The perfect is forgotten.

I never take afternoon naps, and I never sleep in the middle of a book.

Or I would have said that, before I did both at the same time, quite some time ago.

You had just left the house for work, and I picked up the book to pretend I didn't mind the alone. It was a good book, too, but far too close to home to sit well.

Or far too close to leaving, I should say. I was leaving.

So it seemed the perfect time to do what one doesn't usually do, so close to leaving. Fall in love, live in one house, go to work. Read books, take naps.

I didn't actually mean to take a nap. That was self defense. The book was on to something I would've appreciated not knowing at that time.

***
We had a schedule, you remember? You'd wake up at around 9, work on your thesis. I'd sleep til an hour later. Then we'd have coffee, and a bit of breakfast if you felt hungry enough to cook. Then you'd go back to work, and I would pretend to start packing my things. Then it was off to lunch, mostly at the school cafeteria, after which you'd be off to work. And so would I.

But I didn't have work that day, did I? Or perhaps I told you I didn't, hoping you wouldn't too. The weeks had trickled down to days--hours really--and I didn't feel like following the same schedule with so little time left. We had taken it for granted, all those weeks, and I wanted to tell you, Fuck the schedule.

But then you'd come home around 6, like you always did. And we'd have dinner and drinks with friends at that bar--what was it called again? No matter. We'd come home, make love, sleep. We couldn't fuck the schedule, we were too busy perfecting it.

How could we forget?

***
When I said I was pretending to pack my things, I really was packing my things. I would work at the kitchen table, near the window where I could smoke. Near the window that we never closed, despite the weather slowly turning to winter. I was typing up all the stuff I'd written in scattered notebooks across the two years, putting them in little files in my laptop.

Paper packs really tight, and heavy.

Computer files, on the other hand, weighed nothing. This is scientific fact. A laptop with as much free space as a clean slate weighed exactly the same as the same laptop packed to overflowing.

The same couldn't be said for my suitcase.

***
I couldn't carry everything home with me, as it was.

Most especially the book, since it was yours. So I was determined to finish it before I had to leave. I was lying in bed, that same afternoon I didn't mean to take a nap, just right after you gave me a kiss goodbye. I had opened it up to the last chapter, I think. I finished that book, I'm sure now, because I remember that last sentence. Then I fell asleep.

***
Or I forced myself to sleep. In any case, I remember waking up, thinking you'd come home. I thought I saw you at the bedroom door.

I got up and went down the stairs, but you weren't there. I was dreaming, godammit. I was dreaming and now I was awake, 2 long hours more to wait. I went to the kitchen and shove the 2 burners open, it was cold. It was 4PM, and only October, and it was friggin' cold. Colder I think for it being only summer a few weeks ago.

I sat down at the kitchen table for a cigarette, and that's when I notice it: The window was closed.

***
All this was quite some time ago. But sometimes, that window bothers me. Did you close it, or did I?

I had forgotten all this, to tell the truth. But I still have all those files in my laptop, and its memory, by God, far, far better than mine.