The Infinite Boat
A dream about the wrong types of loving.
I woke up with Luke hovering over my bed. I didn’t recognize the room but I knew it was mine.
Just checking if you’re okay, he said, gently.
Yes, I am okay. Now please go home, I said, annoyed.
The sun had risen but it was Saturday so I turned around and fell back to sleep. I was relieved to find him nowhere in sight when I finally got out of bed. A casual relief, not a threatening one, I noticed. This was obviously a recurring habit for him. One that, it seems, I came to accept with mild irritation and not much else. I should be more concerned that my neighbor keeps breaking into my apartment to watch me sleep. Why aren’t I?
I got dressed and left in a hurry. Where was I going?
As usual, Luke was lurking, waiting for the exact moment when my key turned in the lock and my steps denounced my presence in the hallway.
Have a nice day, he muttered, with sticky love dripping from his voice.
I nodded.
If you’d like, we could watch that new movie…, he braved on, as he always did, with suggestions of what we could do together later in the day, tomorrow, or next week.
Bye, Luke. Take care, I said, unfazed, ignoring the latest invitation.
I wondered if something in me — my heart, my mind, my ego — had decided that putting up with his creepiness was better than utter loneliness. He was, after all, by most societal accounts, a catch. Perfectly curated short black hair, soft hazelnut eyes, appropriately tall, and physically fit. His personal style was any mother-in-law’s Sunday lunch dream — a pressed shirt over a good quality pullover, wrinkle-free khaki pants, and low-key sneakers. He also had an impressive collection of books and framed vintage cover posters of The New Yorker on the walls. Even the stalking, or the fact that he had a custom-made portrait of himself holding a pipe above the fireplace, would be downplayed by those who think I’m causing myself, and Humanity at large, a great deal of shame by being single in my mid-30s.
One shouldn’t ‘inspect the teeth of a free horse’, my grandma would caution. Free horses weren’t showing up at my door that often and, the ones that did, were scared away as soon as I let them in. But Luke had already invited himself in. He wouldn’t flinch about cancer. He would jump at the opportunity to take care of me. This whole situation would be two degrees less weird if I gave him actual permission to watch me sleep. Wouldn’t it?
I’m so tired of doing this alone, I thought, walking down the hallway.
As I entered the elevator on the eleventh floor of our building, I suddenly found myself in a snorkeling tour boat down in the Florida Keys. I recognized the setting — this is where Wyatt used to work. How did I get here?
Wyatt was there, and so were his friends and the captain he used to sleep with. The one that called him Bear. She was exactly as I imagined her to be — intimidating, rough, loud. Her skin was the color of golden toasted bread, glazed with butter. At that moment, I felt every cell in my body to be the polar opposite — frail, small, muted. Stale, pale bread with hints of mold. Would his friends make fun of me? Would he be ashamed of me? Would the captain throw me off-board like gutted fish, bait for the nurse sharks?
No words were said between us. There was only the sound of the waves gently tapping the boat and the echo of all my insecurities spinning in my head.
He smiled at me, held my hand, pushed me closer, and kissed me. With love, with ease, with intent. Deeply and endlessly. My body shivered in my actual realm of existence.
And just like that, he was gone.
Wyatt! I shouted. Where did he go?
I searched everywhere. I kept on walking, and walking, and walking. I asked everybody I passed by if they had seen him. I described him in detail to everyone I crossed — the long wavy blonde hair, the chipped tooth, the wine-colored tshirt, the cargo shorts, the rugged hands, the Birkenstock sandals I teased him about. I’d even mention the dimple in his cheek when he smiled as if describing the smallest details, the ones seen only through the lens of intimacy and adoration, would, somehow, legitimate my search.
He wasn’t at the swimming pool or the medical center. The police station was quiet. The drawers in the morgue were empty. The cows were peacefully chewing grass. The central plaza was full of laughs but none was his. None of it made sense.
What kind of boat was this?
How could it hold all these places?
How could we not find each other?
The ripple effect of the last question nailed my feet to the ground. The stillness that followed cleared my eyes to the obvious answer that was, up until that moment, blurred. Blurred by the desperate attempt to find him, by the thrill of the chase, by the emotional struggle I am always drawn to.
He wasn’t searching for me. There was no intention on his part to find me or to be found. The boat had never been infinite. Only my quest was.
I woke up and gasped for air.
