The Hour Between Yesterday And Tomorrow
00:00. After a long and tiring day, all the hands on the watch come to a halt when they reach twelve. Sisyphus has, impossibly, reached the goal. Gets to rest. You’re watching like a hawk, just in case it’s all a lie, but no. Time has stopped. You snicker because it still feels more normal than everything else that’s happened.
00:00. How will you know it’s been an hour?
00:00. Your palms are clammy. The unknowing gives you anxiety. You look up, finally. The harsh LEDs greet you without remorse. The gas station is empty—well, empty of anybody but you. Should you steal a chocolate bar or a pack of chewing gum? Should you go to the restroom and deliberately not pay fifty cents? Should you jump over the counter to steal fifty cents? Or should you sit on your hands and wait? Is it even waiting if there’s no time?
00:00. She walks in. You would be reminded of everything she is or isn’t if you weren’t so aware of it already; if it wasn’t pressed into you by her own hands; if you didn’t recognize her as a part of you wherever. Whenever.
“I thought this place was abandoned,” she says upon entering.
00:00. “It’s abandoned all the time except for the hour between yesterday and tomorrow.”
00:00. Raindrops pitter-patter on the tall glass windows. She’s wearing your skirt, by the way, did you notice that? Yes, you must have. She stole it the first time she visited your old room in your parents’ house. While you were busy talking about the posters still hanging above your bed (so, while you were talking about how you loved all these women but you didn’t know you loved women), she rummaged through your drawers. She wanted to see the real you, she said. Was the real you the lace on your underwear or the handcuffs under your bed or the dirty pantyhose you forgot to wash? She never told you, but she did steal the skirt. She wears it still.
00:00. “Betty, why are we here?”
00:00. This is, indeed, a timeless question. It deserves a timeless answer.
00:00. “I don’t know,” you whisper.
00:00. You are here to commemorate. Here’s to the fights you lost and she won and you won and she lost. Here’s to the eye bags that you conceal from everybody but her. Here’s to the shitty coffee she makes and you drink with a thank you. Here’s to the purple lipstick called Belle Of The Ball that you both wore so you could kiss at her parents’ Christmas party and nobody would know. Here’s to the ring pop you bought last summer—an intended joke you never carried out and ate by yourself in the backseat of your car. Here’s to her food poisoning, when you held her hair as she retched and retched and retched. Here’s to the hand-holding, shared dinners, grocery lists, gasbills, insidejokes, kissesfightsroadtripspresentslovenotesfartsconfessions. It’s a neverending road, this.
00:00. Wait, are you here to be angry? Here’s to the naked ass of that woman you saw driving right into your wife on that sunny afternoon last week when you got home early. Surprise! Here’s to her!
00:00. “I still love you,” you say because it’s okay to utter such things when time stands still for an hour in a neon-lit gas station.
00:00. “I love you too, Betty.”
00:00. “Goodbye now?”
00:00. She nods. You take her in one last time. Under these lights, she doesn’t look beautiful. She looks gaunt and sickly. Her contour seems to be cutting her face wide open. The skirt always fit you better. You would still choose her, which is okay in some ways, but you would still die for her, and that’s far from. It’s time to turn the lights off.
00:01.
© 2024 Michelle Exler
About the Author
Michelle Exler is as much a reader as she is a writer. If she’s not reading whichever queer books she can get her hands on, she’s writing anything queer she can think of; if she’s not doing either, she’s reminiscing about her film school years or watching movies, which makes her reminisce. She’s a living breathing example of the circle of life, as we all are. She lives in a small European country with her girlfriend, a dog, and a cat. You can also find Michelle on twitter at @m_exler.