Main Entry:

Pronunciation:

klī-maks

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Late Latin, from Greek klimax, literally, ladder, from klinein to lean

Date:circa 1550

1: a figure of speech in which a series of phrases or sentences is arranged in ascending order of rhetorical forcefulness 2 a: the highest point : culmination <the climax of a distinguished career> b: the point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning point in the action (as of a play) c: orgasm d: menopause 3: a relatively stable ecological stage or community especially of plants that is achieved through successful adaptation to an environment ; especially : the final stage in ecological succession

synonyms see summit

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”-Orson Welles

——————-

“Sit.”

“I’m too nervous.”

She lay down instead.

The room was painted in the most peculiar shade of yellow. If paint could be described as unenthusiastic, unimpressed, then that’s what it was.

Unenthusiastic.

Unimpressed.

The obscure paintings that lined the walls did nothing but create pause between the pressing feelings of under-stimulation and insult to one’s basic, common knowledge of acceptable color. How much time should be lost analyzing the effect of unfortunate paint? I scanned the walls slowly, memorizing nothing, doing it all very pointlessly as a means of buying time to remember. Trading these seconds for seconds of a recent past. Impossible, but hopeful deals with God.

I wanted to remember every night after she left. Conjure up every moment of loneliness and betrayal and feel it anew like a first glimpse of rain after drought or your own sincere smile in the mirror after failing to remember happiness. Visualize every second I spent in supposedly self-imposed captivity at the loss of an option to touch her. I watched my arrant tears be absorbed into a pillow I pretended was her shoulder far too many times to pretend I was anything but a reflection of what I felt.

Denied.

I needed to remember everything, so that I spared her not a moment of revenge—even if that revenge came in the form of silence at a time when words would bring her closer to an outcome she both craved and feared.

I knew that feeling well.