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Golden Absence (standard:romance, 436 words) | |||
Author: KShaw | Added: Dec 15 2005 | Views/Reads: 3145/2 | Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes) |
When the mere closeness of a body is enough...even if that body is a shell of what it once was. | |||
Golden Absence Copyright: Kelly Shaw It happened imperceptibly, conversation slackening to silence. She works her hands instinctively, deep in thought, occasionally resting and moving from her chair to poke the fire. It has crept passed that time when forgetfulness is funny, and now the rhythm of their relationship is interrupted, never to be the same. They could not, like many companionable old married couples, call at will upon intimacy. The room, normally so inviting after a long day, now seems more like a holding cell. She'd never before felt so colossally alone. In six months they'll celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. It's the silence that upsets her. He is her lifelong companion, yet he sits there, unspeaking, the absurdity of age blossoming showing on his temples. The surfeit of his warmth, never staunched by sleep, has slipped, finally, into the icy chill of non recognition. Through the window she watches the moon cast its light across the valley, coming as it did, from behind ponderous cloud, and shedding monochrome shadows over the hills. She lowers her head and continues with the clacking of the needles. Brahms gentles her mind through another evening while he sits staring into the flames, wearing the pullover she knit for his birthday. As a war bride she'd known and understood loneliness, yet somehow this was worse, for she knows he is never coming home. Disease spreads through him like a hawk, picking him clean, leaving just the stone terrace face as a façade to his absence. His last walk led them as far as the garden gate, passed the Dahlia's he's always cared for, now disfigured with neglect and unnoticed by him. He looks out over the valley with the eyes of a dead rabbit before she takes his hand, and they walked slowly home again. He is living, but only on the shreds of decency her care offers him. There are no conditions to her love, even if such was agreed fifty years ago ......in sickness and in health. In two years she has witnessed a million memory deaths, the massively dead and now useless knowledge they once shared. She poked the needles into the ball of wool and lay them on the arm of her chair, leaning forward to pick up a pencil and notepad lying by her feet. .... and we mustn't forget Bert and Mildred, darling; after all, they were at our Silver Wedding Anniversary. He raises his eyes from the flickering flames and looks toward her, blankly You know I always have two pieces of toast. Yes, darling, two pieces, she says, picking up the needles. Tweet
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KShaw has 33 active stories on this site. Profile for KShaw, incl. all stories Email: Kelly_Shaw2001@yahoo.com |