Colorful Gesture

Stuart walked the dirty forest path, a blotch of gray among autumn brown.  His loafers crunched with every step, crushing the dead and dying.  Fallen leaves.  Rotted berries.  A grasshopper hobbling along on one leg.  A world in cold, cruel transition with its beauty tucked away for better days.

This is how Serena sees me, Stuart realized.  A dead forest at dusk, dispassionate and sterile.  No wonder she wants to leave.

Stuart shouldered his jacket.  He hoped for a chill to cut the blandness but even the wind was dead, leaving a dull cold that merely tightened his skin.  Had Serena been there, there would have been screams, defiance, spit.  Her light chuckle would’ve echoed like a trapped owl eying the freedom of night.

Why had he insisted on a lonely stroll to think when thinking about his loneliness was the last thing he wanted to do?

Abruptly, he stopped and reached down to his right.  In the dirt, hidden among the twigs and pine needles was something unnaturally vibrant.  A wooden egg.  Around it were painted markings, each stroke a different color and thickness.  Stuart chuckled at the fact he recognized the writing as Japanese, even if he couldn’t decipher it.  It was Serena who was cultured.  Why does an insurance salesman need to know the ways of the world, he’d ask her.  She’d answer, Because with me, you never know where you’ll wake up.

Stuart shook the egg and heard a muffled rattle.  He tried to twist and pry it open.  It was a puzzle egg, the kind Serena used to sell at Exotic Finds.  When he met her, he was in search of a Chinese print to hang on his walls.  Something new.  Something different to shed the 'tedious' label his last ex had given him before she left.  Of course he went straight to the most boring print in the most boring corner of the store.

“Do you have any idea what that says?”  Serena had asked, startling Stuart from behind.

“Uh…well, the label says Independence.”

“Labels lie.”

“What does it really say?”

Serena giggled as she examined him up and down.  “Something I’m sure would make a guy like you sweat in the pits.”

Stuart uneasily shifted, aware of the stiff cotton and polyester clinging to skin.  “What, you think I’m a wimp?”  He tried to feign confidence but knew she wasn’t buying it.

Serena grabbed his arm and casually led him to another corner.  They came to a beautiful print embroidered in Royal Purple and Gold.  “This one says Serenity.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because that’s my name.  Or it was my name.  I was born Serenity but I changed it to Serena because Serenity seemed too hippie.  People used to expect me to wear sunflowers and sandals and…stuff.”  She stopped like someone who always had more to say but never did because she’d always been told not to.  Stuart suddenly noticed her pale prettiness and found himself staring in her pupils, large and deep. 

She leaned close to him, her pointed nose inches from his ear.  “Actually, I am kind of hippie.” She undid a couple of buttons of her white collared work shirt.  Beneath was a tie-dyed tee.  “I always wear one, even with a business suit.”  She giggled again and continued to talk unhindered.  There was a natural freedom between them that was dizzying, and Stuart basked in it. 

Stuart palmed the egg.  He brushed his other hand through the thinning spot in his hair and realized that natural freedom had morphed into something constricting.  She railed against his blandness and he receded from her prying.  He was scared of her unpredictability and she became more random in response.  What was once a dance was now a two-sided hunt and no one was willing to make a gesture of retreat. 

He turned around and headed back home.  He opened the door and saw her unfastened suitcase.  Clothes were spread across the living room floor.  Serena stood in the hallway, her light blond hair scatted the way it always did when she sweat too much.  Her lips were pursed and bloodless and the muscles in her neck outlined with stress.  “Did you enjoy your walk?” she said with a tone of sarcasm that wasn’t natural to her.

Stuart bowed his head in weariness and frustration.  “No, of course not.  We can work this out, Rena!”

“You can’t even say that with any real emotion.  What the fuck even gets to you, Stuart?”

“What the hell do you want me to do?  Smash things?  Throw things?  Like this?”  he wailed as he threw the egg against the wall.  It rolled to Serena’s feet.  As she picked it up she looked at Stuart with guarded neediness.  With precise and intricate movements, she solved the puzzle and opened the egg.  Inside was a double-ended origami, wrapped in gold ribbon at the middle. 

“A Japanese Love Knot.  You got this for me?”  Serena was suddenly wet-eyed and blushed.  Carefully she opened the origami and read the message inside.  "Never leave me."  She ran to Stuart and kissed him, her lips hard and dry from the tension of heartbreak.  She leaned back and held his face.  “That’s all I wanted: a real gesture.  We can do this, Stu.”

Stuart laid her head on his shoulders.  Gestures.  He could do that.