Sunday Scribblings - What's His Name?

This is my first piece of flash fiction for Sunday Scribblings. The prompt is Wonder.


What's His Name?


In my sleep, I sometimes see him. His name long forgotten—many nights spent trying to remember, and when I think I'm close his name escapes me again.

I knew him for only three days. Three wonder filled days. I first kissed him high above Kailua on the lookout of the Pali. Dark below, but starts to light the way, above. Stars in my eyes as I looked up at his handsome face. The face I can't see anymore. The name I don't remember.

I have often wondered what my life would have been like from that point on, from that star spangled night, onward. I met him on a Friday driving a fancy red convertible. We were waiting at the church parking lot for a carpool across the Pali to a huge Honolulu church sponsored dance.

He was so tall. I've never forgotten how tall he was. A tall man, better than anyone I've conjured up in my dreams, held me in his arms late that night atop the Pali, against the Pali winds, and kissed me. I wonder what possessed him. I wonder what possessed me. I was engaged to a man at the time. I had to be loyal. But that wonderful kiss . . . Engaged? To who? Oh, that midnight kiss. And oh, another. Again, once more.

He held my hand in the dark while we reminisced about the dance from hours earlier. Tall, good looking, a great dancer. He was in my book of dreams somewhere and at that moment he was in my arms, or rather I was in his. It's hard to remember. I just know it was hard to let go.

Engaged, remember . . . but to whom . . . I'd forgotten. For three days and two nights, I'd forgotten whose ring I wore.

I wonder sometimes what we did that next day. I know we must have gone sightseeing around the island. I lived there, he was passing through on his way home. Why didn't I meet him before? Why couldn't he have been the one to place that pretty little ring on my hand.

He was leaving on Sunday morning. He begged me to leave with him. To marry him. Right then. Go home to his ranch in the west. Sight unseen. His large family of mother and father, grandparents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins, and I'm sure, many, many friends.

How tall. How wonderfully tall he was. How wonderful he danced. How he loved everything I said, how I loved everything he said. "I'm engaged," I said one last time. And one last time he asked me to marry him. Then he was gone.

I've forgotten his name, what he looked like, what he felt like, what he smelled like—his lips were soft. I've forgotten the things we talked about—his voice soft and kind. But I haven't forgotten that I knew him for a few days out of eternity—he held me close every chance he got. I often wonder on moonlit nights, when stars are so bright they make your eyes hurt, if I will see him again someday . . . some place along the path of forever. Will he have forgotten my name? What I looked like, what I smelled liked, what our kisses were like? I wonder.