Theme: Distance         Genre: Romance

Distant Longings

Touching. Such an underrated thing. Energy passed from one to another. Transcendence of physical into the spiritual. That’s how she felt about him. There was nothing on earth which could change her mind. Everything in her wanted to touch him.

The picture on the screen was not enough. The sound of his voice passed over the waves of electronic devices didn’t diminish the terrible distance between her and him.

His picture, posed perfectly and ready to attract every eye, filled her monitor while she leaned in, her elbows on the desktop, chin resting on her hands. She blinked in slow rhythm, afraid that if she closed her eyes for too long she’d lose the image of him already burned into her retina.

Her eyes did all the caressing.

“Tomorrow, Ryan. Tomorrow the distance will be as nothing. All the waiting, all the longing will be rewarded. Don’t worry, my love. I’ll be with you soon.”

With her right hand, she reached out and ran her finger along the chiseled jaw of his image on the screen, kissed that finger then planted it on his lips. She imagined a twinkle in his eye and his smile all for her.

Tomorrow–the distance of time–was a small price to pay. She’d waited far longer for this day to come, and one more night apart was agony and bliss rolled into a union of hated delight.

Reluctance to dispel the image of him from her computer screen made her slow to press the power button, her finger lingered there as the whir of the PC filled the silence, then it was done and a deathly quiet filled the room.

She stared at the blank, dark screen for several minutes, but her mind flitted forward through time to what she imagined tomorrow would bring. She’d see him across the distance, their eyes would meet, and he’d smile a secret smile meant only for her. Then they’d run toward each other, across a grassy knoll. Her hair would flow free and wild in the wind. His unbuttoned shirt would billow behind him.

She breathed deep through her nose as she closed her eyes and imagined the scent of wild flowers filling her nostrils. His kiss would be passionate. That touch, breaking all distance, would be the pinnacle of their love.

She padded off to bed and lay awake until she realized lack of sleep would cause heavy, dark bags under her eyes and that wouldn’t do, so she forced herself to stop thinking and let a fitful sleep overtake her.

She awoke in the morning disappointed she’d not dreamed of him, but not dissuaded from the excitement of what would happen in a few hours time. She pushed out of bed and set to work making herself presentable.

A few hours later, it was time. The distance of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes had all vanished, and now it was only feet which separated them.

There were people everywhere. The crowd was unmanageable as everyone moved about, excited to meet the ones they’d come to see. She stood on tip-toe as his form came in and out of view between the hustle and bustle of excitement, and it was just as she’d imagined. Their eyes met and their souls intertwined over the distance of time and space.

She moved toward him as though in a dream, the waves of people separating in the wake of her pleasure. When the distance between them was mere inches she knew it wasn’t a dream.

“I’ve missed you.”

His voice, in person, was so much better.

“Not as much as I’ve missed you, soldier.”

Ryan removed his camouflage hat and ran a hand over his short, military-cut hair. “That will never be true.”

She and her soldier-come-home wrapped each other in an embrace held fast by love–a love no amount of time, no amount of space, could ever hope to diminish.