exact second. He kept thinking back to that moment, staring out the window, knowing dusk was coming soon. He stared at the image in his mind, blank faced in the reality of it all.