Breathless

The heat is oppressive, the stifling calm before the proverbial storm. Outside, the flies grow dazed, flicker and die. Inside this room, all is life.

We lie, elbows touching, faces grey in the watery flourescence that filters in from the corridor and bandy terms about.

“The Kuleshov Effect.”

“Intellectual Montage.”

“Yes. And the Paramount Decision.”

There is a heady scent in the room, the earth rising from the ground like loam, the faint whiff of wood, the dance of wet, heavy air curling between us. The fans spin lazily, whirring without effect. The sheets bunch and rumple under our skin, sucking all coolness away. The hamster rustles in her sleep. I brush the damp hair that sticks to my forehead and exhale.

Still we continue, to talk and reassure, our words building bridges of knowing between us, bolstering us for what is yet to come. We make lists of factors and genres, picking up where we leave off, finishing each other’s sentences to keep the words flowing. We walk together through Russia, Germany, the Wild West, each step a promise that things will be okay.

It’s not glamourous or romantic. It’s warm, discomfiting and breathless. But I know that despite everything, while the flies die outside, inside this room, it really is love, after all.