Conditioning

I watched him go through security at the airport, watched for twenty minutes. It was a kind of goodbye-cum-theater of the absurd; as he unbelted and deshoed and as the security personnel rummaged and squinted and traced his leanness with an electronic cricket bat, I watched. Afterward, outside, the thick heat that kept us sleeping at a sweaty distance lifted in a sudden cold breath of breeze. It was like having the covers yanked off unexpectedly, or a sweet warm presence gone from my side. If the abrupt lonely cold hadn't been true and picking at the gaps in my now too-thin plaid shirt, I wouldn't have believed it.