La douleur exquise

It had been almost two years since I last saw him. My obelisk as I often refered to him in private moments of pining after him. We'd been living in the same city for a while but never gathered the courage to face each other after our last disastrous exchange: he'd met someone. They were in love. Living together. I had a child with another man- his friend.

I finally dialed his number. He was still in bed. At 10:30am?

" Hey! Im in Cape Town for a few days. D'you want to go out for drinks sometime?''

"Tsholo! Hey!'' he responded emphatically. Was that excitement?

'' Yes, absolutely!''
...

He got on the train a few stations later. I didn't see him until he lightly tapped me on the shoulder. My heart leapt. He suggested we get off in Kalk Bay. There was a restaurant he'd been dying to try out. I obliged.

...

He'd broken up with her. They just weren't 'vibing' anymore. He turned phrases and jumped into metaphors to try and explain away his relationship with her. I wasn't listening. My attention was stolen by a cherubesque toddler with a golden halo of hair playing in a shallow pool of ocean water. Her mother looked on protectively as her cherub playacted with a toy shovel, shoe and bucket. The cherub muttered lovingly to her toys. Twisting them this way and that; animating them into their personified roles of father, mother and child.

...

The sun was slowly sinking into the horizon. The warmth in the air grew more aggressive and took on orange and red hues. The ocean ebbed and flowed with a calm, reminiscent of the kinder days of my youth.

I got up to get another round of beer. I came back to a broken glass, crimson paper towels and a crowd around the Obelisk. I panicked. He'd cut his middle finger open when he knocked over his wine glass. The patrons at a table nearby responded to his girlish shriek. The waiter rushed over to him with a first aid kit, wrapped his finger in gauze and assured me that he'd be fine.

I was painfully aware that time was passing. I felt a sense of urgency as the sun finally kissed the edge of earth. The endless horizon was darkening. As the cloak of night rose from beneath the seas, the distant Cape Town skyline twinkled with golden lights.

The Obelisk held my hand as we watched the sun fall off the horizon. I knew then that he'd never be mine. He'd always be that surreal obelisk in the horizon: too far to reach, never to be owned. Not even on this day- the most beautiful day yet.