Fragments #1

                She absorbed light like a black hole. In the pale, flickering candlelight she seemed to him some type of ravenous beast, searching, hunting. She looked out into the night with cold, dead eyes. They sat in silence save for the persistent whispering of the wind through the skeleton trees. Perhaps they feigned sleep, but their deceptions were betrayed by their breath which rose in plumes from their wordless lips. He watched her sallow face reflected in a darkened window, motionless save for the tiny twitches of muscle beneath the fragile, porcelain skin. Forever watching and waiting was he, waiting for something to emerge from the dark, some lost memory wandering alone in the night. Patiently, silently he waited for a familiar face to appear in the fog. An endless parade of empty nights rewarded his efforts.

                They clung together tonight in desperation just as a hundred nights before, hoping to ward off the piercing chill which prowled outside, forever circling, forever gaining confidence. Each night his hardened arms enveloped her ever thinning frame. Each night he held her firmly. Held but never touched. As an owl spies down for prey from high above so every tendon in his body waited in anticipation; waiting for some sign of recipricosity. He prayed for warmth. He prayed for the sleep which eluded his exhausted mind.

                Wordlessly, he reached out and extinguished the flame between his forefinger and thumb. Darkness, having been temporarily satiated, returned once again and claimed its place. Pulling her closer in what might have been a tender embrace, he paused to feel the beat of her heart: strong, rhythmic, hypnotic, and he was briefly filled with something like optimism. Optimism akin to a kind that, though surrounded by the bleakness and the dark, still longs for the coming of day; still yearns for the brightness. Yet his respite is brief for he held in his arms not the warmth of a lover but the cold indifference of a former acquaintance. Someone once known; once loved.

                They each stared out into the blackness of the night and he prayed deep and nameless things. Forever the wind passed through leafless trees.