ALEC #2

It's awkwardly long eye contact. The kind that stays with you.

We were tying things down. I was getting rid of the space that seemed to have been left with me. Happy that I'd been allowed the opportunity, to be quite frank. I was climbing up the sides of my ship and tightening rope. [You preferred rope. More reliable. Steadfast. Tested.] We were saying nothing. Not that I can remember. Perhaps it was of no importance. Or implication. After a couple of mangled half hitches and reef knots that were convincing enough to tie down the cargo, I look across deck. You're staring. Not casually looking over, or past. Not glancing. No blinking. With an expression that I still can't place. It seemed distant. Or perhaps, lost. They're very different things.

Jono told me once that their difference [the difference between lost and distant] was the clincher here. The breaker. One has movement. Direction. Placement. There is a wholeness to it. Someone who is distant does not connect with someone who is lost. Lost is absence. Looking through things. Grasping. Clutching. Willing, but only reaching the penultima.

I am lost in my syllables. And in the deciphering of your [perhaps accidental] stare. You are just as distant as ever.