Monday 12 January 2015

To Miles 49

Dear Alex,

I hope you are well, you mentioned earlier, that you don’t read letters right away, at least I’m sure you won’t this one. I’ll make sure to send another one and it’s surely on its way. Sometimes you come to be at loss of words, specifically that this shall be that one last and first most explicit letter I can even give counting the affair I were to describe and it’s not an affair, as far as you’re aware of. But since I’ve got be to sincere, fear still cradles me as if I were a child and it tells me tell-tales about how I will do the wrong turns to the ‘happy ending’ which sounds just as dreadful as heaven. But is it so dreadful? We chose our own place and it so happens that I want to be with said beloved in a place and what would it be to everyone else, I don’t mind or care, because it is me to choose eternity at a place with you, because the world isn’t a better place anyway. We are punished for who we are. Words sometimes get hard to even write down or let alone think, because your imagery is much stronger and I can’t even recall last time I had even written a love letter and is it even if you hadn’t been in love before?

If I am capable of loving more than one, why is it that I happen to love solely one?

I keep thinking of Alison and it is only fair that I would speak of her, because I want the letters to at least resemble a night we would have if we were both back on the ship, because I love you. I miss the wine of your lips-

-

Dear Jamie,

I got a letter from her. She had actually finally bothered to write and it’s odd that I describe this to you post-momentum, that I couldn’t tell you this right away. Miles had given it and of course it had been opened, it is obvious that all love and affairs are read, which is frankly odd and I always wondered who is said person who does so. Where can I even apply for this, Captain? I hope you are more than well and how have you called the child? Are they molded after you or Alison? Speak more of the child, proud father. I honestly hope you are well.

-

Dear Alex,

I miss my own room and how spacious a small space seems in the night, with the lights turned off and the illusion of the night sky becomes real. I should’ve smoked out even earlier in the deck more, we would’ve seen each other earlier.

-

Dear Jamie,

Had I even seen you on the deck?

-

Dear Alex,

Surely not, I’d stay inside, but I do wish we had become better friends sooner and my guilt wraps around me at times, I’m sorry, it is not something I carry daily for you told me not to. 

-

Dear Jamie,

Fuck you, I’ll see you on the deck, smoking. 

And I do imagine that with all months behind and you’ll tell me all that happened and I am deeply sorry about your divorce with Alison. 

Seeing him walking onto the deck and not being able to do anything is the worse ever, all months hanging heavily, but all vaporizes, seeing him still looking younger, just exhaustion on his face and how the gold ring is missing and more than spring rolling on our tongues. It’s still early morning, everyone not even eager to exit the ship at six a.m. Brian just yawning him in, as we all head in and break into two groups, me heading after Jamie into the cabin and as soon as the door closes he pins me against the table, everything digging in at me, as I clutch onto him, feeling my whole body break before my body starts shaking and I’m not even sure whose salt I feel, because it so happened that when I touch him I feel it back on my body. 

“There comes a drift in parents, there comes a drift in partners.” Is said post-coital when the primary needs are met, physical intact and both in each other’s arms. “When talking of something doesn’t make sense anymore and depresses the hearing side for not understanding, surprised that changed, not understanding again, and the talking side for not giving enough interest. It just makes it awkward to talk to people, because days are more than a splitter. If you don’t tell the right thought at the right time you might never do.”

There is an odd sense of emptiness which gets shattered by being seen, grinning from ear to ear as if not aged a day. There is some post coital bliss and truth and everything is in the nude, each memory miserable yet dim is out with every question and the answers waiting to be resolved. There is a misery in the upcoming day and more grimness to come with the war starting to spread, like a ridiculous disease, like some odd tale or myth which never made sense until you had encountered the opposite and the personal is far more smaller than it ever was and each individual is shrank to something worse than they are, the church judges those who not die more than the living ones, everyone just watches, newspapers holding headlines far crueler than they have ever and massive paranoia just catches everything and reflects back in fear, confusion of oneself. The day now promises nothing, just shattering more lives, pulling the toll to make it longer and the mirror stains now hold on broken mirrors and all that is left is to say that we did everything with our hands tied and we can only speak as a nation. We watch lives get destroyed, lives we would have never known if it wasn’t for their death.

