Rain like static

I woke up in slow motion, the sound of the rain beating down on the roof seeping slowly into my consciousness. When I could no longer convince myself that I was dreaming, I opened my eyes to the dark of the bedroom. The familiar warmth of your body was next to me. I lay completely still, letting my eyes adjust gradually until I could begin to see in the faint moonlight that bled into the room through the window a few feet from our bed. Rain surrounded our house on the beach. Overwhelmed by the sound of the rain, I got up carefully so as to not wake you up and sat on the edge of the bed so that I could look outside. The thick rain looked like static on an old black and white TV that had lost its connection to the world. It was a peculiar mesmerizing rain and I sat staring out of the window at it for a long while. Ghostly shapes appeared and disappeared in the rain like static, and so it took some time for me to finally focus on the hooded figure at the far end of the beach near the waves. Startled, I stood up and pressed my face against the window to try and see more clearly. Whoever it was, was just standing there in the driving rain right at the edge of the waves.

I looked back at you. Your gentle breathing was undisturbed.

I looked back outside. The hooded shape turned around so that I could see the face. It was you. I called out your name in surprise. You stirred on the bed behind me. Despite all the rain and the distance I could see your face clearly, our eyes locking for a few instants before you turned back to face the waves.

I shuffled to the door and stepped out into the rain.

It was the first of many times that I was going to lose you.

Waves

We danced intertwined at our favorite spot on our beach with the sound of the waves for music. We danced and talked for hours, spinning a shared new world with our words. We made love in the dance, words caressing, penetrating, creating a swirl of arousal, words leaping, leading, following, soaring in a dance at once familiar and unreal, before retreating into private peaks of release and then ultimately bringing us back together to the quiet of the beach with its waves. We lived in the dance.

We had danced like this many a time.

We had never even met, let alone danced together.

They say the heart deceives and so it is the mind one should listen to, but then what is one to do when it is the mind that deceives one's heart?

The salt spray of the waves was now close enough to break through the blindness induced by the reverie I had slipped into whilst standing on our beach. The sun had almost set and the rising tide brought the wash from the waves to my feet.  I stood still letting reality seep back into my world along with the moonlight as it flooded the beach. There was no triumph in the moonlight for having vanquished the sun. I looked down at the long-stemmed rose clenched tightly in my hand. I had forgotten about the rose and Valentine's day. Turning back away from the waves I walked up the beach a few steps before bending down to leave the solitary rose on the sand.

"Is that rose for me?", you asked. I turned around to look back at you.