A Night to Remember - 1. A Night to Remember

I’m sitting in a chair. On my couch to be exact. Reading a book, ‘The Evolution Of Language’. It’s a very boring book, kind of like my life as of late, but it is for my university coursework so I must persevere. My eyes start to get tired so I decide to rest them for a while and go for a walk in the outside world. It’s dark out, it being sometime around 9 PM, but I’ll do anything so long as it’ll keep the boredom away.

I close ad lock the door to my dull and lifeless flat as I leave. It wasn’t always dull and lifeless. Like my life my flat was once a lively place filled with energy and happiness. Back then I had Lewis and my life felt complete. But now I have neither completeness nor Lewis, who went to the other side of the country with his new boyfriend. Now there is only me and an empty flat.

My feet carried me to the local park which, on a night like tonight where the moon is full and the stars are out, is a beautiful place to visit. Lewis and I used to come here a lot and just admire the beauty on display. Meandering through the trees and bushes and memories of a better time I start to feel better than I have in a long time. The emptiness and loneliness that I had felt began to lessen slightly and I felt less fractured, less unstable. I see a rabbit dart out across the green and I smile slightly for what feels like the first time in ages.

The park is filled with lots of nightlife of which some of the more prominent are the fireflies. Flying here and there and everywhere their little tails winking at you from behind the trees and bushes and from across the park. Following them I marvel at how beautiful they are and at the simplicity of their lives. They fly around lighting up their little tails in the hope of finding a mate. If only my life were so simple.

I suddenly stop as I come round a bend in the path to be confronted with something not 5 meters in front of me. It’s the old fountain in the middle of the park lit up like it usually is. But tonight there was a difference. Tonight there was a person there sitting on the raised edge with their feet dangling in. A male person. Someone with a shock of mousy brown hair. his head was hung down as if in sadness. The fireflies seemed to mass between us, as if telling me to go over and comfort him. And so I did just that.

I walked over to the fountain and sat next to him, though I did sit the opposite way with my feet planted on terra firma. He didn’t seem to even acknowledge my presence but just continued staring down into the water. Now up close I could make out the rest of his features, such as his cute little button nose or his freckly, pale skin or his green eyes. Or the emotion of immense sadness layered over them all.

How long we sat there like that, him staring at nothing, me carefully watching him, I do not know, but when I saw a tear roll down his cheek I acted. I took him into my arms and hugged him close as the tears started to flow and his body shook with his silent sobs. I held him as he cried and cried, just being a kind and understanding soul as he let out what ever had made him so unimaginably sad. And I continued to sit there with him while he calmed down and eventually fell asleep in my arms. Only then did I move as I picked him and carried him to my flat which, for the first time in a long time, seemed inviting. I laid him down into my bed and softly closed the bedroom door. Tonight is a night to sleep on the couch.

**********

“Hurry UP Hamish, they’ll be here any second,” I hear Bradlee call as i put the finishing touches on the roast i was cooking. In the time since that fateful night Bradlee and I have grow closer and closer. We were both in pain and we both healed the other. His eyes almost shine with happiness and my life, like my rejuvenated flat, is filled once again with energy and excitement. Just then the doorbell rings and so I head out to get the door. Bradlee gets there at almost the same time I do and so together we answer the door to our guests.