I think there’s an irony that we have to wait for things and that a lot of things never come back, people we knew no longer know us daily.

Spring came without noticing the trees.

There is a cult of the church making us hate ourselves and I wonder how come bravery had even pushed both Jamie and Alison to get rid of it and sometimes events are too painful to discuss or even recall via letters. We must remember that it is man who is out for us, we must remember that we are men as well, so it becomes a conflict, because being gay made me flee from women, but even if I had hate for a while for they seemed to be more than a heavy metaphor of what I should have, the hate would come until I would realize that the laws were written by men who I had loved and women who had supported, women who had raised us all to hate ourselves.

I still wonder how come he had decided to end it all, how come both of them had decided to do it and maybe I could’ve tasted the end, as if punched back by Lana, when I had met her once on shore, she had been broken and already been drinking, greeting me happily when I had walked in, pulling me into a very tight hug and her face was searching for some deeper misery I seemed not to give back to her.

“Alison told me Jamie told her that everything was through between both of you.”

“No.” I had just blinked. “He never broke us off.”

And maybe that’s when all the ring was taken off his finger. I don’t know. There were too many things to ask, as he lit a cigarette, the sunken mind catching up on the happiness to ask ourselves what had actually happened in the blink of an eye, as if the end of the year to end all resolutions and somehow understand the people who will not walk the bridge anymore with us. He hadn’t burnt her or his children alive, but he had torn himself from them and I wondered how long had it stretched, how long

how long

I kissed him just to feel everything he could ever feel in his slow response, his mind dissolving, compensating everything he had missed and a broken veil which they had both broken in two, because now they were two and detached with children to swing like a pendulum. 

We couldn’t start the topic, just as letters words weren’t enough to cover wounds even for people you didn’t want to care about anymore. But by the end it doesn’t matter and laying with him in his bed again was as if some sick joke on my mind to realize how painful the days had been, just to emerge with something great again as we looked at each other.

“Life gets a bit changed over from time.” Jamie pauses, lighting a cigarette. “The end is the beginning and I had thought well, when I had no idea of Karen that I had solely been attracted to men, that it was some odd juggle because you’re expected to like women, not men and attraction is always different and you wonder which one is love. Because love is supposed to take one form just like attraction”

The flame keeps licking the cigarette as he inhales deeper, closing his eyes, as I focus on his eyelashes brushing his skin.

“It’s very different and each love shapes you, some reflect on your taste, some don’t, but obviously you realize which one you’re always attracted to, or attracted to both.” He looks at me. “Sorry, I know you’re solely into men.”

I smirk. That doesn’t make either of us less boring than we could be.

Blood washes down wounds.

I keep looking at him, wondering how much have we changed or maybe it’s solely the actions we’ve done or the people around us. I recall speaking to Julian, who told me that he had been surprised at how someone can just quickly shatter in your eyes by solely saying one thing. It’s the one word which can reveal a person and many which can cover it. 

And love shatters all stones. Time consumes time for thought.

Letters are something personal, so then why isn’t recollection personal or is it solely because I allow myself to think out loud to the void or myself?

“I think I was probably just depressed the whole time.” His pause doesn’t give any further evidence. “I don’t even how to start. There’s not much to tell. She said to try.”

He tries not to look at me, scattering ashes on the floor as if our entire ship isn’t a big ashtray of sailors already. Jamie’s sentences come short and chunky, memories far too harshly drawn now and just to be reminded in a fit of isolation, on some shore, where dejà-vus will meet due to the fact that memories are there to be recalled, not for us but the people we should’ve missed. 

“Like you know.” He stops and gestures towards me, filling the pieces in, he slowly starts getting colder and shaking, memories springing back and the lightness of a ringless hand echoes in his fingers on a tired veiny hand. “She wanted us both to break up with... Lana and you. I told her I did, I didn’t.”

Jamie inhales, inhaling faster, not holding the smoke too long, shrugging.

“I mused on it and told her I wouldn’t.” He positions the cigarette vertically on his hand. “I told her I loved her as well... She said my love wasn’t enough, because if I had to give more, perhaps the wife should be getting it and I said, well, maybe you’re the wrong wife then... but I still love both. But it’s not for me to decide if she wants the love I can give or not.”

“She’s with the children, obviously.” He starts chewing on the cigarette. Jamie blows out a smoke ring. “She didn’t get back to Lana. Met her briefly. She’s destroyed. Write her a letter when you can-”

“I’ve been sending her letters, she’s not replying.”


“It’s on her end to grief. She really loved Alison. I’m never going to deny that, Alison as well. I don’t know what’s stopping her, Lana would be good for her. Y’know. We could still cover up with the marriage, but Alison asked for divorce. Now, I’ll have a pain with being divorced... but sometimes you want to have less bonds with the person you’ve loved. I sound like an old memory now.” He pauses. “My parents wanted to divorce, but age did that for them. You can’t divorce the dead. Mom saw it as sign, but they still are left for us to believe in divorce, I guess. Maybe you don’t really repeat your parent’s path but you surely trail on the footsteps, because you’re still a deja vu to God.” 

-

Jamie: Actually, Callie, this chapter is pretty sure, fine, I'll post it
Callie: quality over quantity! Just for the phrase that Al sees him on the deck!

Either way, that's how it went and was decided, frankly I was nervous because I did an enormous time skip on my last day of Nanowrimo, as I was depressed and I wanted to end my last few k on something positive, with frankly having Jamie back in Alex's life, really, but I was scared what if the skip was too dramatic even if I would be doing flashbacks now (guess who's an Anno fan, guess who's an NGE fan) so that's my shameless plan, chapter 50 (yes, what a magical number) is getting written now xD don't worry and originally as you can see, I tried, let's make letters and then I wanted to emphasize the important bits and here you go, some nice excited letter snippets xD

I was ticked off and still am regarding Alison, so I frankly just sped up her story arc and it will be described in a more flashback sort of way, so yeah, obviously both of their infidelities will be thrashed and more talked of (is that a spoiler? >.>) 

I was so excited to have them back and talk that now I'm like waaaait, I skipped writing a sex scene, fuck me xD

I guess I'm a very anxious person and one of the brief moments in life when I'm fully calm is post-coital, so just like any aspect of my life, I tuck it into some story somewhere and try to describe the magic, if you must xD

I speak very often of it, but I think anyone who supports homophobia regardless of gender and colour (since now it's a trend, regarding transphobia specifically among black female artists and people excuse them) should be pinned down and what we bash is always men, I think one of the moments which I can explain, is because when I was growing up, you've got a big problem regarding men in Eastern Europe and it is the women or the mothers which raise them to this, so it only makes it natural to bash women and just like you blame those who had raised (sort of touching a We Need To Talk About Kevin sort of way) it kind of falls under that, so I also took that in my story, because women fall even under a greater percentage of people which do hate speech, more than men. Men take higher numbers in violence against LGBT people, while hate speech women take an amazing lead and I've heard and had enough transphobic and homophobic crap. Your own experience get based in your stories, always. 

The scene with Lana was planned so so long ago and I was looking forward to writing it as well, even if it's brief, it's a sort of excitement that it's finally on paper XD

I guess I really enjoy having Jamie bisexual here, even if my sexuality is fluid, it's nice to speak of attraction to different genders through someone here, since I seem to try and cover every subject in this sole story xD

And yeah, I enjoy having poly characters frankly, even if they have their flaws, all of them, but I've still got honesty between Alex and Jamie, so yeah.

I also dunno, posting it now made me realized how much I missed writing To Miles and gay men, frankly, so yeah XD more natural and whatnot xD anyway, I hope you had enjoyed it and there's more ahead, we are approaching difficult war times now, after all

Tell me if you enjoyed it and thank you for all your love and support for To Miles

<3

Jamie

To Miles 50

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